-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Chris Avellone has left Obsidian Entertainment
- Thread starter Drazgul
- Start date
D
Deleted member 59090
Unconfirmed Member
Wherever he goes I really hope he gets to direct his own game again.
Eh, if "no crazy settings" means we'll get more stuff like Eora you can keep your craziness.
Yeah, it bugs me as a customer (when do I get the product I partially upped my pledge for!?) and bugs me as someone whose like their work (what I've experienced anyway) and doesn't want to see him and his old co-workers completely fall apart. :/I was wondering about this myself the other day. But I actually listened to parts of the interview podcast itself, and Avellone did mention the PoE novella. It was a short casual line, but he says that he completed the novella "a few weeks ago" and that he hasn't heard any feedback for it yet, but he would be happy to make any revisions required. I... hope that doesn't mean he's not even on speaking terms with the team anymore.
I noticed Josh Sawyer has been quiet on Twitter for the last couple of months, after being fairly prolific before that. This is all pretty sad.
Man, now I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's more management going in some screwy direction and that maybe we should be more concerned about Obsidian on a whole rather than just a creative conflict between Chris Avellone and everyone else. :/
Obsidian has some top talent at their disposal. After PoE, Josh Sawyer deserves some mad credit. At this point I think he can stand at equal footing with Avellone. PoE has been a great first installment and I'm sure the expansion and sequel can bring the series to the pantheon of BG or PS:T.
I'll be so heartbroken if they departed on bad terms, but I wouldn't be worried about Avellone or Obsidian at this point. Both have talent and prospects and I know both will continue to deliver us quality games.
It seems like he's spending a lot of time on InXile projects already.
exmachina64
Banned
This is far more serious than that.
O.DOGG
Member
You can actually see him two or three times during the shots around the office or the mass shot of the whole team. But yeah, I thought his absence was very strange.
Or just go with 'Wasteland: Van Buren'
No need to pay Bethesda that licensed money.
Also PoE was a bit of a disappointment.
Really? How so? It went above and beyond my already high expectations.
It's widely held that Avellone's companions were the best written in PoE as an aside.
And what's interesting about the idea that Sawyer deserves mad credit after PoE is that he didn't do THAT great of a job. Altho there's a lot of whiny criticism about PoE that essentially boils down to "we wish you spent more money on this game because the stronghold is bad and the quest density is not as good as BG2," there's a lot of extremely valid criticisms about PoE like engagement, bad attributes, AI, combat, bad ability design stemming from the rabid avoidance of hard counters, and all that can be laid at Sawyer's door.
Honestly, Sawyer made a lot of critically bad decisions in PoE that have been swept under the rug because it's been almost 15 years since Baldur's Gate and such and we all really wanted PoE.
He hasn't necessarily covered himself with glory in that game, even though overall it WAS a good game.
Avellone's companions were good, but so were the rest of the companions. Durance and Mother were amazing, but I didn't feel like they were above the rest of the roster.
There are valid criticisms about PoE - but I don't feel like any of them has anything to do with engagement or combat - All of which were very good. Engagement made the combat way better than the benny hill run fest it often was in old IE games.
AS for the attributes - I've played P&P for years, I have played almost any system out there, and I feel like PoE has not only a good system for a video game, but something that is quite a statement as a system in general. The freedom to create your character in PoE is something very few other systems have managed to accomplish. I know RPGcodex hated it, but quite frankly - It's one of the best things any RPG has done in a long ass time.
The game did become much easier in second half, and some encounters were not as interesting as they could have been. But that's not just on Sawyer, it's mostly area design. As a game lead, Sawyer more than proved himself in my eyes. Quest density was also a problem, but not as big as some people make it out to be considering the budget and the quality of the quests.
I feel like it's not fair to hold this game to BG2's standard - BG2 is a second iteration, built on existing tools and frameworks. Let them at least get to the expansion or sequels, where they don't have to spend half the time figuring the system and tools out, before we compare the series to Baldur's Gate.
Cut content? Veto? U wot. Got any sources where I can hear more? Mind you it's not that I'm doubting you, it's more that I've not heard of this and am genuinely curious.
Don't blame Sawyer for every single thing wrong with PoE. It's just not true. Obsidian programmers are really bad anyway, PoE was filled with bugs and every time they release a patch they break something. There are also bugs reported that they don't fix for whatever reason. That's not Sawyer's fault.
Attributes was off hand, and I will say that Might/Dex/Intellect were actually incredibly well designed, he just then went off and did the con and the "twins" pretty poorly
And yea I'm blaming nobody for bad bugs, bugs are ultimately an issue of man hours, and when game developers are short of funds like Obsidian are they have to make the tough trade off between amount of content and polish.
The benny hill fest thing comes down to personal preference I'll grant that, but without a doubt there ARE some overarching issues RPG Codex brought up that aren't just whining. The stand still and deliver MMO description of combat was fairly valid, the lack of different enemy designs was as well,
Regardless the future of Obsidian most definitely isn't in Sawyer's hands, it's in Ferg's hands. Which are a very different set of much more business minded hands.
And yea I'm blaming nobody for bad bugs, bugs are ultimately an issue of man hours, and when game developers are short of funds like Obsidian are they have to make the tough trade off between amount of content and polish.
