Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Alpan]

I'm not sure which is the weirdest; the fact that MCA wrote that, the fact that Roguey dug that up, or the fact that someone wrote an essay on it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

This is confirmation that MCA is bi. I knew it.

Lyric Suite would you still love Torment in that case?

I doubt Avellone is a faggot, most likely a product of l1brul indoctrination. Globohomo has managed to coax many people to promote their degeneracy by taking advantage of their empathy or sympathy.

Of course, that Avellone is effeminate was evident even in Torment itself. Most artists are actually rather feminine in nature this is something that was pointed out by Otto Weininger (he uses the case of Chopin in his relationship with ''George'' Sand as an example).

Now, there's actually a specific reason for this, and that has to do with the fact that even though objectivity is masculine in nature, as is the ability to understand metaphysics and the realm of invisible things in general, "wisdom" is usually associated with the feminine, thus the "muses" of ancient Greece, or the cult of the Virgin Mary among the Sufis in Islam. The use of the feminine in order to transcend the limitations of the ego and reach higher ontological states was the root of the Cult of the Lady during the middle ages, of which Dante Alighieri was probably the highest expression (Beatrice, who guides him in heaven, was most likely a fictional character and not a real woman, a symbol of the feminine ideal as a mean to navigate to the higher states of his spiritual path).

All of this is related to the fact the human archetype at the formal level is actually an androgyne, so people with a more "spiritual" disposition are actually more prone to present traits of both sexes, but there's a double edged sword there because even though the purpose of the spiritual path is to reintegrate the feminine in the masculine (hence the prevalence of celibacy in many spiritual practices as a mean to brake free of the earthly duality and restore unity at an inward level), in the first place, the masculine cannot be allowed to fall to the feminine altogether, for the ability of the feminine to free the ego from its constraints must be counterbalanced by a firm hold on the higher Self, or else the ego gets obliterated and the personality of the being is lost forever, which is precisely what is happening with modern l1bruls and certain admonitions against the excesses of femininity in traditional societies were meant to forestall this outcome:

http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-vice-of-effeminacy.html

But in the second place, this closeness to the original androgyne can give way to aberrations when the divine unity is projected to earthly forms, where duality should take precedence, hence, the higher incidence of homosexuality among intellectuals or artists, which, to answer your question, does in fact demonstrate a degree of degeneracy in the nature of the being who presents such characteristics, or those said characteristics wouldn't be there, which makes any work by homosexuals relatively "suspect" (though not necessarily always so).

BTW, Torment itself, while being a childish work of fiction, presents traits of a soul that was obviously drawn to the path, but whenever any beings attempts such a journey outside the framework of a traditionally sanctioned institution (as Sufism is in Islam), the dangers for perdition are extreme. The only thing that protects l1bruls, or protected them in the past for i think most of them are lost at this point, is the fact most of them were not intelligent or profound enough to actually get past beyond a very superficial level when it comes to following the path, but the attempt in itself is still dangerous, even if it doesn't go very far. Torment too, while being a childish work of entertainment, has some dubious elements to it which were compensated only by the fact the developers were constrained from delving too much into the darker aspects of this kinda of pseudo-liberation by the necessity to maintain an wholesome atmosphere, either because of societal constraints or because the being of the people involved was just not that degenerate, or more likely not that deep.

 

[Theodora]

You just don't want to admit that Avellone's even more based than we thought.

 

[Nano]

https://steamcommunity.com/stats/770380/achievements?l=dutch

So there's a game on Steam from 2018 where you can, according to the achievements list, romance Chris Avellone. Why did no one tell me about this?

 

[BING XI LAO]

All of this is related to the fact the human archetype at the formal level is actually an androgyne, so people with a more "spiritual" disposition are actually more prone to present traits of both sexes, but there's a double edged sword there because even though the purpose of the spiritual path is to reintegrate the feminine in the masculine (hence the prevalence of celibacy in many spiritual practices as a mean to brake free of the earthly duality and restore unity at an inward level), in the first place, the masculine cannot be allowed to fall to the feminine altogether, for the ability of the feminine to free the ego from its constraints must be counterbalanced by a firm hold on the higher Self, or else the ego gets obliterated and the personality of the being is lost forever, which is precisely what is happening with modern l1bruls and certain admonitions against the excesses of femininity in traditional societies were meant to forestall this outcome:

It was at this point I decided to enable the Patron tag on my account ( I donated a while back) in hopes of rating Lyric Suite's post (autism).
However, the extra button options still don't appear, can anyone advise?

(I actually like this post, it's good autism, really good)

edit: the buttons are here!

