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Chris Avellone has left Obsidian Entertainment

C

CrichtonKicks

Member
duckroll said:
He owes us one for PoE too... :(
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And maybe that's at the root of this- he just wants to be in a position where he just does creative. I guess it's possible that he could have requested a buyout and still stayed on at Obsidian in a purely creative capacity but I can see how that would be awkward.

Man, I'd be in heaven if he replaced Rihanna Pratchet as the goto freelancer you hire when you don't have in house writers worth a damn...She is pretty much the complete and total definition of bland.
 
G

GECK

Member
Alastor3 said:
Why would he move to InXile seriously ?? Even if he is related to them, Obsidian have waayy more presence than InXile with all their past games
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Well he wouldn't have to move for one and he has a long history with Fargo. Financially though, I'm not sure Inxile could afford him unless Fargo dips into his own pocket.

Maybe he just continues to do contract work at xile and dabbles into other industries. Game design in general is pretty rough for creative types so I could see burn out being a factor.
 
H

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
CrichtonKicks said:
And maybe that's at the root of this- he just wants to be in a position where he just does creative. I guess it's possible that he could have requested a buyout and still stayed on at Obsidian in a purely creative capacity but I can see how that would be awkward.

Man, I'd be in heaven if he replaced Rihanna Pratchet as the goto freelancer you hire when you don't have in house writers worth a damn...She is pretty much the complete and total definition of bland.
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That wouldnt really result in good stuff anyways. If he had problems at Obsidian with his stories being repackaged and blendered then acting as a freelancer, especially for major devs, would result in the same thing as Pratchet. Your writing is of distant importance and is merely a framework to hang gameplay on. Which result in shit like Tomb Raider or Crysis 2. At least Obsidian values story and writing.
 
C

CrichtonKicks

Member
HK-47 said:
That wouldnt really result in good stuff anyways. If he had problems at Obsidian with his stories being repackaged and blendered then acting as a freelancer, especially for major devs, would result in the same thing as Pratchet. Your writing is of distant importance and is merely a framework to hang gameplay on. Which result in shit like Tomb Raider or Crysis 2. At least Obsidian values story and writing.
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We don't know that's why he left Obsidian. Some are projecting comments about his limited participation in PoE into the reason he left. As noted above he does a lot of writing in other people's playgrounds totally of his own volition so it's clearly something he digs. So he may not have a lot of heartburn freelancing.
 
A

Aaron D.

Member
I wish him all the best and look forward to experiencing any new project he's involved with.

Man, and I thought Obsidian were going to announce a Pillars expansion at E3? Nothing against the original team, but my expectations for the future of the IP are severely tempered by this news.
 
C

CrichtonKicks

Member
Aaron D. said:
I wish him all the best and look forward to experiencing any new project he's involved with.

Man, and I thought Obsidian were going to announce a Pillars expansion at E3? Nothing against the original team, but my expectations for the future of the IP are severely tempered by this news.
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He had almost nothing to do with any of the creative on PoE so why did you assume he would have a lot to do with the expansion? If anything people were expecting an Avellone-helmed Kickstarter from Obsidian totally separate from the Pillars world.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Aaron D. said:
I thought he was heavily involved in writing the backstory and lore for Pillars.
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I don't think so. Most of the lore in PoE is Sawyer. The entire game seems to be his baby. Avellone contributed narrative oversight, and he was supposed to write two companions for the game, but even those companions arcs got edited down and rewritten by other writers on the game because they couldn't fit his exact vision into the project.
 
C

CrichtonKicks

Member
Aaron D. said:
I thought he was heavily involved in writing the backstory and lore for Pillars.
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Nope. Someone posted various quotes about his involvement earlier in the thread but while he had a lot to do with Durance and the Grieving Mother he had very little role in anything else on the creative side of the game.
 
A

AlimNassor

Banned
~Kinggi~ said:
We are known as Neof*gs over there.

Seriously though the Codex is a scary place sometimes, lots of repulsive language and angry people that think everything is shit apparently. Then they just say they are trolling everyone.
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They aren't. It's basically /v/-lite these days. Everything is shit, the old was amazing. They universally hate Witcher 3.
 
