Chris Avellone's Blog

I really like all the great posts asking for more of an unusual setting for the game. I'd also like you to create a world that publishers would normally say no to.

 

In movies creating Avatar is much more expensive than shooting a movie in a real world building that is already there. Games have such an unique advantage in that everything the player sees is something that the developers built from nothing. There should be little difference in creating an unique world and creating a world that imitates ours. This makes a great platform that is only limited by the developer's imagination. I don't want yet another grey world in ruins and I also know my dungeons and dragons well enough by now. I want the sense of awe back when I enter the world you have created.

I already wrote about the importance of the setting but there were so many good posts about actual gameplay irritations on current games that I thought I'd list some of my wishes also:

 

- No black&white moral systems (more witcher, less pretty much everything else). There's more to making a game for adults than adding gore...

- Choices should have an impact on the world, which is why I don't like most sand-box games as they usually just ignore this. I prefer heavily scripted if that script wipes a town off a map because of my actions.

- It's totally fine that a choice I made prevents me from doing something else. Not everything has to be discovered on the first play-through.

Oh please, Planescape: Torment worth remake, many people who want to play in it can't do that because of grafic- too old.

 

...were you on the Interplay forums for Baldur's Gate before BG2's release?

 

anyhow, why do people find the graphics in Torment to be bad? The graphics aren't dated at all. Go look at Coaxmetal, FoR, or well...any scene in the game. They hold up well to games today. If an indie developer produced something as atmospheric as The Smoldering Corpse Bar, they'd be hailed as a gaming savior.

ALPHA PROTOCOL 2 !

I notice there are a lot of people against doing anything planescape related because no matter what, it wouldn't be as successful as the first one. I find that flawed for two reasons, namely 1) because the setting is a huge one and allows for immense variety in storytelling, not to mention the radical concepts that could be implement due to its inherent weirdness, and 2) these are some of the people responsible for the awesomeness that is PS:T in the first place, and therefore more than able to create something equally amazing. My opinion is that someone should not be discouraged from outdoing themselves, but rather encouraged to do so if they believe they can. And i don't think there's one member of Obsidian who'd consider touching Planescape in the first place unless they'd be absolutely sure they could bring new ideas that would transcend the awesomeness of the original.

Main character shouldn't be a white straight male(or an analogue of such), how about a game in setting where those word have little meaning, have a society with a colourful bisexual androgynous populace, why not have the majority of the population be non-human, some sort of original humanoid (and not an ethnic stereotype in fantasy/sci-fi guise).

Great idea, let's focus on the story and setting on abnormal sexuality. Bioware has blazed the trail on this by publishing several high profile RPG/dating sims. Obsidian just needs to take it to the next level and abandon all pretense of story beyond who gets to bang who! /sarcasmAlright, that might have been a little bit harsh. Point being, sex should not be the main focus or even a heavy element in RPG's. Leave that to the dating sims.

by no means did I want sex to the main focus, it'd be nice if there was a game capable of talking about sex and relationships in a mature meaningful manner, that wasn't from atlus, but I don't think obsidian are capable of that.No, I just want a game where the protagonist isn't the same standard character as every other video game, I'm only asking for a bit of diversity.

 

Shouldn't they just leave the choice to player? Why the f*** would they force worldview/sexuality/anything on the PC I want to play?

 

Even TNO could be shaped to a person/alignment you wanted.

 

I for one I'm not ashamed of being a white heterosexual priviledged man; for my rpg-s I pick characters I wish to roleplay, be they white, black, green, purple, gay, straight, asexual, tall, short, fat, human, elf, genius, retarded, nice, violent... That's what chargen is for.

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I really like all the great posts asking for more of an unusual setting for the game. I'd also like you to create a world that publishers would normally say no to.In movies creating Avatar is much more expensive than shooting a movie in a real world building that is already there. Games have such an unique advantage in that everything the player sees is something that the developers built from nothing. There should be little difference in creating an unique world and creating a world that imitates ours. This makes a great platform that is only limited by the developer's imagination. I don't want yet another grey world in ruins and I also know my dungeons and dragons well enough by now. I want the sense of awe back when I enter the world you have created.

