Chris Avellone at Gamespot

[Volourn]

"Um, no. "

 

Bah. You no fun. You mean DON'T want to play the crappiest games I can think of? LOL

[Darth_Radnor]

Chris A. is cool. If there were a KOTOR 3, I hope he's the lead designer again.

[Yst]

While I certainly favour story based games, I can understand the point that not all games require stories, or in depth ones.

 

A great number of console gamers are convinced that Ikaruga is one of the great games of the last decade, and I can see why.

 

But is that because of story? Well, I indeed once heard someone attempt to sum up the story:

 

One upon a time...there was a boy who could change polarity.

 

The End.

 

Heh.

[Tanuvein]

I have to question why two of those people are even in that article.

 

The other three are deffinitely fantastic though.

[kirottu]

I have spent a large part of my subconscious life trying to figure out the proper way to greet cats and am nearing a breakthrough.

 

I sure hope he shares that knowledge with others.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Nice article. I found it interesting that CA was considering the JRPG design approach, as in write your story, then write your game (and system) around the story.

 

MGS rocks, especially considering that it's writer considers it an action game.

 

TLJ another personal favourite of mine.

 

The cat thing is easy. You just have to know that they know that you know but pretend you dont :D

[kirottu]

The cat thing is easy. You just have to know that they know that you know but pretend you dont  :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ah! Right! I understand now... Just one little question: know what?

[Lcaus Scuks]

Obsidian+Bethesda=Fallout 3

Obsidian+Irrational=System Shock 3

Obsidian+Fun.com=Planescape 2

Developers will never team up for great games, they have their own projects to worry about.

I wonder if it was an accident that DOTT, Grim Fandango and Full Throttle were good games. Should I get Psychonauts ?

Chris Avellone didn't write the Torment dialogue all by himself, he had professional help from very knowledgeable people that aren't at Obsidian but could be hired. Tim Schafer forgets that it's not his game it's the team's game; "it makes the world real" - I wonder how real is the world in Psychonauts ... This guy is funny, how the hell did he get in the industry "by accident" because it was great need of him ?

Ken Levine wants to send a message to all the developers out there: I hate games with unskipable cutscenes, shame on you all who do these things, I want to make my own cutscenes when I play the game.

#1: Chris from Avalon

#2: Ragnar Tornquist

#3: Ken Levine

#4: those people who say that "they write the story" not "we write the story, we design games" it's like the games wouldn't exist without them

 

Tim hates all those bad stories everywhere, Chris wants to beat some sense into Tim, Ragnar likes DoTT, Ken doesn't like Hideo's cutscenes and games and Hideo is all about games for the masses if you have to throw a story there to make the game more appealing and engaging then so be it.

[Nartwak]

I have spent a large part of my subconscious life trying to figure out the proper way to greet cats and am nearing a breakthrough.

 

I sure hope he shares that knowledge with others.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You salute them.

 

Also: Great link Mad_Scientist.

[Creston]

On an unrelated subject, anyone else getting the feeling that Tim Schafer has all the enthusiasm of an impotent man in a brothel for this article?

 

Geez, Tim, you aren't restricted to a paragraph, you know.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was rather disappointed in his comments, too, and not just because of the shortness. He, um, doesn't really seem too thrilled with his work or the gaming industry in general. =/

 

I find Ragnar T

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I doubt he will lose any sleep over that. He has more than his fair share of adoring fans.

[Yst]

I hope sincerely that storytelling can get the attention it well deserves in the world of gaming, sooner rather than later. Like many things, it continues to be lost in the shuffle much of the time, lost in the sheer, disorganised madness that so many game development projects turn into.

 

As it is, game publishers continue, for the most part, to fail to think like purveyors of a highly profitable artform. Most game publishers and developers alike seem to somehow have taken the lessons learned by managerial science, mainstream media, large industry and collaborative artwork and thrown all those lessons right out the window, favouring instead for the whole of the development process especially a level of stupid, chaotic disorganisation that would normally seem more appropriate to a dorm full of first-year soon-to-be-drop-out undergrad engineering students.

 

I hope that game development and publishing both face some major restructuring over the next 10 years, because it doesn't seem that the creative process and the business end of things are, together, or independently, functioning is a sane and productive manner at present, conducive to the creation of great works of art media.

[tmp]

and I haven't played anything done by Tornquist, so I can't say if he's any good or not)

... OMG. You, shop, the Longest Journey, now. :">

[Yst]

and I haven't played anything done by Tornquist, so I can't say if he's any good or not)

... OMG. You, shop, the Longest Journey, now. :">

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wow, I've been caught up so much in whoring Planescape: Torment out to everyone I know for the past couple years, I'd forgotten what a masterpiece of storytelling The Longest Journey was. Though certainly, I've continued to look forward to Dreamfall.

 

I'll definitely have to remember to go back to getting people playing that game :D

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

TLJ was brilliant. Wasnt expecting it to be, but it was. But like all adventure games, it's very much a one off.