O

Ogimachi

Member
AlimNassor said:
They aren't. It's basically /v/-lite these days. Everything is shit, the old was amazing. They universally hate Witcher 3.
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Not true at all.

duckroll said:
Ah, that's interesting. It seems like every single project where he worked closely with Sawyer has resulted in cancellation, from the very first project (Fallout 3)! We'll never see a proper collaboration. >_<

I agree with the larger point though. I posted as much earlier on when the news broke. Avellone hasn't had a major contribution to an Obsidian project for a long time now. He was in a supervisory role while everyone else was having more fun doing the actual design and writing. It's pretty unfortunate.



He owes us one for PoE too... :(
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I think what happened to PoE shows it wouldn't have been much of a collaboration per se. A shame, really.
I'm sure MCA will land on his feet, but he's not exactly a good fit in many studios IMO. I doubt we'll see him in a major role unless he joins a smaller company.
 
K

KR_remix

Member
I honestly don't know what to think about this.

I was really looking forward to the rumored Avellone Obsidian kickstarter, but that was just a rumor anyways. :/

It definitely seemed like he wasn't getting to do much creatively lately, especially after hearing about his PoE characters being taken over/edited down. Hopefully this leads to his talent being used better in the future instead of just as a stretch goal.
 
Z

ZoddGutts

Member
A fucking shame really, PoE turned out to be decent but nothing special, the most interesting parts of that game we're ideas from MCA. I really wanted another MCA headed game, hope he at least gets a chance at another company.
 
E

exmachina64

Banned
duckroll said:
Ah, that's interesting. It seems like every single project where he worked closely with Sawyer has resulted in cancellation, from the very first project (Fallout 3)! We'll never see a proper collaboration. >_<

I agree with the larger point though. I posted as much earlier on when the news broke. Avellone hasn't had a major contribution to an Obsidian project for a long time now. He was in a supervisory role while everyone else was having more fun doing the actual design and writing. It's pretty unfortunate.
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I always wanted to see an Avellone/Sawyer collaboration get released, but at least they probably influenced each other in their time working together at Obsidian.

I take solace in that.
 
I

injurai

Banned
duckroll said:
I don't think so. Most of the lore in PoE is Sawyer. The entire game seems to be his baby. Avellone contributed narrative oversight, and he was supposed to write two companions for the game, but even those companions arcs got edited down and rewritten by other writers on the game because they couldn't fit his exact vision into the project.
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Sawyer did a damn good job. He really deserved to lead a game after all these years. Easily one of my favorite developers. Great community involvement too.
 
T

Turin Turambar

Member
I don't know Chris Avellone personally, of course. But... I have the funny feeling that his dream game after finally getting outside publisher's control wasn't a nostalgia-driven remake of a 15 years old game, which was based on 30 years old tabletop RPGs; but something more novel. PoE was more Sawyer's game and Avellone's.
 
A

Aaron D.

Member
duckroll said:
I don't think so. Most of the lore in PoE is Sawyer. The entire game seems to be his baby. Avellone contributed narrative oversight, and he was supposed to write two companions for the game, but even those companions arcs got edited down and rewritten by other writers on the game because they couldn't fit his exact vision into the project.
Click to expand...

CrichtonKicks said:
Nope. Someone posted various quotes about his involvement earlier in the thread but while he had a lot to do with Durance and the Grieving Mother he had very little role in anything else on the creative side of the game.
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Understood. Thanks for the clarification, gang.

I remember watching a Developer Documentary video for PoE and they had a gentleman on staff who was supposed to be this writing genius, laboring over world lore creation. Apparently (paraphrasing here) he exhaustively researches real-world history, language & arts, etc. and incorporates that knowledge and how all the pieces fit to together into the world building for his games.

I guess that was Sawyer then? Could be another team lead. I can't find that video I saw earlier. It was a great watch.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Aaron D. said:
Understood. Thanks for the clarification, gang.

I remember watching a Developer Documentary video for PoE and they had a gentleman on staff who was supposed to be this writing genius, laboring over world lore creation. Apparently (paraphrasing here) he exhaustively researches real-world history, language & arts, etc. and incorporates that knowledge and how all the pieces fit to together into the world building for his games.

