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Soren Johnson

Designer Notes 11: Chris Avellone

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In this episode, Soren interviews game designer Chris Avellone, who is best known for his work on Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas, and Wasteland 2. He is currently working at inXile Entertainment on Torment: Tides of Numenera. They discuss why he owes his career to publisher desperation, how Torment reflects that players only care about themselves, the mystery of how Black Isle lost the D&D license, and why game writing is overrated.

 

Games Discussed: The Bard's Tale series, Etrian Odyssey, Dungeons & Dragons, Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Ultima Underworld, the Icewind Dale series, Van Buren, KOTOR 2, Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity

 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/chris-avellone

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Yeah this was fun. I wish it was longer. One of my favorite design peeps. You can hear his frustration, but I was definitely a bit bummed to hear he stepped away from Obsidian, which is obviously nutty thinking about somebody you don't really know.  

 

I wish there was a bit more talk about Mask of the Betrayer, the NWN2 expansion. I think it gets a lot of the Planescape stuff right in the exact same way. One of the few games of it's style with robust dialog choices, specifically choices that imply intention, adding a bit of granularity to similar text strings. For me it's neck and neck with the best Black Isle stuff. 

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I loved how he turned all the things he didn't like about Star Wars into the story strengths of KOTOR 2.  Some of those Devil's Advocate discussions about the force in that game were the most memorable moments.  I remember the way that game challenged my assumptions about the star wars universe.  It's very interesting to hear about the origins of that.

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The Galactic Empire built great Autobahns.

 

Anyway, that was a wonderful interview and I enjoyed narration in most games he worked on. I was not very thrilled by the writing in Pillars of Eternity however. I like the world and core concepts, but the dialogue just felt too lore-dumpy for me.

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I think his actual contribution to PoE is a bit limited to overall world building stuff, and writing most of Durance and Grieving Mother. There is a quote from him that says he wrote a lot more for them, including mental dungeons (like psychonauts!) but those bits got cut.

 

I'm digging PoE but I think you're right. I imagine it's a problem trying to launch a whole D&D world thing in one not huge game. haha. 

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