 

Agreed, completely new and original setting

I would even dare you to go so far as to make, say, a Muslim protagonist. How many can you name off on your hand right now?

 

How many Hindu protagonists can you name? What about Christian? I don't remember ever playing a christian protagonist!

I notice there are a lot of people against doing anything planescape related because no matter what, it wouldn't be as successful as the first one.

 

I can't recall seeing anyone making that argument. The reason some (like me) say Planescape is unlikely is that

a) The setting is officially deprecated.

b) If despite this, Obsidian could somehow get the rights to doing a sequel, this would likely consume a huge chunk of the money raised, leaving very little to making an actual game (something true of all the other established IPs people are requesting sequels to).

c) If they DID make a big game and it DID become a huge success, the rights to make more games in the setting and with their characters would have to be negotiated for over and over again, costing even more money and more time.

 

Also on a personal level I'm sick of the constant focus on sequels in the games industry. But the reason is because of customer demand, that is becoming obvious.

ALPHA PROTOCOL 2 !

 

 

-with more missions around the world and most sub quests;

 

-Improved animations of the stealth phase;

 

-maintain the solid plot and the solid part STEALTH / RPG that made ??him famous ALPHA PROTOCOL.

 

-repair manual saves that in alpha protocol 1 did not work.

 

- with more freedom to approach the location of play, example (if a door is locked and there is a window on the wall, I want to be free to break the glass of the window with his rifle and go from there)

RPGNon-real settingNon-linear story tied with variative skill system.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to a more linear story. Think of DA:O. While it claims 'non-linearity' due to the patented "intro quest, conflict, go do one of 4 larger quests in any order, conclusion', it's quite linear feeling. But not only does it end up feeling linear, it ends up being bad.The whole 'do these 4 quests in any order) thing ruins a sense of progression as each of those quests has to be scaled towards a wide range of levels. Not only that, having such disparate quests that take place within the larger arc of the main quest (think DA:O, the darkspawn 'threat' is looming as your trot around forests, the underdark deep roads, mages tower, etc.) ruins all sense of urgency that the quests have. And when you compound that with side quests that have you traipsing all over the world and companion arcs/quests, you have a jumpled mess.

 

This has always struck me as an absurdly bad way to make a game as the timings of these arcs are never controlled well. So you have taken a few npc's all the way through their arcs and they are completely new characters...but what does it equate to? Nothing. They still spout the same dialogue and it has no effect on the majority of the game. Now if you happened to do this towards the end of the game, it would not be very noticable. But if you complete their arc earlier in the game, it ruins all illusion that your interactions accomplished something meaningful. But side-quests are the worst. When you are trying to finish all available side-quests, all belief in the threat of 'awoken ancient evil #299' is dispersed. I was doing all kinds of absurd errands in DA:O while the rampaging darkspawn horde apparently got bogged down in Lothering for months and months.

 

A lot of people like to think non-linearity brings about a deeper experience or greater replayability...and though it sometimes can, the majority of the time it just brings about an ill executed game that I don't have the will to finish. I would prefer an excellently polished game that is more linear than a mediocre, garbled, non-linear game.

 

My suggestions:- 3d Isometric view + 1st person while speaking with NPC's- Or 1st person / behind shoulder view.

 

No. The reason for choosing an isometric view (3d or not) is because it would cut down on a lot of time of polishing up textures and working on relevant animations. Now if you had to jump to 1st person for dialogue...well...all those textures would have to be brushed up and those animations done anyways. And if that work was to be necessitated...then why have the game in an isometric viewpoint in the first place? Otherwise all that work would go to waste.

 

full of plots and twists

 

Just watch an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

 

 

+ original personal quest (NOT SAVING THE WORLD)

 

Well...I agree with this, but Obsidian (and Troika and Black Isle) have a tendancy to try to avoid these things in a good many of their games. If they were to make their rpg, I'm sure it wouldn't be yet another ancient evil awakening that drives the plot but rather internal conflicts within our character or with your character's pre-game actions that moves the game forward.

 

It would be GREAT (and mind****ing at the same time) to see actual ring-shaped structure of the city!

