Chris Avellone: Dark Knight, Part Two

[GameBanshee News]

Edge Online has kicked up the second half of their Chris Avellone: Dark Knight feature, this time taking us through Chris' final years at Interplay and his recent work at Obsidian Entertainment.

Avellone continued his work in the action-RPG genre with design roles on Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and the EverQuest-themed Champions Of Norrath. He also briefly worked as a senior designer on Baldur’s Gate 3 (cancelled in 2003) before taking his final role at Black Isle as lead designer on Fallout 3 (the early Van Buren version). “Before I left,” he explains, “we wanted to do two things with Fallout: reinvigorate the franchise and introduce a new RPG spin into RPG adversaries – capitalising on the prisoner’s dilemma theme, where you’re competing against a rival PC party. And we wanted to do a new type of game – something with our own tech and systems for once, rather than the Infinity Engine. When I left, it was only two-to-three months into pre-production. I was the only designer on it for a long time before Baldur’s Gate 3 was cancelled, and that team moved in en masse. I think there were some great RPG moments waiting to be born in that game, and I felt really passionate about it.”

Unfortunately, Brian Fargo (then Interplay’s CEO) left during Fallout 3’s development, and things started looking grim. “The company culture changed once Brian Fargo left,” Avellone sighs. “Whatever people could say negatively about Interplay under his guidance, he had a strong vision for where he wanted the company to go and he really put effort and playtime into Interplay’s games. The new guard displayed none of these qualities, and the company climate changed in unpleasant ways. When I resigned, they were more concerned about digging up dirt on other companies recruiting me – and bringing lawsuits against them – rather than figuring out the reasons people were leaving. When I tried to explain the issues with Baldur’s Gate 3, the HR director didn’t even seem to know what Baldur’s Gate 3 was – talk about ****ed up! Baldur’s Gate 3 got cancelled because of an accounting error, and we lost the rights to the licence entirely. Having a project cancelled because the dev team is doing a ****ty job is one thing, but having another department not check their math is something else.”

[GawainBS]

I find it hard to believe that BG3 got cancelled because of an accounting error. Even if it was true, I imagine you'd go to quite some lengths to rectify it, since it would probably have been a megaseller.

[DesR85]

Quote:

“We agreed to a tight schedule and delivered,” Avellone admits, “so it was on us. The game probably could have stood to cook for a few more months, but I should’ve been more responsible with the feature set. Looking back, I wish we’d cut minigames and one or two companions.”

I don't understand why the Obsidian staff didn't try to push for a much longer time frame before signing the contract to develop KOTOR 2. Was it because of Lucasarts being harsh in their negotiations or was it because Obsidian was confident they can make it in that time frame?

Yes, I admit that KOTOR 2 did improve on quite a number of things from the first game and I did find the story interesting at times, but in the end, I find it rather unsatisfactory. I felt that there are parts of the game that should have been polished a lot more.