 

[conan_edw]

https://www.playdiaries.com/chris-avellone-vision-of-narrative-gaming/

Obsidian's co-founder-turned-freelance-scribe on what the next big things in narrative in games are, working in other genres and The Outer Worlds.

Chris Avellone is easily one of the most renown, revered and respected writers and narrative designers in our industry. And for very good reason.

For nigh on 25 years, since his days at Interplay to then co-found Obsidian Entertainment and work on the likes of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas (to name a few) and then go it alone as a freelancer, working with the likes of inXile Entertainment, Arkane Studios, Respawn Entertainment and Techland on Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Prey, Star Wars: Jedi – Fallen Order and the upcoming Dying Light 2 (again, to name a few).

He’s been absolutely pivotal in terms of storytelling and narrative in games. He is very much a pioneer in the field.

Last December, I spoke with Avellone for two hours on narrative and storytelling in games, achieving work-life balance, the future of the medium in regards to storytelling and more. These are just a few talking points you’ll see in this article from the man himself, but because of the length of the interview I had with him, it just covers even a slither of what we talked about.

I’ll have another bit from that interview come out on Monday that discusses four games from the last decade that he’s most proud of that he was involved in. And in the next week or two, I’ll post the full transcript of the interview because frankly, it was such an enlighting conversation that letting the full interview go to waste would be a sin.

For now, here’s those beats I mentioned above as well as how he first got the temptation to start writing for a living as well as his techniques for plotting out a story.

First getting the itch to write for a living
“Well, I started out with pen and paper tabletop games. So for me when I realized how much I enjoyed gamemastering, it was sort of a next logical step that because it was pen and paper to get involved in that industry and write modules and write adventures or write character books, you sort of by default were the writer. You weren’t the artist or the illustrator per se, you were just the guy who would write the arc for the module.

“I guess I always was writing by default which I enjoyed. And I just loved writing and then the idea that I could write for videogames was sort of many years later where it hadn’t occurred to me from the outset. It was only when Interplay had its D&D division and then suddenly, there was a connection there. Like, ‘Oh, well, You know, I understand D&D’ and it hadn’t occurred to me that I could write D&D for computer games, I was only thinking of the tabletop industry.

“And I’m like, ‘Well, you know, that seems like it’d work well, that would also be a steady paycheck. So I’m like, ‘Okay, that sounds cool. Like I could write for digital games during my 40 hour work week and then in the after-hours, I could write for pen and paper games. But then when I got in the industry, I discovered that I was actually enjoying writing for digital games just full time and having a blast with it. So it was just kind of a transition there.

On the difference between pen and paper and videogames writing: “The difference is you usually have to be a lot more detailed with your narrative and a digital game because you have to account for every single choice and consequence and every action a player might do in the environment versus tabletop where you can sort of like paint broad strokes of the city or character interactions and then trust the GM to handle it from there.

“For a computer game, you just have to make sure that you know everything about a scenario like you have to know every NPC, its inventory. You have to know all their attributes and skills, you have to know what their daily schedule is like. You have to know how they would react if the evil overlord is overthrown or you haven’t done that yet or your reputation is low or you’re a member of this faction. You have to account for every single if then else that a player might do and that’s just a lot more writing work and design work. But if you don’t do that, then quality assurance is going to find a lot more bugs with your game than otherwise if you hadn’t plotted all that through.

“Also you want to think through the if then else with characters also in terms of player convenience. And what I mean by that is if you have some guy that’s a quest giver, and this is a bad example, he’s like, ‘Hey, I want you to go retrieve 10 wolf pelts’, but you already have it in your inventory or the player already does. And you don’t have a dialogue option to say, ‘Hey, I already have these things. Here you go’ versus a quest that’s been designed where you have to back out of the conversation and talk to that person again.

“Little conveniences like that and being aware of what a player might have already done something and then scripting for that so like you want to make things as easy for the player as possible and also makes the most logical sense.”

Spoiler

How he plots out narrative and story
“Well, I ask for more than that [a brief outline on what the story will consist of] and I ask for what I consider to be more important. The first thing I want [from developers] is, ‘please tell me what the overall vision is for this game. What do you want the player to be experiencing on a high level like a survival horror? Is it open-world? Crafting? What is that, what do you want to do that’s different with this experience or notable about this experience or similar to some other experience?’

“And then the second thing I ask for, before any narrative and lore stuff, is I want to read all their system design documentation because I want to know what the gameplay loop is before I even start writing even a story summary because part of writing a good story for games is trying to construct a narrative that helps support what that gameplay loop is.