 

Would it? It would probably be disappointing and underwhelming. Especially when compared to the Torment experience. There is a sweetspot when it comes to games giving the player information. Most games today...they overshoot it. Let's stick with Bioware as we've all played their games. Do you think the npc's are more believable in BG/BG2 or in DA:O. I would say the BG's. But why is this? The npc's in DA:O are fully voiced, have (what seems like) hours of dialogue, their own quest arcs, more detailed forms, etc. Well, I think that the IE games had a certain magic to them. Think of all the energy you had to put into Torment or the BG's. You were led to your image of these games instead of shown an image of these games. I'll explain. When dealing with npc's, you had sparse voice acting and a character portrait, that's about it. So all that other information was superimposed onto the character by the player. My perception of Jahiera or Dak'kon could be markedly different from another player's. This applies to all aspects of those games. When exploring Irenicus' Dungeon or The Smoldering Corpse Bar, we are given a beautiful scene, some flavor dialogue, music, and ambient sound (can I just go ahead and say that the ambient sound in Torment is possibly the most unfortunately overlooked thing in gaming). To breathe real life into these scenes, we have to superimpose a lot of information. So even though we are both imaging the heat or the smell or the thickness of the air, what we are perceiving could be drastically different. Yet despite that difference, the experience could be powerful for both of us.

 

The stimulation of imagination is something that games just don't do. It's not because people are bad at making games or gamers are hopelessly plebeian and lazy, but because the constant push of using exciting new technology (and getting sales just by virtue of having the latest bells and/or whistles) has been a big race of making the use of imagination less and less necessary. Unfortunately, we've lost the magic of games like Ultima 7 or Torment as we've had this tech race to inundate our senses with the latest thing. I think that a clear defiance of this trend would stand out vividly against the brown and bloom landscape of modern games. Gameplay leading a person to use his imagination to create a living world out of the game he is playing...what a novel idea!

I'm not going to give you an absurd list of demands...

 

I would dare you, as a lesbian myself, to make a game with a gay/lesbian protagonist.

 

I can think of half a dozen AAA-rpg's that do just that.

 

Would a lot of people be against a gay protagonist? Yes. Yes they would. But, I think if you wrote it in a mature, adult way with respect towards the character and even the culture as an added bonus, you could have something special.

 

To whom?

 

I would even dare you to go so far as to make, say, a Muslim protagonist.

 

I can't even tell who's trolling anymore. But I think this is one that had me going for a few paragraphs.

 

*sigh* Back in my day, trolling used to mean something.

Created this acc just to say this: SHADOWRUN, now this would be awesome, a cyberpunk rpg with trolls, elves, orcs. Turn based or real time with pause and isometric view. Or peharps GURPS CYBERPUNK (remenber that fallout was intended to use GURPS system).

 

You guys could start easy with a low budge 20 hour long game just to test to see if it a success, a partnership with steam to launch the game would be cool too.

I am not even sure what I want more, Planescape Torment 2 in space or Arcanum 2 in 3D. More seriously, I would love to play any new RPG, developed by Obsidian - if it is PC friendly.

Since you have experience working with Bethesda's open-world properties, I would LOVE to see a game similar to the Elder Scrolls or Fallout with COOP! Create your own IP, and figure out a way to make it work since Bethesda likely never will.

 

I'm sure you'd love donating 25 million dollars to that cause. Throw on top of that a frugal 15 million dollar marketing campaign and I'd say we'd have a very believable kickstarter campaign.

I notice there are a lot of people against doing anything planescape related because no matter what, it wouldn't be as successful as the first one.

 

I've not read one person who has said that. I have read a lot of other good responses as to why it would be a horrible idea.

I want you to go back to the good old days when games had good writing. Don't waste time or money on voice acting! Text, text, text! In New Vegas, throughout the whole game all I saw was wasted potential because you needed to have every line voiced.

 

3D, Isometric, Single Player, Multiplayer, whatever, doesn't matter to me. Just give me a game with good writing, good characters, a well developed world, a plot that isn't "you are the chosen one".

 

I will give you all my money if you do this. If you decide on something else, I will only pledge $50.

@CahiersDuViday

 

Not only that but I'm not sure that Planescape: Torment would actually be so great by today's standards. And some can HERESY! all they want at that, but rose-tinted glasses shouldn't play any part in a discussion like this. Obsidian should make something new, not republish something ancient (GoG does that).