I guess that was Sawyer then? Could be another team lead. I can't find that video I saw earlier. It was a great watch.
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Yes that's Josh Sawyer. He's a huge history buff. Darklands is one of his favorite RPGs. Lol.
 
P

Patryn

Member
Sotha_Sil said:
People are jumping to the conclusion that this could be referring to dissent within Obsidian, but it could also refer to Obsidian's many canceled projects. They tried pitching KOTOR3 and Alpha Protocol 2 with no success. We know the Aliens and Snow White RPGs were canceled, as well as a rumored Microsoft title dubbed "North Carolina". I'm sure many other pitches went nowhere. Each pitch requires a lot of effort, seeing nothing come of it must suck. Losing out on all those after spending so much time pitching each concept would be grinding after a while. It wouldn't be too surprising to see him go to a non-indie (subsidized?) studio where fears of having your game canceled are very slim.

It could also be a fake picture from the trash heap known as RPGCodex.
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When I learned that Aliens RPG was more or less apparently content complete in that it was playable from start to finish (although obviously extremely rough and needing several months of finishing and polish), and yet it got trashed for Colonial Marines, my heart breaks.
 
D

duckroll

Member
firehawk12 said:
They should just do a Darklands remake sometime.
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He wants to do a spiritual successor to Darklands! He wants to make a RPG set during the holy Roman empire! He wants to make a turn based RPG! He's.... about the only one at Obsidian who wants to do any of those. :(
 
O

Ogimachi

Member
Sijil said:
They've been friends and co workers since Black Isle, that's over a decade. If that's all he can say then I guess shit really hit the fan at Obsidian management. All these years...
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Since 1998, when they worked on Fallout 2. 17 years.
 
O

Ogimachi

Member
Spirit of Jazz said:
Is Obsidan ran by Vince McMahon?

This is hugely disappointing. I fully expect Sawyer and co. to go on making excellent games, but I was really looking forward to a potential Avellone Kickstar.
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That could still happen. Fargo and Avellone talked about making a Van Buren game recently (which InXile trademarked) and I'm sure he wouldn't think twice about making MCA lead.
 
C

CrichtonKicks

Member
What's Obsidian got in the hopper these days? I haven't read of any major layoffs and the PoE team is just about 20 people the last I heard so presumably they have to have something else going on to justify employment for the other 80 or so employees right? I've seen references to the PoE card game and something about World of Tanks or something? If Obsidian is doing non creative contract work just to keep most of the workforce in place then I can see that it might make for some discontent internally.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
Avellone hasn't been doing a ton of work for Obsidian lately anyway. I'm not terribly upset that's he's going to work on non-Obsidian projects full-time.
 
S

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
CrichtonKicks said:
What's Obsidian got in the hopper these days? I haven't read of any major layoffs and the PoE team is just about 20 people the last I heard so presumably they have to have something else going on to justify employment for the other 80 or so employees right? I've seen references to the PoE card game and something about World of Tanks or something? If Obsidian is doing non creative contract work just to keep most of the workforce in place then I can see that it might make for some discontent internally.
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They are working on 2 pathfinder games (a card game and a CRPG), the world of tanks thingy, a POE expansion and if the end of the Pillars documentary is to be believed, Pillars 2.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Sinatar said:
They are working on 2 pathfinder games (a card game and a CRPG), the world of tanks thingy, a POE expansion and if the end of the Pillars documentary is to be believed, Pillars 2.
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Did they ever confirm the Pathfinder CRPG? I thought they just said it was a possibility in the future.
 
D

Drazgul

Member
http://www.pcinvasion.com/chris-avellone-i-dont-think-i-could-ever-stop-being-a-game-designer

In an interview with PC Invasion (to be published tomorrow,) Chris Avellone has confirmed that he’ll be sticking around in the games industry after a surprise departure from Obsidian.

Though he didn’t specifically wish to discuss concrete plans or the reasons for leaving the company he co-founded, when asked whether people can expect more games from him, Avellone said: “I don’t think I could ever stop being a game designer, that’s just where my brain is going to be at until I’m in the coffin.”

For those who may have been concerned that Chris Avellone would be departing the games industry entirely, this should come as a relief.
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That's something, at least! Hopefully he'll able to share what he's up to next soon.
 
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