The benny hill fest thing comes down to personal preference I'll grant that, but without a doubt there ARE some overarching issues RPG Codex brought up that aren't just whining. The stand still and deliver MMO description of combat was fairly valid, the lack of different enemy designs was as well,
Regardless the future of Obsidian most definitely isn't in Sawyer's hands, it's in Ferg's hands. Which are a very different set of much more business minded hands.
Just no.
... please don't let people channel their disappointment about this into a post-hoc emotional re-evaluation of the achievement that is PoE.
So is every other complex RPG.
Not really. I don't remember inXile breaking so much stuff fixing Wasteland 2.
You're right, most complex RPGs are a lot more buggy at release than PoE was.
WL2 was buggy as hell from what I remember.
Not to mention it was far less impressive in terms of content...
EDIT: Oh, while fixing stuff. Well, WL2 was very unpolished at launch, so there's that.
Yup.
Sure, but what's important is if they fix it or not. Obsidian hasn't been exactly impressive when it comes to fixing those bugs. Recently they had to release a hotfix for a hotfix if I'm not mistaken.
Yes, which is why I say programmers at Obsidian (fixing bugs) are bad. If a game released mostly polished with some bugs keeps adding problems instead of fixing everything like they (mostly) did with Wasteland 2 then something is very wrong with that team. Every single thing I reported about Wasteland 2 was fixed. My friend has been reporting bugs for PoE for months now, almost nothing he has reported has been fixed.
But anyway, my point was that there are problems with PoE that are not Sawyer's fault (since everyone is complaining about him now for some reason, as if he was the cause why Avellone left).
Basileus777
Member
It's hardly post-hoc. The game was a disappointment when it released too.
Well the first week was pretty bad in terms of bugs. They fixed it up relatively quickly though.
Hardly.
You'd have to have a rather loose definition of "disappointment".
I cannot argue with you on whether it was personally a disappointment for you, but it has lived up to everything they promised and more. Maybe the theme or content weren't to your liking, but you can hardly argue that the game did not deliver on its premise.
Yeah, totally. I remember being in the GAF thread for it, tears all around. And not that I care, but the same goes for mainstream reviews. The >90% approval rating on Steam also seems like a good indicator of widespread disappointment. And the fact that I changed my avatar for the first time in 6 years.
If the game disappointed you then I can't help you with that.
I was just defending Sawyer. Criticizing him isn't the topic either.
Well the question is, was it push factors from Obsidian or pull factors from inExile
Obsidian vs inEX is really at the heart of this. More than likely we're not going to know unless someone says something on FB or some other source of hot goss for awhile, until his next role is announced.
Obsidian vs inEX is really at the heart of this. More than likely we're not going to know unless someone says something on FB or some other source of hot goss for awhile, until his next role is announced.
VistraNorrez
Member
If he's moving to InXile but they didn't announce it yet, I wonder what could be the reasons. They didn't want people to think it was a falling out at Obsidian? Didn't work out so well if that's the case. I've only ever seen Obsidian and InXile respect the hell out of each other, too. And I don't think it would surprise much of anyone if people went from one company to the other. They are working on different properties. I don't really see them as competitors in the least. In fact I'd say the success of one is good for the other.
I'm going to guess he just wants to freelance. Being tied down to one company probably felt constricting. He can explore his creativity better this way if he's really trying to figure out his next big project. If I was the other RPG devs I'd be calling him, that's for sure.
I'm going to guess he just wants to freelance. Being tied down to one company probably felt constricting. He can explore his creativity better this way if he's really trying to figure out his next big project. If I was the other RPG devs I'd be calling him, that's for sure.
I wouldn't put money on him going to InXile. Fargo seemed as surprised as anyone, and I'm sure he's getting offers from all across. InXile is still a small studio, so he might be more inclined to go in different directions.
Not to me it wasn't.
Shake Appeal
Member
No, I think you may have concocted this.
Would inXile really be trying to snake people from Obsidian? The studios are very friendly with each other so something like that would surprise me.
AntiFacebook
Member
And how many of those were made by Obsidian?
TharpDaddy
Member
As much as I'd love to see Avellone join BioWare or Bethesda or another developer that could use more writing talent, i'd really like to see a new studio built around him. Letting him pump out more games while also having the next generation of game writers and developers learn under him would be fantastic. It's sad that the signs point to the split between he and Obsidian not being amicable.
Not enough. What's your point? That most companies don't even attempt what Obsidian accomplishes with aplomb? I already knew that.
Yeah, there really isn't any evidence of that so far.
TharpDaddy
Member
I think that of the developers he could join they're one of the most reasonable choices to be guessing at. Avellone and inXile have a good working relationship and they make the type of games he specializes in, along with having people he's been coworkers with in the past. inXile would be a good home for him but beyond that there's no real evidence he'd be joining them yeah.
CrichtonKicks
Member
Obsidian has been pretty up front that they are going to announce the PoE expansion plans the week after E3.
Basileus777
Member
When was anyone talking about anything other than their personal opinions here?
It delivered on its premise, the quality of it was just less than I had hoped, especially when it came to the writing and setting.
Have faith in Feargus. He's kept that studio running well for years when so many other RPG developers have either shut down or been bought out by a larger company.