“One example of that is with Fallout: New Vegas. We knew that the faction politics and you joining factions or alienating factions was going to be a core part of the gameplay loop. That sort of makes you have to design a narrative where people would actually want to join those factions and there are consequences to pissing them off and there are consequences to siding with certain factions, but you have to construct a narrative where there are factions like that. It sounds really obvious, but knowing what the gameplay loop is and then writing to support that gameplay loop and the narrative is sort of involved with the system design. That’s sort of the first step.

“The next step is figuring out with that in mind, just do a one-sentence like, ‘Hey, here’s what one player would say the other player about another player about if they played this game and had to summarize it really quickly whether it was cool or not’, but then they’d say a little bit more about what the general thrust to the game was like, so, ‘oh, it’s Bioshock with dinosaurs’.

“And it’s anything that sort of summarizes what the hook is going to be or what the description the game’s gonna be. And then I usually try and write like a one-page story summary that’s very high level. I wouldn’t go too into too much detail with like, ‘oh, here’s the antagonist motivations’.

“I would keep everything very broad strokes and go, ‘look, here is the general approach that I would take for the narrative for this game, what do we think about that?’ and then we discuss it, we see what resonates, what doesn’t, where certain parts of that one-pager we think we should really drill down on first.

“Then after that one-pager, I usually do an iteration for a four-pager which includes more descriptions about locations you go to or challenges you might face, a little bit more about the antagonists or notable companions or NPCs.

“And then basically after that point, it’s sort of a rinse and repeat with more and more documents in a sense. Like, ‘Okay, well, now I get the four pager. Now let’s branch this off into a companion summary document or an antagonist summary document. Let start breaking down the regions of the game and the locations there and why they’re important and start making region design documents,’ but we make sure that when we do those regions, we try and keep it within budget of how long it takes the environment art and level designers to construct each level so that we’re actually being scope conscious right from the beginning.

“Then we just keep going from there until production nears the end and then we start editing and figuring out ‘okay, well now that we’ve got all this content, what’s working, what’s not, are there any B-priority or C-priority elements that we can cut out of the game that will either make it stronger or aren’t working, start arranging all the voice acting and then just try and get the game all wrapped up.'”

What difference does genre make to the process: “For example, with Dying Light 2, and it also happened with Knights of the Old Republic 2 and also Jedi Fallen Order, is there also should be a research period where, ‘Okay, well I’m you know, I’m working on a game where zombies are heavily a part of the lore.’ It’s generally a good idea for the narrative designer to sort of jump into the research of games and various media to see what’s being done with zombies and what has been done with zombies.

“And in the game space, also make that examination so that you’re able to suggest quests and plot lines that haven’t been done before. Or you’re suggesting a quest or plotline that was sort of done in another game, but you’re trying to do a different spin on it or you’re trying to make it better in some fashion. So being aware of the genre that you’re writing for, and it can be like very, very broad like, ‘Oh, well, I’m going to absorb everything I can about contemporary zombie media’.

“And vs Star Wars, it actually ends up being more specific because you’re like, ‘okay well I’m just going to read everything that’s focused on this one franchise to make sure that I understand what’s been done, what could be done, the themes that keep repeating themselves so there’s interesting characters to draw on and the lore etc’. So by an important part of a narrative designer’s job is just doing the research necessary to make sure that the actual writing you put in the game is the best thing that it can be.

The research process of Star Wars and lore approval compared to things like Fallout
“That goes back to research. Like when you’ve read 100+ Star Wars books, 100+ Star Wars comics, you’ve watched all the movies probably multiple times. you’ve watched the Star Wars Christmas special, you’ve done everything and [seen] the Clone Wars. And then you start writing. You shouldn’t have any questions about what the bookends for the narrative are because you know that Star Wars is a space opera. It’s largely a story between a lot of good versus evil. There’s not like a lot of focus on actual science or the mechanics of how things just work.

“You should understand after all that research what your plot points should be and what the lore of that universe is and the stories you tell on that universe. And when you do that, there usually isn’t any problems at all.

“With KOTOR 2, after all that research, we only got like five or six notes back from LucasArts. They’re like this, ‘this character’s name is mispelled and the Devaronians’ horns are too long’ and there were three other minor comments that were super easy to fix, but I’d like to think it’s because the team had done so much research that LucasArts saw how it all fit. And they were like, ‘yeah, this all works for us.’ And we’re like, ‘okay’, so I mean, it wasn’t a problem.

On if the lore approval process is easier in comparison with a franchise like Fallout: “There’s lore landmines in Fallout, if you’re working with a franchise, you have to be very careful. If anything mentioned the Enclave, that is immediately a narrative land mine where the approvals will be very, very difficult because of how important the Enclave is. So there are certain sensitive spots in every franchise you work with.

