Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Fairfax]

Both were worthless. The systems may be there, but the reactivity isn't.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Ah yes, the "i heard you are an honest liar" system.

That's disposition.

Wow, i never even noticed this system. Im surprised at how little impact it ended up having. But yeah i remember it being mentioned.

That's because you barely played the game.

 

[Roguey]

Both were worthless. The systems may be there, but the reactivity isn't.

With regard to reputation, I don't believe you. Pretty sure I'm going to notice if I have a really bad reputation with some factions.

 

[Lhynn]

Ah yes, the "i heard you are an honest liar" system.

That's disposition.

Wow, i never even noticed this system. Im surprised at how little impact it ended up having. But yeah i remember it being mentioned.

That's because you barely played the game.

by the time i stopped playing i wasnt going back to defiance bay again. so what gives? most of the list is comprised of factions you meet before then.

 

[Fairfax]

Both were worthless. The systems may be there, but the reactivity isn't.

With regard to reputation, I don't believe you. Pretty sure I'm going to notice if I have a really bad reputation with some factions.

Yeah, I had 1 assassin squad sent to kill me in 90 hours, that was it. Oh, and an exclusive merchant form one of the 3 factions you had to join in Defiance Bay...

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, I had 1 assassin squad sent to kill me in 90 hours, that was it. Oh, and an exclusive merchant form one of the 3 factions you had to join in Defiance Bay...

Most systemic reactivity isn't something that grabs your attention (unless you're wiping out towns). It's not big like scripted reactivity.

 

[Fairfax]

Yeah, I had 1 assassin squad sent to kill me in 90 hours, that was it. Oh, and an exclusive merchant form one of the 3 factions you had to join in Defiance Bay...

Most systemic reactivity isn't something that grabs your attention (unless you're wiping out towns). It's not big like scripted reactivity.

I read and watched every other outcome or consequence in the game to decide whether a different approach in a new playthrough was worth it. Reactivity, systemic, "special case-y" or whatever, was minimal at best. Also, reactivity you can barely notice is pointless, but it's not the case here anyway.
Most quests and decisions were so forgettable in the main quest I can't recall a single one of them by name; unlike FNV, for example. The end of Act II speaks volumes, look it up for every "major decision" in Defiance Bay and you'll get a good idea of PoE's C&C.

By the way, just so I'm not part of the hater bandwagon. Although I agree with much of the Codexer criticism, I had fun with the game and liked it overall. I just stopped giving a fuck about reactivity after Act II.
Oh, and to be fair, Durance and the GM's quests do have actual consequences (a lot less than I expected, but they do) and are entirely verbal.

 

[Roguey]

Where's this mythical big systemic reactivity you're talking about that dwarfs Pillars? Because in every RPG I've played, it's all minimal, but I'd disagree about it being pointless.

 

[Lhynn]

Most systemic reactivity isn't something that grabs your attention (unless you're wiping out towns). It's not big like scripted reactivity.

This is the biggest piece of nonsense ive seen from you today. Good systemic reactivity is felt thoroughly because it literally shapes the gameplay experience.

 

[gromit]

Reps and faction systems in narrative RPGs are usually "systematic reactivity" the same way a KotOR-style MQ is non-linear. The same whole, broken into parts. Flavor at worst, a pleasant illusion at best. Sometimes we're lucky, and we can choose 4 of 5 ways to satisfy the counter... or maybe 3, if the hard one adds two! The underlying structure remains what it is, while the discrete goings-on occasionally provide context, but usually just a backdrop.

Even in FNV, those systems "do what they should" but are not the driving force of the game. Actually, those systems hurt the game, if you join the side with most of its bespoke content sitting on the cutting room floor. So in a sense it's an added burden, without much benefit (at least from the perspective of trying to write it.) You're taking on the (perceived or real) responsibility of using these additional variables and (unless you want the player to grind for story) dreaming up multiple, non-exclusive ways to cumulatively satisfy them.

The player gains some agency, token or otherwise, but you're still mechanically writing just as you would for something like AP. But not creatively writing like it, since instead of bundling choice (and its consequence) into story beats, you're splitting them out into tasks and threshold. Obviously these styles aren't mutually exclusive (because they work on the same principles) but, well, FNV has precisely one "Benny" thread that runs out too quick* and no "Ulysses."

