Chris Avellone Interview

[GameBanshee News]

Obsidian Entertainment's Chris Avellone was on hand during last week's GDC, so the folks at GameDev.net hit him up with some video game industry-related questions.

Tiffany: What in your opinion are the most common mistakes new game designers make?

Chris Avellone: Some of the common mistakes we've noticed is some new designers try to design a game that only they would enjoy, and they don't take the player into account and what the fun factor is. Being a designer is a lot like being a waiter in a restaurant in the sense that you have to know what the customer wants and provide as much service and helpfulness as possible to get that fun factor across. That includes things like the interface, how you design all the menu screens for consistency, what sort of options you present, etc. You don't want the player to have to do a lot of work to actually play the game and that's one problem we've noticed with new designers, but we're usually able to get that out of them pretty quickly. Beyond that, it's just coming to grips with the amount of detail that you have to include in your design - it sure was growing pains for me when starting, especially from pen-and-paper games - but the designers at Obsidian have a pretty good grasp on that stuff.

[galraen]

Aw shucks, I was hoping he was going to announce his retirement!

[BuckGB]

No matter how far Avellone ever falls from the tree, I still have hope that I might one day get to experience more of the stellar writing he injected into Planescape: Torment. For that reason alone, I hope he never retires from the video game industry.

[fable]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BuckGB No matter how far Avellone ever falls from the tree, I still have hope that I might one day get to experience more of the stellar writing he injected into Planescape: Torment. For that reason alone, I hope he never retires from the video game industry.

Amen to that.

[Nightmare]

He put some stellar writing into KotOR 2 as well, but unfortunately, the was so unfinished and buggy that most people didn't notice.

I'm hoping that with him as the lead writer for Alpha Protocal, maybe the game will at least have good writing. If he's on his game, it might elevate what otherwise might be something of a Deux Ex ripoff (which, really, isn't a terrible idea to begin with).

[galraen]

It was the abysmal scripting and buggedness of kOTOR2, and the unfinished nature of it, along with the godawful mess that was made of NWN2 that prompted my first comment. I've never had the pleasure of playing Toment, but having seen his other work I'm extremely suspicious that he is being credited with the work of others on that game.

[fable]

Quote:

Originally Posted by galraen It was the abysmal scripting and buggedness of kOTOR2, and the unfinished nature of it, along with the godawful mess that was made of NWN2 that prompted my first comment. I've never had the pleasure of playing Toment, but having seen his other work I'm extremely suspicious that he is being credited with the work of others on that game.

I wouldn't blame the bugs and unfinished nature of KotoR2 on Avellone. Estimates of a finish date were significantly off, LucasArts wanted to get the title out, and everything conspired to produce a game that offered significantly more than the bland, dull KotoR, but with a host of problems. The writing in KotoR2 is far superior to that in the original title, in any case, and I think Avellone probably had a lot to do with it.

But I do think Guido Henkel was pretty much erased from the picture when Interplay removed him from PS:T, where he was Senior Producer. What role he actually had in development has never fully been explained.

[galraen]

I may be being unfair to put all the blame on Avellone, but he became the target of my ire when he claimed in an interview (quoted here IIRC) for the scripting of KOTOR 2. As that was (IMO) the worst aspect of K2, he became my prime suspect for the shortcomings of the game. When NWN2 followed, and, for me, was a complete disaster, mainly because of what I consider terrible design, then the die was cast.

I did notice when looking up the credits for PS:T that Avellone was 'only' the lead designer, and apparently took no part in the scripting and programming of the game. I say 'only' in quotes, but obviously the overal design is the basis on which the game stands or falls, I can't help but think that he 'got lucky' with PS:T, although ironically that probably sold less units than K2 or NWN. According to Meatloaf, two out of three aint bad, not sure what to make out of one out of three!

[Nightmare]

For Black Isle and its successor Obsidian, "lead designer" actually means "lead writer". I think I read that somewhere, just what they decide to call the title.

I think I remember reading in interviews with other members of the PS:T team that said that Avellone pretty much wrote over half the game himself, which is pretty mindblowing considering the amount of dialogue (and quality writing at that!) in the game. He was "lead designer" for K2 as well, and since the writing was easily the best part of the game, I'd say PS:T wasn't just a fluke.

Now, I don't know what other duties he's had with regards to scripting or programming, but in terms of pure writing ability, he's one of the best in the biz.

[Foss]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightmare I think I remember reading in interviews with other members of the PS:T team that said that Avellone pretty much wrote over half the game himself, which is pretty mindblowing considering the amount of dialogue (and quality writing at that!) in the game. He was "lead designer" for K2 as well, and since the writing was easily the best part of the game, I'd say PS:T wasn't just a fluke.

Think that might be from Brother None's 2 part interview with him and Colin McComb about Torment.

Part 1: RPGWatch
Part 2: RPGWatch

A quote from McComb in part 1 sais:

Quote:

I hate to say it again, but Chris did the major work on the game. I would estimate that although he had seven designers on his team, he did about 50% of the work on the project. Keep in mind that he did all this while he was working on Fallout 2 as well. The man is truly prolific.

[galraen]

Prolific doesn't necessarily = good, and frankly the writing in K2 I thought pretty banal, but that's just a matter of taste of course. From reading the plot of PS:T I doubt I would have enjoyed that game either, each to their own.

Curiously sometime after PS:T came out he was quoted as saying that he regretted that there was too much dialog in it and it detracted from the gameplay. I say curious because in K2 it was the amount of forced dialog that destroyed gameplay on far too many occasions.

[dragon wench]

Quote:

From reading the plot of PS:T I doubt I would have enjoyed that game either, each to their own.

Each to their own indeed

Planescape Torment is the best game I have ever played, and I think you'll find many here who would say much the same.

What you need to understand about PS:T is that in essence the dialogue and story *were* the gameplay.

*shrugs* As you say, it's subjective.

[fable]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragon wench What you need to understand about PS:T is that in essence the dialogue and story *were* the gameplay.

I think that says it well. It's really a mystery, not a fantasy. It's a detective story in which the narrator eventually discovers both the answer to an all-important riddle, and unlocks his own origins, at the same time. Everything that brings you there--the dialog, the characters, the situations--is what makes the game such an incredible experience.

[galraen]

Which makes Avellone expressing regrets about the amount of dialog in PS:T even more puzzling, and reinforces my suspicion that the good things about the game which fans of the game like were someone else's work.

[Brother None]

Quote:

Originally Posted by galraen Which makes Avellone expressing regrets about the amount of dialog in PS:T even more puzzling, and reinforces my suspicion that the good things about the game which fans of the game like were someone else's work.

He talks about dialog in PS:T in the RPGWatch interview linked before. His point is kind of two-fold; it didn't sell as well as it could because of its dialog weight, and it sacrificed too much gameplay entertainment to story. Both are perfectly valid points for a developer to make.

And that suspicion is just ridiculous. I'm sorry, it is, by McComb's estimate he did 50% of the work on the game, by his own estimate he did 75% of the basic character design and briefs. That's just too big a chunk of the work to validly be able to state that somehow the qualities of PS:T, both good and bad, were not his doing.