“Fallout does have its things that will not make approvals go smoothly if you focus on them or try and use them too much because New Vegas sort of had to use the Enclave indirectly and that was OK, but like trying to do anything like actually having a real Enclave presence in New Vegas, that would have been a big narrative discussion that probably would not have gotten approved just because of how important the Enclave is on the East Coast.

“I think the approval process for Star Wars was easier than Fallout. Not to say that Fallout was very strenuous. But there were certain things about light power armour, the Enclave, what sort of technology we could discuss and not, connections between like East Coast and West Coast. I know you were saying before [about lore], but it actually wasn’t like a lot and as long as you’re aware of those things, but it was interesting that Fallout was stricter than Star Wars was.

“But even so, it wasn’t like super strict. It was just like, ‘here are some elements that would you know, is going to require more discussion or it’s probably just best to avoid’ and sometimes they’re things, and this happens with Star Wars too where they might have something planned in the future for a particular planet or character that you would have no idea about until you brought them up in a story and like, ‘Okay, well, you can’t use that because we also have something coming up involving them’. That all make sense.

The possibility of going back to a studio full time and how he is able to handle things such as work/life balance
“I’m working as a freelancer and sometimes that means I work at home, sometimes I go to other developers, other publishers or just other parts of the country or overseas depending on where the job takes me. I freelance not because that was my first choice. That’s because of my family situation. My parents are getting older as parents do. And so freelancing gives me the freedom that if something needs to be taken care of or I have to fly home for a few days, I don’t have to worry about impacting the schedule of the studio if I’m working with them full time. So freelance is mostly what I have to do by default even though I enjoy doing it very much.

On if he’d go back to an in-house job: “Well, I can. Yeah. So I don’t really have a choice. Now if circumstances changed – which I would be worried if they did change, that probably wouldn’t be a good thing – then I would consider going full time again.”

On personally being able to handle a decent work/life balance: “Well, I think I’m a little bit of a different case. Although there are people in the game industry who I think sort of quote-unquote work the same way I do, I live to write. So a work/life balance for me is I get to do what I love doing and it just so happens to be a job that also can sustain me, but I would be doing it anyway even if I wasn’t getting paid just because I enjoy writing.

“I’m basically doing the hobby that I love almost as many days I want to during the year and that works out really well for me. There might be some days where I’d work a little longer or there might be some unexpected work. But for the most part, the things that have helped me is focusing on what I love. Because being more of a producer or having to do a ton of management stuff is only fulfilling if you actually have the power to be a manager.

“And as a writer, I definitely have the power to make the writing and the story and the voice acting as strong as I can make it and there’s not many barriers to that. So for me, I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t ever feel like I’m crunching. Because I enjoy what I do. And also, now that I have the freedom to manage my time for the most part, there’s not a lot of unnecessary production meetings, there’s not a lot of drama.

“It’s pretty easy to keep teams updated. It’s always for the most part pretty clear what the deliveries are, what I’m doing, how I’m structuring the story. And often I’m given free rein for like, ‘how would you construct this story’ just like you were asking earlier and then I can lay out these steps for how I think the best approaches [are].

“All that freedom actually frees up a bunch of time that I didn’t know was being wasted before because when you have a day in a studio where every other hour there’s a production meeting or an update meeting and always have to be at those, but they kind of happen a lot. It’s hard to write until everyone goes home and then suddenly you are crunching because you’re now having a wait until like after hours to do all your writing.

“And that was certainly the case when I was working full time where it was almost impossible to get any writing done during the day so that I don’t have to wait for the weekends or stay up until midnight writing like every weekday to try and also do the work that was involved because so much energy would get sapped out during the day with just stuff that just in, looking backward, distractions that ate up a lot of time.

“The other thing too is the biggest help for me, and I’d suggest this for all writers, is you got to figure out what your own paces. For me, turning off all social media, all messaging programs, shutting down the phone, any texting, don’t have Twitter anywhere near you. Cut off all that stuff and suddenly, you will discover you have many more hours in the day than you ever realize because those distractions go away. And for me, I found that when those distractions went away, the amount of writing I could do far surpassed what I could do before and it was cleaner and more focused.”

Has he played The Outer Worlds yet?
“Well, I want to because Tim Cain [co-director] is a dear friend of mine and we still hang out quite a bit. We have some of the best meals I think. We trade war stories about fun, fun, fun, fun game development moments. And I like Leonard [Boyarsky, co-director] as a writer, I love the stuff they did for Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. He’s someone who cares and he’s very passionate. So I was really happy that they [Obsidian] were allowing to sort of [let them] lead the helm for The Outer Worlds. So I’ve been very excited about that.