Cyberpunk RPG

Preferably 2D or 3D Isometric with Turn Based Combat or better Baldur's Gate like combat

4-6 member party with deep character development and customization

Augmentations,implants,conspiracies,guns and please whatever you do no ''chosen one''

saves the world.

Finally,i know i am getting ahead of myself but i would like to at least have the option of a DRM

free version,in other words no STEAM,etc

 

Alternatively, i would go for Arcanum 2 or Vampire the Masquerade.

Oh, and more...

 

I'd like to see Obsidian concentrate on a world this time, on a unique IP, and something strange. The co-op idea is nice, too, where anyone can make choices and that can screw things up for the party unless you have someone with the correct talents to make things right.

 

But nothing overly ambitious, just something that can be completed in 2-4 hours, 4 tops. But something that has lots of replayability due to the choices on offer, and due to how alien the world is actually having players miss out on stuff because they simply didn't understand how A or B worked the first time around.

 

Not only that, but once you have a basis, you can expand upon it with expansion packs and DLC, and you could even fund those through Kickstarter if this is popular. I think Starting Small

I'd pretty much fund wathever Obsidian decides to do, truth be told.

 

I'm only looking for two things: an interesting story and great characters. I can adapt to the rest

IMO it doesn't have to be a sequel to any established IP, nor does it have to be isometric/turnbased; these are just the old school trappings of the type of game we want, which is a cRPG with a good story and solid RPG mechanics.

 

N.B. Obsidian! that's what we're really after here!

Private Detective RPG. I think the genre would work exceptionally well for a role playing game because there are so many different archetypes a player can branch into. Will your character be a Sherlock Holmes, solving crimes with his keen observation and deep intellect? Or will he be a Phillip Marlowe style of gumshoe who isn't afraid to solve a case with his fists every once in a while?

 

I'd love it if you all made a sequel to Alpha Protocol as well, but I feel like throwing money into Kickstarter just so you can take it and give it all to a ginormous publisher like SEGA to lease the intellectual property rights defeats the philosophical underpinnings of the funding model.

Anything even remotely like BG / PST / IWD, all of my money. We are desperate for a good story with complex gameplay. Give pleeeaaase.

What I'd really like? Alpha Protocol done right. Doesn't have to be the same IP, obviously, but a single-protagonist spy-setting RPG with the emphasis on narrative.

 

I enjoyed Alpha Protocol, but despite how impressive the branching narrative was, the emphasis on the clunky combat and some of the flawed implementation really left it feeling like it could have been so much more. Here's what I'd like to see:

 

Firstly, setting: A spy setting is cool. The problem with Alpha Protocol is it wasn't executed properly. If the player is a lone agent on the run, make the player feel like a lone agent on the run. Don't give the player lavish safehouses and spy bases and constant video contact with other agents. Leave the player in a dingy basement safehouse with a small list of contacts and a telephone. Make the question of "who can you trust" mean something - the choice of who to trust in Alpha Protocol didn't much change how the game played out. The characters sure betrayed each other a lot, but very seldom was Thorton himself double-crossed. This really detracts from the setting.

 

Secondly, gameplay - Alpha Protocol tried to do too many things here. Designing levels such that they could be played either as a stealthy character or as someone shooting everything in sight simply lead to clunky gameplay. The focus should be narrowed - take away all the weapon classes except for pistol (since when do spies walk around with assault rifles?), and have stealth be the staple of most levels. Flesh out the stealth mechanics, and design the character skills likewise (how do you sneak rather than do you sneak or do you shoot).

 

Which leads into character skills - as the emphasis of this sort of game would be in the narrative anyway, give character skills more goddamn relevance in the narrative. If you specialize in martial arts, give the player the option to disarm someone holding him at gunpoint where he otherwise could not. If you specialize in hacking, let that give the player the option to dig up information that would not otherwise be available for use in dialogue. Stuff like that. Nearly every skill should have some sort of relevance in the narrative. Reactivity to character skill is the defining characteristic of an RPG - limiting this reactivity to the clunky gameplay was one of the reasons Alpha Protocol didn't work as well as it could have.