Chris Avellone Interview (Dragon Con 2013)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2013
- Check out this timely interview with Obsidian's (and inXile's) Chris Avellone, the wisened master of Fallout and Torment.
My own thoughts on the interview?
Chris Avellone's name has been stamped on pretty much all of my favorite games for the last 15 years, so it was pretty hard for me to act like a normal human during this interview. I still tried to not preen.
After the cameras turned off, we had a brief talk about Tie Fighter. It turns out that Chris is a big fan of the game, and he took it upon himself to apologize for the lack of another game like it. As an industry figurehead who can humbly apologize for his own industry's shortcoming, and as one who supports modding, lower budgets and increased depth and complexity, Avellone is the kind of developer we need to see more of.
Project Eternity: www.kickstarter.com/projects/o...
Wasteland 2: www.kickstarter.com/projects/i...
Torment: Tides of Numinera: www.kickstarter.com/projects/i...
Chris Avellone's "Let's Play" of Arcanum: • Avellone's Let's Play ...
This video uses music from audiomicro.com. (track named "Thirty Three")
This video also lives at www.superbunnyhop.com. - เกม
Thank you mister Avellone for sparking the imagination of millions of players in the past decades.
Yeah, Chris is awesome. Like I said in the description, his name has been stamped on a LOT of games that I really enjoy. I'm not afraid to say that FNV is my favorite game of this generation, best one in years and haven't played anything better since, so talking to the man responsible for it was nothing short of an honor.
But I didn't want to preen on him in the room. Had to keep it strictly business!
he rolled an 18/00 on his str
KOTOR 2 is really great as it subverts the old discussion of Light Side VS Dark Side (which KOTOR 1 itself was so fond of) and treats the consequences of your choices really well. I would only recommend that you install the restored content mod if you decide to play it, because it feels like it ends abruptly when playing without it.
I guess once you've been consistently making good games for 10+ years, people start to notice your track record
It's great to hear how Avellone wanted to treat the Star Wars universe, because I can see Kreia is practically voicing his own questions for him. I really like his (or rather, hers) "gray" interpretation of the Force, it really treats the Star Wars universe uniquely and is something I would like to see more of.
Thanks man! Unfortunately this is the longest one we got due to time constraints in the interview room, but I hope we used it well!
I love George, and I love that he's made huge strides in confidence in the last two years. He's a funny guy that loves games in the old videos and a video game journalism hero in the new ones (C: This music however is atrocious.
This was really good. So many interviews feel like just a sales pitches for whatever that person is currently working on, but this was refreshing in how varied the topics were.
Fantastic as usual. This is fast becoming my favourite channel on TH-cam, in no small part thanks to the steady flow of content (compared to other good channels which release content monthly or something like that). Keep it up!
Seriously. You are doing a great job, George.
Thank you for your time and effort, I hope you know that it does not go unappreciated!
I didn't know much of Chris before this interview, but he seems like such a down to earth man who cares about his fans and product in such a genuine way. Great to see/hear!
Thanks for the awesome content as always!!!
-Sean
Hearing about my favorite game (KotOR2) from someone who was tremendously involved in the game was a huge treat. thxxxxx (thanks).
Pfft! Kotor came from his mind. So if there is anything made about Revan and the ancient Sith Empire it should come from him, ONLY!
Terrific interview. Thanks for asking about the South Park RPG. I had forgotten it was even Obsidian who was working on it. I'm a huge fan of Avellone and his games. I would love the chance to tell him that Alpha Protocol is the most under appreciated game ever.
The legend himself
Thanks for the interview
What I like about Kotor 2 is grim reality. Whole movie saga (with exceptions of elements from episode 3 and 5) is like "Hurrey, War!!! We can kill those bastards!"
Good interview! Way better than some of the generic questions others have been asking him lately :)
You are doing such a great job with this content,
That was awesome! More stuff like that on this channel would be great!
Great interview, and interesting questions as well! Kepp it up!
Well I've known of him since 2007 when the Torment vision doc was publicly released, but it's cool to see his growing exposure lately!
It's from audiomicro, I'll put it in the description
Do a Chris Avellone Critical Close-up.
Love you too Sean!
That was a pretty good interview. I was thinking before it started that it must be boring be someone like Chris Avellone because everyone always asks him the same questions, but most of your questions were fairly different and new
Yup, 3 more interviews over the next 3 days
Great interview!
Nice interview man! You're in the big leagues now :D
"Were RPGs better back in the day?" Graphics and the world could only be so good, therefore the games had to compensate in some other way. This meant placing a greater emphasis on writing, story, and characters to compensate for the lack of graphics and gameplay.
