Chris Avellone has departed Obsidian.

[Ambient_Malice]

http://nichegamer.com/2015/06/chris-avellone-has-left-obsidian-entertainment/

Avellone was a major creative influence on New Vegas. This means that any hypothetical future Obsidian Fallout game will likely be rather different in tone. (Especially as a few New Vegas supporting writers and such were laid off a few years back.)

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I have no issue with him leaving Obsidian. While I've enjoyed virtually all of their RPGs, there is no denying that the studio is just a wee bit pants. Their inability to release a single title without a tidal wave of awe-inspiring bugs hounding it being foremost on the list of salient complaints one could levy at them.

What if Avellone went to work for a larger, more monied creator of RPGs? Like Bethesda, or CDPR, or to try and bail out the leaky dinghy that is the Electronic Arts RPG Department, Formerly Known as Bioware?

Alas he'll probably just go to inXile or something and make even wonkier titles on even smaller budgets. No amount of quality writing would've made Wasteland 2 less of a turd.

 

[veloper]

What's the big reason for all the Avellone love anyway?

If you take a big crappy dev team and you add Chris, you'll probably still end up with shitty games.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

What's the big reason for all the Avellone love anyway?

He's still trading in on Planescape Torment. Testament to how good the game was, really.

 

[Jandau]

I have no issue with him leaving Obsidian. While I've enjoyed virtually all of their RPGs, there is no denying that the studio is just a wee bit pants. Their inability to release a single title without a tidal wave of awe-inspiring bugs hounding it being foremost on the list of salient complaints one could levy at them.

What if Avellone went to work for a larger, more monied creator of RPGs? Like Bethesda, or CDPR, or to try and bail out the leaky dinghy that is the Electronic Arts RPG Department, Formerly Known as Bioware?

Alas he'll probably just go to inXile or something and make even wonkier titles on even smaller budgets. No amount of quality writing would've made Wasteland 2 less of a turd.

I do find it amusing that you state that Obsidian can't release a game without tons of bugs, but then list Bethesda as an alternative. Also, Dungeon Siege 3 was very polished on release (not saying it was good, just saying it was fairly bugless), and Pillars of Eternity was pretty decent on release as well. But in general, they do have a bit of a reputation, don't they?

Agreed on the turdyness of Wasteland 2, though don't let the general public hear you, you're not supposed to say anything bad about that one..

 

[veloper]

What's the big reason for all the Avellone love anyway?

He's still trading in on Planescape Torment. Testament to how good the game was, really.

I consider it a shitty game, with a good(for a computergame) CYOAB story.
I'm not going to pretend Avellone is the Gene Wolfe of videogames, just because the lower standards for games are generally accepted.

 

[shrekfan246]

I have no issue with him leaving Obsidian. While I've enjoyed virtually all of their RPGs, there is no denying that the studio is just a wee bit pants. Their inability to release a single title without a tidal wave of awe-inspiring bugs hounding it being foremost on the list of salient complaints one could levy at them.

I haven't heard many people lamenting the state of Pillars of Eternity.

I suppose that doesn't mean it isn't buggy, but with their, er, reputation, you'd think it'd be more widely-documented.

What if Avellone went to work for a larger, more monied creator of RPGs? Like Bethesda, or CDPR, or to try and bail out the leaky dinghy that is the Electronic Arts RPG Department, Formerly Known as Bioware?

Alas he'll probably just go to inXile or something and make even wonkier titles on even smaller budgets. No amount of quality writing would've made Wasteland 2 less of a turd.

I feel like the second part applies just as well to the first, here.

Avellone wouldn't be able to save Bioware if/when EA finally drops the guillotine, and he certainly wouldn't be able to keep Bethesda from releasing buggy-as-shit games, though he'd probably help make their characters actually interesting to interact with for once. It could be cool to see what he would do alongside CDPR, though.

*reads title*

Spoiler: My face...

Well... maybe he'll get a job with Obsidian or join up with another RPG-centric studio.

I think I'm missing a joke here. D:

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I do find it amusing that you state that Obsidian can't release a game without tons of bugs, but then list Bethesda as an alternative.

