Yonjuro

Very useful. Thanks Karkarov for this absolute tour de force of a forum post!

Can you say a bit more about what you liked about the writing in D:OS1&2? I liked the game play of the first one enough to buy the second one (though not enough to finish playing it - I was hoping for a better story in the sequel). I thought the writing of the second one was better, but I still never cared enough about it to finish the game. People have different tastes, of course. When I find a game where I care about the characters, then I will enjoy it and play it to completion. Game play and quest design matter to me too (and, generally, I like exploration more than linear stories), but if a game doesn't draw me in somehow, I don't bother with it. I can't even explain why some games draw me in and others don't - so, I am genuinely interested to hear your take on the D:OS's. Deadfire works for me (Pillars 1 less so, but I liked it enough to finish it and liked it a lot more after the expansions came out). Neither of D:OS games drew me in enough to care about them.

I liked the monk class in BG2. It starts out weak but then later on it's the "hold my beer while I beat this arch mage to death with my fists" class (due to high magic resistance). My favorite play through of Pillars1 was a monk, so that was my imported character for Deadfire. I really like the monk abilities and general feel of the class in Deadfire. Single class is the way to go. Who needs another class when you can take on everything unarmed and unarmored?

Fair enough, but you always have the option to board the other ship and then you're back in the game as usual.

That's a good idea. It is consistent with the style of humor in the game and with Eder as a character. It could be that if you leave an area without picking up an animal, it is moved into the stash whenever Eder is with you and he makes a comment (either before you make the transition, or after) about it.

Sure. Obsidian is about to release Pillars 2: Deadfire. If it's good, consider backing or buying the next game they make. Avellone is working on a game with Owlcat games called Kingmaker. If you try that game, and like it, consider backing or buying the next game that they make. Let's see ... yeah ... that's pretty much it.

You keep writing about "slave mentality". Avellone was in upper management at Obsidian and, apparently, had a falling out with others in upper management for reasons that we will never know. Obsidian, as an entity, said nothing bad about him when he left. If you think Obsidian started this, you are imagining things. If you think Obsidian is retaliating against Avellone, you are also imagining things. The class struggle you seem to think is happening here is happening only in your head. In the real world, Avellone is venting his feelings of resentment in public. He is mostly hurting his own reputation and he is attempting to hurt his former co-workers. There is the part they forced an nda on his neck that everyone keep forgetting may be true or not An NDA? It doesn't seem to have worked.

Our laws don't allow that either. Conclusions about Avellone's 'de-ownering' at Obsidian are left as an exercise for the reader.

You keep writing about "slave mentality". Avellone was in upper management at Obsidian and, apparently, had a falling out with others in upper management for reasons that we will never know. Obsidian, as an entity, said nothing bad about him when he left. If you think Obsidian started this, you are imagining things. If you think Obsidian is retaliating against Avellone, you are also imagining things. The class struggle you seem to think is happening here is happening only in your head. In the real world, Avellone is venting his feelings of resentment in public. He is mostly hurting his own reputation and he is attempting to hurt his former co-workers.

The point that I have been trying to make was not that Avellone is necessarily shooting himself in the foot, but rather that a less established person following his example would be shooting themselves in the foot. Still, Avellone certainly isn't helping himself with all of the drama. In any job offer decision, he will get positive points for the good things he has done and negative points for the drama. His reputation may well be enough to outweigh the negatives that he continues to pile up.

Heh, if you say so. At least you acknowledge the possibility that it may not be so. That statement implies that so long as something is legal it cannot be unethical, and I'm sure you understand that's not always the case. Yes, of course it is possible. Perhaps someone at Obsidian did something unethical or perhaps not. None of us know. My point was more along the lines of 'no harm, no foul.' If you can't convince a judge of some obvious wrongness, perhaps you should at least consider that your grievances are just in your head. That is, are you really standing on principle or are you just resentful? It's a good question to ask before shooting yourself in the foot career-wise.