Nice job man, thanks
Nicely done, George! :)
That was real professional, maybe even a bit too professional considering how laid-back and easy going Mr. Avellone is and how you never drop your poker face while he is exaggerating his points by busting out a laugh. Nervous much? But no worries, your channel has become my favourite in the whole wide Tubeland and I couldn't be happier to see my high hopes fulfill. Sincerely, your 22nd subscriber.
7:50
There's a hole that needs filling. And Chris Avellone is here to fill that hole.
great questions, especially the last one on Chris' dislike of SW
We love you, Chris!!
George has not aged a single day. Fucking vampire boi.
A lil'. Nearly every game that has the dude's name stamped on it is one of my favorite games ever, and he's indirectly responsible for some pretty major things I've done in my life. I didn't wanna dwell on either of those topics, though.
Hey SuperBunnyhop please do a Planescape Torment analisis like your metal gear and dark souls video! Pleeeeease!
Two cameras at once!? very professional!
Is it me, or is Chris Avellone finally getting a somewhat decent exposure after being in the shadows for the past 10+ years? I mean before the crowdfunding explosion, not much was heard from/about him (at least by me), and now we're getting these wonderful interviews where we can finally get to know him. About time.
Chris Avellone is awesome.
Don't be so nervous! You did a good interview with better questions than 90% of gaming 'journalists'. You have the skill, and use that to gain confidence.
I thought people hated that game. Its good to see that I'm not the only one who loves it.
You're doing a great job with these interview. Even interviewers for big budget sites geek out when they're talking to big name developers(e3 2012 at Gametrailers is a good example).
yaah sweet video
really liking the interview. i didin't knew he had a LP haha.
good interview, you asked some really good questions. much better than the stuff you would see at ign and gamespot. my one critiscim is that your body language was a bit akward perhaps. but the important part is Avellone's answers, so i think you did good in getting to the interesting topics.
You are a fantastic interviewer.
One camera is clearly more professional than the other, though
great stuff. subscribed
Damn! Someone found me out!
Enjoyed the interview, especially the kotor 2 part near the end. I really wish that game would of had the time to be polished and tested instead of being released buggy and unfinished, I really loved the characters in that game.
FNV was quite possibly my best PC experience not just due to the controls and gameplay, but the mods as well. I loved all the story elements that drifted over from FO2. I love FO3 as it was one of the first seventh gen open world RPGs I really played through, but FO3 and the transition to NV was night and day in my eyes.
Nothing like that crazy Pokemon mod in NV! /watch?v=zE322LKw9qo
And if you don't mind me asking do you have any more interviews planned anytime soon?
Awesome :D
nice interview, but i must say focus and white balance will improve the quality alot
If you like KOTOR, you will most likely enjoy the second one too. I prefer the sequel, but both are incredibly good games. Make sure to play them with HD/widescreen-mods and possibly the restored content stuff. The modding community really worked hard to finish the somewhat incomplete second game. Don't let it go to waste :)
Jesus Christ man! The person who made the best isometric crpg, Planecape: Torment.
The publisher rushed it out to launch, so it was about as rocky as your usual Obsidian game launch. Like all of them though, time has healed that up w/ the inevitable patches and fan mods. You should give it a shot!
What is it with RPG writers and the Valley tones + lisp? Avellone, Gaider, Sawyer... A Virginian, Canadian, and Wisconsonite.
Nice KotOR II spoiler gameplay you randomly inserted near the end of the video.
I tried!
I was thinking the exact same thing. As you say excellent interview though.. lol.
The more elitist RPG websites have treated him akin to a god for almost his entire carreer, so I wouldn't say he's been completely in the shadows.
Great interview!! Maybe skip the soft jazz, though :)
Todd Howard and Chirs Avellone alone in a room... thats how my fanfic starts.
they should make a Drake con.
CHRIS ABELONE
PC experience for me at that time*
Who's playing the saxophone?
The music makes it sound like you're trying to seduce him.
12:16 Chris hates star wars
KotOR 2 is the best game ever. Play it.
whats that smooth Jazz in the background, did you edit that in?
THIRD! (inb4 no one gets its a joke)
Hello, my name is Raul.
LITTLE LITTLE ESSAY ON RPGs
Morrowind, Skyrim, Gothic II, Dark Souls 2, Fallout 3, Daggerfall, Baldur's Gate 2, Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines, Planescape Torment, Deus Ex, Dragon Age Origins and many more...(please tell me your favorite one and I will add it to the list).
All of them are fantastic games, some of them masterpieces.
What makes these games great games?