When writer-types start going off on things like this, I usually hear things along the lines of Crawford's projects. Narrative mechanisms, rather than mechanistic narratives. Noble, admirable, brilliant, lofty, and quite possibly unobtainable at least as we think of it (i.e. being built of artistic content, rather than artistic in intent but purely procedural.) So for actual output, outside of pure experiments, you wind up with things like "my sim was too scared of the fire to pee," which is valid, and the less-amusing "some guy I stole a fork from wants me dead and this will never be acknowledged again."

But here's the thing, about roving death squads for petty crimes: right idea, wrong use. The systematic narrative ideal, as applied to Skyrim, would be killing the emperor whether your told to or not (which is common in good RPGs) and instantly have the entire plot of the game revolve around that act, as it completely and understandably should. The best that's being done for big, noticeable things like that, is making them one of the Official Things You Can Do, instead of just... a thing, that you can do, and the game can do back.

But probably he'd like to do looser games, and go broad with content. Kind of what he's been doing for a while, with his FTL additions and "commentary companions." Even my favorite aspect of Torment isn't the arc or actions per se, it's the little things built around it. If it were, say, an exploration-focused game instead of a cjRPG? I wouldn't miss the sequence if I didn't know I was missing it, as long as it was still packed with people and places supporting the themes. Or even just goofball and/or serial writing that isn't as middling as industry standard.

Pacing has always been the bane of cRPG design anyway, and their "plots" (not settings, or stories, or scenarios) are usually just backfired attempts at injecting and/or enforcing an intended momentum, or a sense of it.

*Not that he's a great character, or that the initial hook is compelling, but: he's one of the only recognizable characters that ever has a sense of being out in the world, both when you finally find him and if the Legion picks him up. The initial thrust matters less because the game's good about letting you take initiative. But what it needed most plot-wise, after Legion content, was a few more recurring players, making appearances outside of the place you go when you want to talk to them.

For an example let's adapt the companions. It's hard to avoid "coincidence syndrome" if you kept, say, running into Cass right as she was getting raided or something. Finding her broken down on the road, and tossing a plot thread / quest your way, is pretty much what happens anyway, and more believable. But someone like Boone lurking the map, helping out once in a while or showing up when there's lots of "movement?" Or maybe fucking hating you and providing harassing fire / taking down a companion, at the worst possible times? Then you see him at either "that place" and get his angry lunatic speech, or his ANGRIER lunatic speech if you're Legion. Or you run into Arcade here and there, also trying to appeal to the power-players: reflects (and optionally directs) your efforts, while fitting nicely with his goals and companion quest.

This is all technically Avellone Appreciation since a lot of game writers get by writing Marvel Method for people who aren't necessarily storytellers... meanwhile this guy has the balls to leave a company he was a founder of for Artistic Reasons.

Yes but I also wonder why Mitsoda was brought up as a failure of Chris's considering that, at the time, the word was that his writing on Alpha Protocol was "terrible" and that's why he "quit." Now we're saying it's Chris's fault he left and that Alpha Protocol failed only because Chris criticized him?

CHOOSE, THORTON

 

[Immortal]

Because in every RPG I've played, it's all minimal

What RPG's have you played? (Theorizing on the Codex Not Equivalent of Actual Game Play)

 

[Infinitron]

I think this is a longer version of the same interview that was published or the same?

In many ways, you’ve been involved in “core” PC RPGs since their inception. What are some of the differences crafting one of these experiences today as opposed to the Icewind Dales of yesteryear?

I wouldn't use Icewind Dale as a baseline. It's a good series. I've mentioned this in other interviews, but I thought IWD was largely a step backward for the Infinity Engine games except in terms of art locales, and the idea of forming a party of your own, which I loved. Beyond that, it felt like a stripped down car with some new cosmetic engine parts. It was a fun ride, but it's hard to set it on equal footing with the other Infinity Engine titles. Granted, it was a purposeful attempt to make more of a Diablo-like dungeon crawl experience, but I don't know if that's what all the fans were hoping for, especially after the love for Baldur's Gate.