First off, all we know is that Avellone resents Obsidian. We don't know whether they have actually done anything wrong or whether Avellone is just being a jerk. The reason we may suspect the latter is that real grievances are redressed in court or by the relevant government agencies, not on social media. So, I'm going with that explanation. Reasonable people may disagree - we don't really have all of the information. My advice applies to 99% of people, not to Avellone. Avellone may get away with it because of his previous reputation. A less established person will not. Companies read social media posts before making an offer because they now have to. It isn't necessary to be famous or to work in an insular industry for people to hear your publicly stated opinions.

Yup. But by the same token, 99.9% of people aren't public figures and won't get the kind of exposure he does, so it's not going to matter whether they publicize their grievances. Nobody cares if Joe the Janitor tweets that he's owed overtime... probably not even prospective employers. Moot point. It's really more the reverse. Check the news. Several previously unknown people have gotten fired when they inadvertently wrote a famous tweet. Employers now check social media because they now need to. If Joe the Janitor makes a habit of writing bad things about his former employers, he will have trouble finding work, unless there is a major shortage of janitors who can do the work as well as he can. Avellone is having less trouble because there IS a major shortage of people who authored Planescape:Torment.

The man doesn't seem to be having any trouble finding work, though. Note that my comment was addressed to younger people. If you have a reputation of producing solid work, a company might take a risk in hiring you. It is a risk though. If you publicly trashed your previous company, a new company has to weigh the risk that you may later trash them. I stand by the comment, if a younger person mistakes Avellone's sour grapes for heroism, that person will have a very short career.

IDK, I feel like with things GlassDoor and Indeed that might be changing. Granted, reviews in those places are anonymous but companies will definitely loot at their culture and management if it starts to impact their image. Sure. The important word here is anonymous. If there is a systemic problem at a company and the GlassDoor ratings consistently say that the same thing is wrong, a company will try to fix it. Also note that companies perform exit interviews. If they consistently hear from departing employees that X is an issue, they will fix X because having a high turnover rate is expensive. Every company cares about turnover rate.

..... It's a lot of dumb drama going back and forth, but Chris is totally right on one aspect: It never hurts to run paperwork by a lawyer and get their take on it. Agreed. Where he went wrong was in trying to trash his former employer in the public sphere. He is famous and may get away it if he doesn't make a habit of trashing former employers, but it is not a good idea for anyone who plans to get another job.

This really isn't a good look for Avellone. To all of the younger readers, those without a lot of real world job experience, Avellone is giving you a tutorial on what not to do when you leave a job (unless you aren't planning on ever getting another one). Unless your former employer is breaking a law, when you leave, SHUT UP. (In case anyone was wondering, non-compete clauses are not enforceable in California.)

Or, don't hit the level up button.

good advice seeing as how we vomit a little at the thought o' an arcanum sequel. hold breath and vomit? no thanks. HA! Good Fun! I'm not sure that there is anything wrong with Arcanum that writing a completely new game from scratch wouldn't fix. I don't think I've ever had a copy of the game that I could actually run for any length of time so I don't have a strong opinion about the IP.

During the Deadfire Fig campaign, Feargus was answering questions on the Fig Q&A page and somebody brought up Arcanum. Apparently, Feargus talks to someone at Activision every few years about doing something with the Arcanum IP and has had no luck so far. The person who asked him the question started a petition about the issue to send to Activision. Long story short, nobody should hold their breath waiting for an Arcanum sequel.