“The reason I haven’t played it, although I absolutely support it, is when I heard it was Epic exclusive, that immediately turned me off and not because I don’t think Steam shouldn’t have competition. It’s just that that felt like a weird exclusivity thing that wasn’t based on what’s best for the game. It was someone trying to control the market.

“And again, I’m not saying that Steam doesn’t need competition, that’s not what I’m saying at all. And I’m not naive to say that Steam should be the only service out there. It should be given a run for its money too. But this didn’t feel like something that would benefit gamers and players. That felt like something that would definitely benefit one company. And so that that bothered me a bit.

“And I don’t have an Xbox, so I can’t do Game Pass. So I thought about it. I’m like, ‘Look, I want to play this game. I am going to play this game. But I’m happy to wait a year’.

“And I think the benefits of that will be one, any bugs that come out of release [are removed] and to be able to give congratulations to the team. There doesn’t seem to have been that many or there are quality of life improvements like text size. So that will be addressed in a year. And then the second thing is if they do come out with any DLC, I don’t know if they will, those would also be likely packaged on Steam into one bundle. So I’m like, ‘I could get everything at once a year later if I’m willing to wait’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m willing to wait’.”

Working on different genres and being typecast towards RPGs:
“There’s a bunch of stuff that’s been announced [note: this interview was recorded a week before one of Avellone’s next projects was announced in Weird West]. But then there’s a bunch of stuff that hasn’t. So there are genres that I am working on that I’ve always wanted to work in and also franchises I’m working in that I’ve always been interested in. And so that’s been great.

“I think one nice thing about being a freelancer, and this is part of the appeal that I have even though it’s a default choice that there’s not really anything else I can really do at the moment beyond freelancing, is its sort of allowed me to sort of be able to reach out to different genres or have them reach out to me and if I was working full time at a studio, there’d be no way that I could do it, I just wouldn’t be allowed.

“As a freelancer, you can work on a spectrum of stuff and that really helps with momentum. It really keeps things from getting boring. You’re like, ‘Oh, well, I could work on this today, I could work on that’ or it might be a different type of design. different type of toolset, working with different people.

“These past few years. I think I’ve learned more than I had in the previous 20 years just because you work with so many different projects. You see their pipelines or layouts or toolsets, how they organise information schedules, how their internal teams work and it’s really been eye-opening for how studios operate. It’s really been a great learning experience.”

On the worry of being typecast to RPGs: “I think sometimes people assume that I’m always going to undermine the theme of any game or go into a deep dark introspective about a game.

“I do think that sometimes when I’ve written things that aren’t that, people just haven’t either played it or they forgotten about it because I’ve done such a range of companions, but sometimes, people might focus on one or two of them and then assume that’s my whole style when in fact, there might be 20 or 30 other companions they may not be aware of or have never played. That might put a much different perspective on my writing style.

“Nok Nok in Pathfinder: Kingmaker was a very comedic character. Iritis in Tides of Numenera was a very comedic character with a dash of tragedy. Durance and the Grieving Mother in Pillars [of Eternity], they’re their own perspectives. What I try and do is… it’s almost impossible to keep writing the same tropes and the same characters if you’re paying attention to the game world, the game lore and the game systems because those things will change the way you write if you’re being respectful of the world.

“Writing for Pathfinder is a much different experience than writing a character for Star Wars, etc, etc. And they don’t have the same narrative writing rules about them because of the universe and the game mechanics that are going on. And I think that that’s sort of forces me to have to not be one-note as it were because the writing experiences don’t allow for that.”

Chris Avellone’s vision of narrative in games:
“Well, if the game is going to involve conversations, I think that the next obvious step is to see how those conversations play out in VR and then also finally being able to integrate techniques from VR to make more involved conversation mechanics versus just choosing from a menu.

“Things like are you making eye contact? What’s your body language? Are you slumped? Do you look like you’re paying attention? What are you doing with your hands? What are you holding? All those things I think will add a new level of immersion in the narrative and interacting with people. But that’s if the game has conversations at all.

“Often, I don’t think you need to tell a great story in a game with any words at all. It’s mostly the visuals, audio, things, you’re experiencing the environment that doesn’t necessarily have to be you talking to someone. But I think VR then being able to read body language and eye contact, other elements like that that can be tracked and analyzed. It’s going to add a lot more work to conversations, but I think in a good way.”

Ed note: There’s so much from this interview that isn’t touched upon here that is absolutely worth reading, so we’re going to publish the transcript of our interview in full in the next week or two (seriously, it was a two-hour conversation, that’s why it’s taken so long to get just this out). Stay tuned.