I believe that the great games and in particular masterpieces have the power to go inside our mind changing us forever, not just as individuals, but us all.
My thoughts are just ideas freely written (I'm sorry if they are repeated, it's because I need to explain them again and better or with different nuances). Some thoughts are also poorly written, but try to grasp the core of the idea and develop it from here.
1) A beautiful and original story can go inside us much more then great graphic or gameplay mechanics.
2) The sound and music can give life to the game and enhance the experience to higher levels, put a lot of thoughts an efforts in this part;
there are still a lot of developers that don't understand the importance of sound.
3) A face that speaks but does not show emotions it does not work, is better in this case don't show the animated face at all.
4) If the acting voice is inconsistent, is far more better just use the written dialog.
5) A less detailed world in terms of graphic allows to make it much more bigger.
6) More realism does not mean more immersion, I actually think that is less interesting.
7) A game is not a book, so I think that the dialogs and written words should be kept at a minimum.
8) A realistic sky is beautiful, but not interesting. Is far more better to give some character to the sky with original clouds shapes.
9) Bidimensional sprites sometime can have more character then 3d models, why not for example, animate a face with a sprite animation on a 3D model or use full characters sprites even in modern games?
10) A world with a interesting architecture is far more memorable.
11) Sometimes low quality sample sounds can have more charm then high quality samples.
12) I suggest to developers to simplify the world so to be able and dedicated resources to make it more interesting.
13) I suggest to developers to use an old engine for concentrating on gameplay, story and characters.
14) A memorable character will never be forgotten.
15) Even the most sophisticated AI will repeat itself, so use simple scripted technology to create unexpected situation and behavior.
16) Surprise the player is one of the most important thing in a Game.
17) Scripting is time consuming but worthy as just the fantasy of a person can create beautiful unrepeatable things, events, stories, characters; this is why simplify the world can be a smart thing to do. Developers now have huge resources that can dedicate over this task instead of realistic graphics or realistic physics.
18) I think multiple choices are a non-sense, or at least not powerful. The feeling of fake options dispels the sense of immersion; the feeling is that someone wants to tell me where I'm going.
19) Steer away from realism, it drains a lot of energy and does not serve the purpose to immerse the player in something magical.
20) The world is always in the mind of the player not inside the monitor, leave the space to his imagination, in this way it is more powerful.
21) Mods are fantastic and one of the biggest reality of gaming, congratulation to all the modders that put their love in this new reality;
all modders can use freely my music, just contact me if you like it and want to use it.
22) Instead of using expensive full orchestra music, hire few different unknown composers/players that can produce a lot of different music, or even more simple use very old music out of copyright and then transform it by changing the pitch, instruments, speed, scale or isolating just few parts and repeat them; few notes from Bach repeated over and over can be surprisingly wonderful.
23) The faces of NPCs are very important, give them a lot of charisma, make them memorable.
24) It is not necessary put the voice to all the dialogs, just few memorable voiced sentence are enough to give the presence to a character.
25) Usually developers make something happen in every location, I think is a mistake; I prefer to have plenty of places where nothing happen and then when I found a place with some kind of event, it will be far more enjoyable.
26) Use a voice or writing that sometimes describes and add details to the scene, a character a place, a situation: this is a powerful tool for immersion; for example we cannot have smells or odors in a games, so the developers can add this perceptions with a txt or voice descriptions.
27) Stanley Kubrick used the enviroment, the architecture of a building, the layout of a room, objects as a way to communicate; it is really a powerful way to express emotions, thought, feelings with shapes, colours and objects.
28) The presence of an NPC is much more important then his/her animation, there is no need of lip-sink or fancy movements because just the appearance can give strong feelings.
29) What an NPC says is very important, he/she has to say something that will be remembered, so use little txt or voice, but it has to be always memorable.
30) Create unique NPCs, never clone a NPC, make them simple using sprites with just few frames and few sounds.
NPCs created with editors are all similar, apparently different but actually very similar, while hand-drawn NPCs are always different, and having different people drawings them, will create really different and striking NPCs.
31) Pointing the direction to find someone or something with an arrow or highlighting it in the map is a non-sense and shatters the feeling of free exploration; the players are not babies and if the developers are using these tricks to help the player in finding the way, is an utterly failure and they do not understand the concept of free world.
32) Real time maps are not good, the pleasure to use a virtual paper map is much greater.
33) A beautiful and engaging combat mechanic gives a strong satisfaction, but is a short taste, what remains in the player's mind is the feeling of the place, the story, the NPC characters.
34) Everything and everyone the player will see during the game, has to be special, everything and everyone has to remain in the memory of the player, otherwise there is no point.