I would prefer limited voice acting similar to the infinity engine games. I agree with comments, by Gromnir and others, about cost, about subpar voice acting ruining a good game and about good voice acting not saving a bad game. However, those of us who think the above are in the minority. It is a matter of preference and the mob has spoken. If I was making the decision for Obsidian, I would have gone with full voice acting. It's expensive, but it's an investment. More people will probably buy the game as a result (unless the acting is truly terrible) and they will get back the money that they spend on voice acting. What I would like: 1. Good voice acting so that it doesn't hurt the game. It should be possible, it's not like there is a shortage of actors; it just requires a bit of ruthlessness. 2. Voiced lines to be tagged as "necessary" and "other" with a toggle to turn off "other". Necessary would be minimal lines similar to the infinity engine games to establish characters and interactions like Maerwald (who was channeling multiple people) where the voice serves a specific purpose. I don't expect to get item 2, but it would be nice (it would also be useful for market research - How many people use this option? It can tell the developer whether the budget is being well spent in practice - especially if players use that option part way through the game). If item 1 doesn't work out, well, at least we can turn it off (Also useful for the developers to know - How many players think that the voice acting hurts the game? Is our voice pipeline working in practice?).

Well it's obviously Avellone, he's always up to no good. Yes. We should have suspected something when he started amassing that army of huge spiders. Oh, and wyverns.

I'm afraid the situation is far more dire that anyone has thought: Garsten and Sawyer have proven to be nothing more than puppets (and there's video confirmation of this). The true master of this unfolding mystery continues to elude you. One thing is certain: Someone has taken a very personal interest in seeking your death, though why, you are not sure. Your search for answers continues, and the foreboding Cloakwood forest is your next target.

Yes. I think you and Gromnir are on to something. The characters in BG2 are exaggerations. That is what makes them memorable. They are "larger than life" because the few lines that are written about them (and spoken by them) are more evocative than if they were written more realistically. It reminds me of a talk by a neurologist who looks at exaggeration in visual art by looking at which brain areas are active in an MRI. Artists make things seem more real (in the brain) than real things by exaggerating. I'll link to the talk in case anyone is interested. If you care but don't have a lot of time, skip to about minute 33 to get directly to the part about exaggeration. Skip to minute 48 to see how it even works for seagulls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NzShMiqKgQ

kinda contradictory, and identifying the problem... perhaps. minsc did not, in fact, have good writing. clear do not need good writing to strike some kinda chord with the audience. as you noted, minsc had a catchphrase, a hamster, and a couple one-liners. the writing were shallow and, at best, silly. the voice acting and the rodent gimmick were what made minsc popular? probable. kotor 1 hk-47 also did not have particular good writing by any reasonable or meaningful measure. nevertheless, the voice-acting and the gimmick made the assassin robot exceeding popular in spite o' absence o' quality writing. if sidekicks become popular, am suspecting it won't be because o' the writing save for in the most generous definitions o' writing. ****tail napkin length character treatment as 'posed to any kinda actual writing. gonna need hook or gimmick to sell the character, coupled with ______. voice acting? a running gag? dunno. as such, am suspecting if a sidekick becomes liked or popular, it will be a surprise as much to the obsidians as anybody. humor might be a good start, but slapstick humor hasn't been part o' the obsidian repertoire in the past. Fair enough. Minsc and HK-47 were popular due to 'good' writing if we are going to be generous with the word good (good = accomplishes a lot per word) - plus voice acting and some memorable gimmicks. There needs to be enough there to get a sense of the character's personality and the rest happens in the mind of the player. I see your point about humor vis a vis Obsidian. Sure, but Mazzy is an example of a character that didn't cost a lot to write (compared to Jaheira), but was well defined and memorable and also closer to the type of character that Obsidian is likely to write (as opposed to Minsc or Edwin). I agree with you about the 'no room at the inn issue' and its implications for Deadfire. Here's hoping they don't toss a well written sidekick in a dungeon (awaiting certain violation by a shadow lord) guarded by shadow fiends, shadow wolves and skeletons on a map that you have to solve a mystery to find starting on a map you can't even get to until you've already potentiality met 8 other NPCs (not counting Imoen). Mazzy just wanted to rise above the low expectations of others and become a paladin. She was aiming high in life and did nothing to deserve such shabby treatment.