 

[Sweeper]

Of course, that Avellone is effeminate was evident even in Torment itself. Most artists are actually rather feminine in nature this is something that was pointed out by Otto Weininger (he uses the case of Chopin in his relationship with ''George'' Sand as an example).

I read that and I was like "That sounds like something a Jew would say"

Otto Weininger was born on 3 April 1880 in Vienna, a son of the Jewish goldsmith Leopold Weininger and his wife Adelheid

Imagine my shock.

You're not Jewish, are you Lyric?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Hahahaha, what a twist that would be! I bet he's brown too, just to complete the self-hating trifecta!

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.playdiaries.com/chris-avellone-vision-of-narrative-gaming/

Has he played The Outer Worlds yet?
“Well, I want to because Tim Cain [co-director] is a dear friend of mine and we still hang out quite a bit. We have some of the best meals I think. We trade war stories about fun, fun, fun, fun game development moments. And I like Leonard [Boyarsky, co-director] as a writer, I love the stuff they did for Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. He’s someone who cares and he’s very passionate. So I was really happy that they [Obsidian] were allowing to sort of [let them] lead the helm for The Outer Worlds. So I’ve been very excited about that.

“The reason I haven’t played it, although I absolutely support it, is when I heard it was Epic exclusive, that immediately turned me off and not because I don’t think Steam shouldn’t have competition. It’s just that that felt like a weird exclusivity thing that wasn’t based on what’s best for the game. It was someone trying to control the market.

“And again, I’m not saying that Steam doesn’t need competition, that’s not what I’m saying at all. And I’m not naive to say that Steam should be the only service out there. It should be given a run for its money too. But this didn’t feel like something that would benefit gamers and players. That felt like something that would definitely benefit one company. And so that that bothered me a bit.

“And I don’t have an Xbox, so I can’t do Game Pass. So I thought about it. I’m like, ‘Look, I want to play this game. I am going to play this game. But I’m happy to wait a year’.

“And I think the benefits of that will be one, any bugs that come out of release [are removed] and to be able to give congratulations to the team. There doesn’t seem to have been that many or there are quality of life improvements like text size. So that will be addressed in a year. And then the second thing is if they do come out with any DLC, I don’t know if they will, those would also be likely packaged on Steam into one bundle. So I’m like, ‘I could get everything at once a year later if I’m willing to wait’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m willing to wait’.”

Oh ffs, somebody ought to tell him.

 

[Wunderbar]

maybe he still uses Windows 7

 

[vortex]

Maybe he uses Linux.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

“The other thing too is the biggest help for me, and I’d suggest this for all writers, is you got to figure out what your own paces. For me, turning off all social media, all messaging programs, shutting down the phone, any texting, don’t have Twitter anywhere near you. Cut off all that stuff and suddenly, you will discover you have many more hours in the day than you ever realize because those distractions go away. And for me, I found that when those distractions went away, the amount of writing I could do far surpassed what I could do before and it was cleaner and more focused.”

 

[Fenix]

conan_edw It was lenghty but I read it all. ) Thanks, was very interesting.

Oh ffs, somebody ought to tell him.

To tell what?

 

[Roguey]

To tell what?

There's a Game Pass for PC (but you need Windows 10).

 

[TT1]

To tell what?

There's a Game Pass for PC (but you need Windows 10).

I am subscribing it and its glorious, very, very cheap, indeed.

Actually, I am playing TOW right now and so far, its fun. Of course, nothing like "GOTY", or something, but definitely fun and better than Fallout 3 or 4. Beautiful game, with some genuine amazing scenarios (I keep looking at the sky, in Monarch - breathtaking). But yeah, it definitely plays like a rushed/ no-infinite-budget kinda game and there is a lot of things that Obsidian could make SO much better.

 

[Nano]

I am subscribing it and its glorious, very, very cheap, indeed.

You know what's even cheaper?

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I am subscribing it and its glorious, very, very cheap, indeed.

You know what's even cheaper?

Cynicism on the internet?

 

[Fenix]

There's a Game Pass for PC (but you need Windows 10).

Win10? Thanks, no!

Spoiler

 

[Jedi Exile]

https://www.playdiaries.com/chris-avellone-vision-of-narrative-gaming/

Has he played The Outer Worlds yet?
“Well, I want to because Tim Cain [co-director] is a dear friend of mine and we still hang out quite a bit. We have some of the best meals I think. We trade war stories about fun, fun, fun, fun game development moments. And I like Leonard [Boyarsky, co-director] as a writer, I love the stuff they did for Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. He’s someone who cares and he’s very passionate. So I was really happy that they [Obsidian] were allowing to sort of [let them] lead the helm for The Outer Worlds. So I’ve been very excited about that.