 

Well worth getting at todays price.

[Darthmicro]

In Electronic Gaming Monthly, Afterthoughts for KOTOR 2. CA says he liked The Empire Strikes Back. But in the Article it said he would never do an ending with like it.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

It's quite possible to like things you would never do. Different media usually requires a different approach.

 

MGS III is amazing. The graphics are jaw dropping stuff.

[Drakron]

Yes but I prefere MGS2 pacing ...

 

MGS3 gives a bit of the story at start, then it gives a little more story and then explains everything at the end but it does not give background detail on the Cobras and you really have to guess Ocelot background.

 

And I wish he drops the "you have x minutes to beat the boss", true that it raises tension but I actually got the MiGs because I run out of time against The Boss.

 

The best game I played from Kojima was ZOE2 ... great story pacing and great action (even if it have that anoying "cross swords sequence ...).

[Grifman]

In Electronic Gaming Monthly, Afterthoughts for KOTOR 2.  CA says he liked The Empire Strikes Back.  But in the Article it said he would never do an ending with like it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Avellone says he wouldn't do another Empire Strikes Back ending because of fan complaints. Well, I like Avellone's work, but he needs to get a clue:

 

It wasn't the Empire Strikes Back (ESB) ending that people hated, it was the totally screwed up, futzzed, truncated ending that they hated:

 

1) The Ebonhawk falls to its apparent destruction then magically appears at the end to fly away our hero

 

2) There is an unresolved confrontation between GOTO and T3

 

3) Mira appears magically, fights Hanharr, then magically disappears

 

4) Though you hear about the future of your comrades through Kreia, you see nothing of them at the end - they just disappear, presumably in the disappearing/appearing Ebonhawk

 

It's clear that the game was rushed out with all these loose ends through looking at the files that were left behind when completion of the ending was stopped. Based upon what I've read, had the planned ending been carried out - a confrontation of your comrades vs. Kreia, the opportunity to redeem Kreia, and the possible death of some comrades who sacrifice themselves for you - people would have been raving about the end. Instead we got a badly unedited, truncated ending that made little if any sense.

 

That's what people are complaining about - we didn't get an ESB ending, we got a WTF ending.

[Azarkon]

Come now.

 

I doubt, in the interest of avoiding a Troika-like demise, employees of Obsidian, including MCA, is allowed to say that KOTOR2's ending is a pile of big stinking poo because publisher Lucas Arts didn't give them enough time to finish the game.

 

A Empire Strikes Back ending may simply be the best way of expressing one's discontent without coming out and saying it directly. Reading between the lines, in this respect, maybe necessary...

[GhostofAnakin]

Avellone says he wouldn't do another Empire Strikes Back ending because of fan complaints.  Well, I like Avellone's work, but he needs to get a clue:

 

It wasn't the Empire Strikes Back (ESB) ending that people hated, it was the totally screwed up, futzzed, truncated ending that they hated:

 

****

Spoiler stuff

****

 

That's what people are complaining about - we didn't get an ESB ending, we got a WTF ending.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Good job with posting spoilers.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Yes but I prefere MGS2 pacing ...

 

MGS3 gives a bit of the story at start, then it gives a little more story and then explains everything at the end but it does not give background detail on the Cobras and you really have to guess Ocelot background.

 

And I wish he drops the "you have x minutes to beat the boss", true that  it raises tension but I actually got the MiGs because I run out of time against The Boss.

 

The best game I played from Kojima was ZOE2 ... great story pacing and great action (even if it have that anoying "cross swords sequence ...).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I always resented when MGS II made me do something active. I really enjoyed the story, but I'd prefer to watch someone else play it. MGS III I got on very well with, once I realised that I was playing a prologue and not the game proper.

 

Boss was kicking my butt, and leaving my weapons scattered all over the place. But reverting back to my starter gun sorted her out. Volgin was much more annoying.

[JediExile]

I'm a big fan of BG BG2, but I couldn't get into NWN. For one thing there are no cool NPCs with voice sets that you can form into a group of 6 and quest with. Another thing that really bothered me is that the equipment didn't look like AD&D equipment. Wizards wore some kind of strange looking pants and shirts instead of robes. Plate and leather armor looked very goofy as did weapons. I really hope they do an overhaul on the graphics for NWN2.

[Drakron]

Boss was kicking my butt, and leaving my weapons scattered all over the place. But reverting back to my starter gun sorted her out. Volgin was much more annoying.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The Boss have eye problems, put in Snow cammo and she cannot spot you very well.

 

I actually beat her in CQC, after she was down its MK.22 shoots to the head until she gets up.

 

I got mad at Volgin and decided to just screw the Cold War camo and empty my auto weapins at him ... thinking about it I could have use stun granades.

 

The only boss I got really pissed at was The Pain, I wanted his camo and decided I had enough of the "magical" food and just shoot him with a auto weapon ...