Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[LESS T_T]

MCA will do a talk (“Paper Cuts: Paper Prototying from OSRPG* to CRPG”) at a NYU Game Center conference in two hours. (Here's the schedule for those interested.) NYU Game Center Twitter and Tumblr will do kind of liveblogging.

They're also doing video recording but they usually release videos six months after the conference.

 

[Roguey]

Avellone distances himself quite severely from PoE, a significant change from when he told CB he was totally involved:



Also Planescape Torment is an adventure game, time to move all Torment threads to the Adventure Gaming subforum.

 

[Infinitron]

The butthurt is starting to emerge.

 

[Immortal]

I never doubted you for a minute MCA.

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, except of all the things Kickstarter backers were looking for in a Baldur's Gate successor, agency and non-linearity were hardly at the top of the list. The people who are upset about this game keep repeating that all they wanted was "Baldur's Gate 2 with MCA writing"* and by seemingly throwing a tantrum over the game's insufficient player agency (as he did with Brian Mitsoda's version of Alpha Protocol way back when) he may have deprived them of that.

*(IMO "MCA-style writing" does not strictly require agency, non-linearity, C&C, etc)

 

[AwesomeButton]

As much as I like non-linearity, in a game that's supposed to evoke "IE feels", non-linearity beyond "choose which woodlands map to clear out next" is out of place. So not including more than that was a right call in PoE's case. Other cases, where they diverged from IE games' principles resulted in the worst aspects of the experience for me.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yep. Every Avellone-lead game would control, plan and script your every action down to the tiniest detail.

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like he's talking about paper prototyping he did for Van Buren.

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Crooked Bee]

Sounds JRPG-ish.

 

[pippin]

Theme music, experience more cinematic

He does love Bioshock after all.

Also, PST being an adventure game is ok for me, but at the same time I tink of it as being in a league of its own. If we ever had any sort of example to the notion of games being art, it was PST. It's not perfect, mind you, but it's human. That element shouldn't be understated.

 

[Lacrymas]

We really don't need games to be more "cinematic". JRPGs and some AAA games are already glorified movies.

 

[Fairfax]

And some here love to say he could've just stepped in and overruled any of these decisions because he was Obsidian's "creative director"...

 

[Jaesun]

But..... I thought PST was a jRPG

 

[Shevek]

Dont get me wrong, I loved the dialog in Torment. the story was great - top notch. i did not find it tedious or anything like that.

The thing is, reading a story is not playing a game. I dont play a game when I crack open a Stephen King book and I dont play a game by reading NPC dialog (though, certainly, dialogs add alot to a game - I just dont think they ARE a game).

Ah, the old PST is an adventure game thing. I called that 12 years ago.

 

[Roguey]

And some here love to say he could've just stepped in and overruled any of these decisions because he was Obsidian's "creative director"...

I still believe he could have. However, he tuned out and became Rubberstamp Chris

I refuse to believe Sega gave him more creative freedom than Obsidian Entertainment itself. That stretches the limits of Absurdian.

 

[Sannom]

But..... I thought PST was a jRPG

The unending spells videos certainly reminded me of Final Fantasy 7.

 

[Xeon]

Yea, the cannon was like something from Midgar.

 

[Diablo169]

I still find it very strange that MCA didn't stamp more authority on POE. By the same token what the fuck is the point of having the man on staff if your not going to let him take creative control on projects?

Bizarre.

 

[Xeon]

Doesn't that make him hated by all staffs, and they didn't have a lot of budgets for PoE, they got 4 millions and paid million and maybe more I think to extend the beta or something. If he wanted to get involved which I doubt, Fergus (top boss, right?) would have told him not to probably.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Half wants innovation, the other half goes apeshit if devs dare to change as much as look of a mouse cursor.

That's because half are just modern gaymers who were never around back then but who like to pretend they are old school, and the other are people who know "innovation" means dumping down and decline.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah, except of all the things Kickstarter backers were looking for in a Baldur's Gate successor, agency and non-linearity were hardly at the top of the list.

Baldur's Gate had player agency, and it was constantly reinforced throughout the game.

I wonder what kind of linearity he is referring to, whether it be exploration linearity or plot linearity.

 

[Lacrymas]

Chris' uninvolvement with the plot was painfully obvious, so, while surprising to have him blurt it out like that when he had said that his role isn't "minor", it isn't totally unexpected.

 

[Sensuki]

He was still employed then though.

 

[Roguey]

Baldur's Gate had player agency, and it was constantly reinforced throughout the game.

In BG, I promised what'shername I wouldn't kill Sarevok. The guy ran off and some wizard guy was like "Hey I can cast a spell to tell you where to find him!!!!!!!!!" and I chose the "Nah, no thanks, I'm good" option generously provided by Bioware. Unfortunately, the guy told me where he was anyway "just in case" I changed my mind, and I had no choice but to go kill him to see the ending cinematic, even though I promised I wouldn't.