35) The game will succeed if the player will be not able to understand what comes next, not even a bit; it has to be a journey of surprises.
36) A masterpiece needs inside multiple layers of meanings.
37) Draw mountains with a structure that suggests meanings, emotions.
38) When the player approaches an enemy or NPC, it has to be a fresh encounter every time; AI will never (for the moment) be able to recreate the imagination of a real person. AI even if sophisticated, will recreate the same patterns that will bore the player; at the opposite, scripting the behavior will always create something new and fresh; scripting is an old but simple technology and it is also time consuming but the resources of the developers could be diverted in this direction, instead of complicated graphics or AI; an old engine like for example the ones used in Morrowind or Daggerfall are very simple and fast to use by nowadays standard, all the resources could be diverted to create unique behaviors;
I imagine the developers of Skyrim, using the engine of Daggerfall to create a more deep gameplay...10 people could create the whole graphic world and the other 90 dedicated their effort scripting unique behaviors; in Skyrim the combat is very funny and effective but after a while it is repetitive, the monsters behave always with same patterns....I imagine a programmer dedicating 1 day of work just to create a monster and his behavior, now imagine 90 programmers doing the same the same for 1 whole year....they will create a world full of original and unique NPCs.
39) What is important is the feeling of something is happening and it has to happen just in our mind, this is the secret of a masterpiece.
40) Stories in games are rather basic but there is no reason why they couldn't reach deeper levels; the same is for the characters, the NPCs; I exhort the modders to concentrate their attention on a single NPC trying to give it exceptional deepness, to show what can be achieved in a game; a very deep NPC could bring life to the whole game.
41) Voice-acted technology does not work, even if the acting voices are well done (which is very rare) there is always the feeling that are detached from the NPCs;
I prefer much more just the writings and simple unique sounds to give presence and to the NPCs; for example, an hostile NPC could have aggressive sounds, while a friendly NPC could have some relaxing sounds; I would like to suggest to give at least one unique sound for every NPC that suggest its personality; voice-acted technology is about realism but reality is an false friend of games.
42) Most of the NPCs usually communicate informations that the player usually does not want to hear, is better silence then boring informations; keep them at a minimum and convey emotions instead of informations.
43) Older RPGs have usually more mystery and have a more immersive quality, because they were relying less on realism and more on the feeling of the story, on the deepness of the characters; don't let the technology drives and wins over the art of imaginations which is much more powerful.
44) A world with simple graphics like using sprites or very basic 3D models with maybe just few important texture can be much more complex in therms of characters, story and gameplay; I suggest to modders to use an older engine to create a more immersive world; what about Bethesda using an old engine to create a new game, I'm sure it will be a very unique experience and will challenge the team.
45) I think a game should let you create the story and characters in your mind, it has to push you to imagine.
46) I think that receiving and completing missions or quests from an NPC is a rigid way to be immersed in a game and it feels like the open world game suddenly become like a narrow experience.
47) Simple and non realistic graphics have a charm that for me is more powerful, for example, Gothic 2 has a great atmosphere that other more recent games have not.
48) Sometime the best games in terms of complexity, graphics, sounds, budget, are actually not working to create a sense of immersion and other games, more simple, less complicated, with a lower technology succeed instead to create a believable and immersive world.
49) A masterpiece is a game that constantly surprises the player with new locations, new NPCs, enemies, behaviors, stories and; I think that the more the game is simple, the more it can be deep and engaging.
50) Instead of working on creating a very detailed world, is better having a varied world; for example for the sound, instead of having hundreds of sounds inside a village, I think is more effective having just few sounds typical for each different place; I much more prefer having sounds that characterize uniquely different places instead of having the same hundreds of sounds in every village, for example.
51) If you need to use voice-acted technology, instead of using hundreds of actors, just hire a really talented single one that does all the readings;
a powerful warm voice is much more engaging and emotional effective.
52) A sprite enemy NPC with a great sound has a bigger presence then a super sophisticated 3D model with a weak sound.
Yeah, you did look a but too straight faced. In interviews I think its fine to laugh and smile and joke around a bit, but still be serious about it.
Come on, he's undeniably a flamboyant homosexual.
@sad lies
@sad until then, innocent flamboyant homosexual.
@@francesco3772 he never denied the accusations. quit bootlicking and people worshipping
@@panterxbeats yes he did. He was apologizing to the women he dated believing she speaking of their past relationship. He has gone completely silent since then and has been dealing with the lies thru legal means.
He's back
avellone sounds like a valley girl
Great interview!
The legend himself