“The reason I haven’t played it, although I absolutely support it, is when I heard it was Epic exclusive, that immediately turned me off and not because I don’t think Steam shouldn’t have competition. It’s just that that felt like a weird exclusivity thing that wasn’t based on what’s best for the game. It was someone trying to control the market.

“And again, I’m not saying that Steam doesn’t need competition, that’s not what I’m saying at all. And I’m not naive to say that Steam should be the only service out there. It should be given a run for its money too. But this didn’t feel like something that would benefit gamers and players. That felt like something that would definitely benefit one company. And so that that bothered me a bit.

“And I don’t have an Xbox, so I can’t do Game Pass. So I thought about it. I’m like, ‘Look, I want to play this game. I am going to play this game. But I’m happy to wait a year’.

“And I think the benefits of that will be one, any bugs that come out of release [are removed] and to be able to give congratulations to the team. There doesn’t seem to have been that many or there are quality of life improvements like text size. So that will be addressed in a year. And then the second thing is if they do come out with any DLC, I don’t know if they will, those would also be likely packaged on Steam into one bundle. So I’m like, ‘I could get everything at once a year later if I’m willing to wait’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m willing to wait’.”

Oh ffs, somebody ought to tell him.

Is he afraid to play The Outer Worlds because it is a Tim Cain's game and he wasn't able to finish that other game he tried to play?

 

[Infinitron]

There was another Avellone article on that site yesterday: https://www.playdiaries.com/chris-avellone-achievements-last-decade/

Chris Avellone's four big achievements from the 2010s

Long-form: Writer and all-round story bod talks four games he's most proud of cotributing to from the last decade.

What is the one single game that from the past decade Chris Avellone has worked on that he’s proud of?

“That is not a single game answer question, actually,” he tells me. “I’m proud of them all for different reasons. And I’m not saying that to dodge it, I’m saying it because every game experience, there’s been something [such as] a mistake I learned from or I learned a new skillset or it required that I do research into either games or history or some subject that I was unfamiliar with before.

“Some of the best games I’ve worked on have been ones where it required me to research a particular part of history that I was not well informed about. And then you just learn a bunch of new stuff while you’re developing a game. And that feels really fulfilling because you actually feel like you’re using your time constructively.

“I don’t know if I can really point to any one game in particular. Each game has had something about it that I’m pretty happy about. At the same time, though, every game has something that it’s hard not to see the flaws or what you could have put in or wouldn’t have been cool if… Even if the players loved it, you kind of still have that self-critical lens going on where it’s kind of like you recognize all the steps and could you have done something a little better. Like could you have made this more impactful, etc.

“So it’s something that’s kind of hard to see the moments you’re proud of versus oh man, I wish we could have dot dot dot.”

So as it was not a single game answer, I decided to throw out a few games the renowned writer and narrative designer worked on from the last decade that he has had a hand in, whether from his time at Obsidian Entertainment or from his freelance days and whether it was a massive part of writing or just even companion writing.

Now, this isn’t a comprehensive or definitive list. It’s only four games (and even that doesn’t include Wasteland 2, the followup to his favourite game, which in hindsight I am sad I didn’t ask about and only realised after the fact) with two from Obsidian and two from his freelancing. But these are key games that have not only been influenced by Avellone, but has helped him improve in ways and gained perspective on his craft and other aspects.

These are presented in the order they were asked during our interview back in December.

Alpha Protocol
(Obsidian Entertainment/Sega, 2010)

“So first off, even though I didn’t design the dialogue system, I’m really proud of the fact that it was approved to go in because that changed how I wrote because with a timer system that was set up, there was a certain new way that we had to structure dialogues to make sure the players had all the information before they made a choice. And that sounds really simple when I explain it.

“But in practice, it takes a little effort to get right and we don’t always get it right which is one of the things I’m self-critical about. And then also the fact the way the game was designed – and I wasn’t the one that proposed this design, this was Brian Mitsoda who had laid out the system, I believe – we basically were writing more organic conversations versus the menu style interrogation sequences and I never actually written conversations like that until Alpha Protocol.

“And that was a really fun new way to write. And also, I think it was a nice departure from writing we’ve done before, so that was something that I was proud that got approved and proud that got in. I was proud of the amount of reactivity in the game. I didn’t think it was inconsequential. And we made a huge effort to make sure that it wasn’t.