Fair point, although I was just pointing out the most prominent of Obsidian's list o' crimes. They're a decent developer and I have a warmness towards them, but they're also kind of crap in a lot of ways, and Avellone could benefit from a developer with an actual budget and a game engine that wasn't air-lifted from 1998.

Pillars of Eternity was pretty decent on release as well.

Hogwash. PoE launched with a handful of the most egregious and pernicious launch bugs I've ever seen. You wouldn't even know your game was broken until you were 20 hours in. That's Ultima IX level tomfoolery.

Agreed on the turdyness of Wasteland 2, though don't let the general public hear you, you're not supposed to say anything bad about that one..

You know it's surprising. I made a thread here bashing it after playing for 20-30 hours, and I was expecting push-back, but no one seemed to much care. It's not exactly a sacred cow.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I haven't heard many people lamenting the state of Pillars of Eternity.

Google Pillars of Eternity and Game Breaking Bugs. It *was* widely documented.

Avellone wouldn't be able to save Bioware if/when EA finally drops the guillotine, and he certainly wouldn't be able to keep Bethesda from releasing buggy-as-shit games, though he'd probably help make their characters actually interesting to interact with for once. It could be cool to see what he would do alongside CDPR, though.

Yeah it would be nice to see Bethesda write a character or two worthy of admiration. Instead we tend to celebrate the ones that aren't actively woeful.

 

[shrekfan246]

I haven't heard many people lamenting the state of Pillars of Eternity.

Google Pillars of Eternity and Game Breaking Bugs. It *was* widely documented.

Oh. Well. Most of those first "news" links seem to be around the time I started doing LPs with lacktheknack, and I was avoiding forums pretty intently around then, so . . . oops. Fair enough.

I think I'm missing a joke here. D:

Sorry, I meant Bethesda, also known as "Other Obsidian" in my brain.

Heh. Obsidian holds a higher place than Bethesda in my mind, perhaps partly because Skyrim is the only Bethesda game I've really enjoyed to date.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Oh. Well. Most of those first "news" links seem to be around the time I started doing LPs with lacktheknack, and I was avoiding forums pretty intently around then, so...oops. Fair enough.

The depressing/amusing thing about it is that PoE was delayed, ostensibly to give it "extra coats of polish", something previous games had always been lacking due to Obsidian being beholden to ruthless publisher schedules. And then they released the goddam thing with a veritable panoply of seriously calamitous bugs.

I love the guys but there comes a point where I need to stop making excuses for them.

 

[Nomad]

What's the big reason for all the Avellone love anyway?

He's still trading in on Planescape Torment. Testament to how good the game was, really.

I consider it a shitty game, with a good(for a computergame) CYOAB story.
I'm not going to pretend Avellone is the Gene Wolfe of videogames, just because the lower standards for games are generally accepted.

This is killing me - I don't get what a CYOAB is, and google is telling me nothing useful. At least I think it isn't. Or did you mean it was a Colour Your Own Animal Boy [http://katsumi-hitachiin.deviantart.com/art/CYOAB-MEME-168680614] story?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

This is killing me - I don't get what a CYOAB is

Guessing "Choose Your Own Adventure Book".

 

[veloper]

That's right. Picking a response from a list and reading what would happen next, was the only bit of gameplay that mattered in Torment.
I never heard anybody say they played the game for the combat.
You wander around admiring the scenery, just going through the motions of getting past the RPG bits and wake up only for the dialog menus.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I never heard anybody say they played the game for the combat.

The combat wasn't memorable, but it was also indistinguishable from the other Infinity Engine games. And, by extension, Pillars of Eternity.

 

[veloper]

I never heard anybody say they played the game for the combat.

The combat wasn't memorable, but it was also indistinguishable from the other Infinity Engine games. And, by extension, Pillars of Eternity.

When you look purely at the engine and the combat mechanics, then sure all IE games look the same, but encounter design made all the difference.
BG2 was not such a snooze fest like Torment, because some mobs still required a bit more effort than just attacking, buffing and healing. Mage fights were actually interesting.
RTWP play often degenerates into a clickfest or a snoozefest, but it's not all equally sucky.