Ouch! All true, by the way. Guess this is as far as we'll see him criticize Sawyer's work/approach. (I don't remember this one being in the original interview, for example.)

What ouch, do you actually think Josh "Wizardry isn't an RPG" Sawyer disagrees with this

And yes, this is a longer version of the scanned magazine interview that I posted earlier ITT.

 

[Roguey]

This is the biggest piece of nonsense ive seen from you today. Good systemic reactivity is felt thoroughly because it literally shapes the gameplay experience.

To quote JC Denton, do you have a single fact to back that up?

 

[Infinitron]

FNV... is one of the game's which he praised for having great reactivity.

If you mean systemic reactivity, then not quite. MCA has talked about specific moments of emergent systemic reactivity that he enjoyed in FO:NV (like getting NCR and Legion troopers to fight by pissing them both off and kiting them towards each other), but I'm not sure he would say that FO:NV is a game that has great systemic reactivity as a whole, because despite those specific emergent gameplay possibilities, that's not really the game's focus. It's still primarily a traditional menu-based dialogue choice and consequence type of game, something which he apparently finds boring now.

 

[Mozg]

Too bad if he's trying to abandon dialog trees. I think nothing better is really going to come along for the forseeable future that can make for specific characters and writing rather than Dwarf Fortressy tea parties with stuffed animals. The cam shaft is a pretty inelegant looking piece of machinery but that's how you do it.

 

[Roguey]

I like how he himself has no answers about how to replace it, short of the kind of pie-in-the-sky technology advancement Warren Spector talked about over a decade ago http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...er-no-sjw-allowed.57009/page-446#post-2372268



Additionally, a name-search reply


That's actually incorrect, Elanee/Casavir initiate sex right before the big assault against the keep. Since he wrote it, you'd think he'd know that, but maybe he purposely shoved it out of his memory.

 

[Infinitron]

"fuckery"?

Was he drunkposting or what

 

[Athelas]

I like how those people were more bothered by the unpolished state of the writing rather than the revelation that the romanceable character was stalking you since childhood. Or at least, that's the impression I get.

 

[CrustyBot]

I think it's good that MCA likes systemic reactivity, but his games are script-heavy. Whereas systemic reactivity is easier to implement when dealing with abstract ideas rather than details. Crime and punishment mechanics, reputations, and the like.

Still, I did post in that other thread how RPGs should look to implement elements from (Grand) Strategy games if they wish to move forward, and a large part of that is about system reactivity and introducing it when appropriate.

 

[Roguey]

"fuckery"?

Was he drunkposting or what

Probably, but that was in response to "most importantly: who can i fuck in this game" to which Brandon replied.

 

[Fairfax]

"fuckery"?

Was he drunkposting or what

I think it's good that MCA likes systemic reactivity, but his games are script-heavy. Whereas systemic reactivity is easier to implement when dealing with abstract ideas rather than details. Crime and punishment mechanics, reputations, and the like.

Still, I did post in that other thread how RPGs should look to implement elements from (Grand) Strategy games if they wish to move forward, and a large part of that is about system reactivity and introducing it when appropriate.

Mount & Blade is the only RPG I've seen that does it well.

 

[Viata]

Avellone has shit taste in waifus, good lord.

 

[Roguey]

Avellone has shit taste in waifus, good lord.

Doesn't get you going, eh?

Meanwhile on twitter



Looks like Avellone has immunity. Unlike poor Chris Priestly.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Maybe you should be more careful.

 

[Lhynn]

This is the biggest piece of nonsense ive seen from you today. Good systemic reactivity is felt thoroughly because it literally shapes the gameplay experience.

To quote JC Denton, do you have a single fact to back that up?

A ton of hours playing mount and blade. What you say and do, who or what you attack or help are what shapes your relationships, your army (your relationship with towns means how many men theyll provide you with. units from different towns evolve in different ways), how well you do in tournaments not only means monetary income, it means opportunities to extend your influence to higher spheres of power, everything ultimately dictates your entire game plays out.
To me this is systemic reactivity done right.