“Other than that, the game obviously had a lot of problems and definitely suffered in comparison to other games coming out at the time. And it was a genre that we actually weren’t really familiar with from a gameplay standpoint. So there were a lot of challenges there and it’s hard not to look at that stuff and go, ‘oh man’, but if we got a chance to do a sequel, I think the sequel would have really, really been a much better effort.”

Spoiler

Fallout: New Vegas
(Obsidian Entertainment/Bethesda – 2010)

“The things that I think to be proud of is I think the team got a lot done in a relatively limited period of time. And I don’t think it was an unreasonable amount of time, but the pressure was on.

“I am proud of the fact that the storyline felt like it fit more within an open world. It felt like the story wasn’t a linear experience like some open-world games tend to be. It was very much like we’re going to cater to the fact that you can explore and join different factions. And so the open world story sort of complimented the gameplay loop and the desire for exploration. So I’m proud of that.

“I’m really proud of the writers. The writers did a really good job with a lot of the characters and a lot of the questlines. And again, that thing about being self-critical, there’s a lot where I wish we’d done this, I wish we’d done that. But overall, yeah, I’m really proud of how it turned out.

“Like it was really buggy on launch. But with iterations, it got better and better. I just wish it had released in a more solid state.”

PlayDiaries: How long was it in development? 18 months, right?

Chris Avellone: That sounds about right.

When you put it like that, would you say another three-to-six months would have helped the game?

“Maybe. I say maybe because sometimes, and this has happened with other games in the studio, when given more time, the time isn’t used to polish or fix. It’s used to add more stuff and that’s the wrong thing to do when you’re given three or six more months.

“You want to stop making things and start cutting things and polishing things. And if you don’t do that, then any amount of time you add to a game won’t help it.”

Basically content creep.

“Yes. Although it’s not really creep, it’s more someone makes a conscious decision that we’re just going to add more. Like they’re not even creeping about it. They’re just saying and doing it when they just shouldn’t.”

Tides of Numenara
(inXile Entertainment/Techland Publishing – 2017)

“I was really pretty proud of the companion I wrote [Erritis]. I thought that his inclusion was very Planescape Torment-y in a sense that it added a certain bit of levity to an otherwise dark and frightening world because Numenera, like a lot of the companions, were really, really dark. And that’s what struck me when reading through [inXile’s] summaries.

“And I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t think you can really do a spiritual successor to Planescape Torment unless you have some humour to break that up’. So that was part of the goal with the companion design and the writing that I did

“Also, I was really proud of the team members. I think Adam Heine in particular. I worked with him on Planescape Torment, he’s a great programmer. But I think the way he handled his own writing and then sort of managed other aspects of the design was really impressive. That guy is a polymath for different disciplines in game development. He is great.

“So I’m proud of the work that he did even though that wasn’t my work. I was respectfully proud.”

Prey
(Arkane Studios/Bethesda, 2017)

For that, the environmental storytelling I was really proud of. I thought that these stories being told in the crew quarters, like with Danielle Sho’s relationship and seeing that fall apart, that I was really proud of how that turned out.

Also, Ricardo [Bare, writer] and Rafael [Colantonio, creative director], they sort of handled a lot of the core storyline stuff, but I was really proud of being able to tackle the side stories and I had a lot of fun with the chief security officer, the chief engineer, various scientists. I’m proud of how the writing turned out. I thought it felt very genuine. And I was pretty happy with the end result.”

 

[Roguey]

"What are you proud of in Pillars of Eternity?"

"Absolutely fucking nothing" - Chris, probably

 

[Sentinel]

For some reason I have this idea that Avellone is a fan of jRPGs. Has he ever mentioned his favorites? I have this idea about him mentioning FFIX and Chrono Trigger as his favorite games of the genre but I can't find anything about it.

 

[Ninjerk]

For some reason I have this idea that Avellone is a fan of jRPGs. Has he ever mentioned his favorites? I have this idea about him mentioning FFIX and Chrono Trigger as his favorite games of the genre but I can't find anything about it.

I think he usually mentions Chrono Trigger (gushes about it, to be honest) when he talks about PST influences.

 

[santino27]

I feel like a lot of writers/designers of his era cite Chrono Trigger. Didn't Warren Spector and Harvey Smith also frequently bring it up as one of their influences?

 

[Ninjerk]

I feel like a lot of writers/designers of his era cite Chrono Trigger. Didn't Warren Spector and Harvey Smith also frequently bring it up as one of their influences?

I can't say with confidence whether they did or didn't, but I don't recall associating CT with either of them and I went through a period of deep, deep research on both figures (mostly to try to figure out how they went so wrong with DXIW). My hunch is that CT's influence was not quite as strong as with Avellone.