In The Workshop with Christopher Frederic Avellone

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As part of their ongoing In The Workshop series, Koobismo has interviewed Christopher Frederic Avellone. Almost an hour in length, the interview covers a great many subjects, from Obsidian and Mr Avellone's work, to his convention life and Kickstarter.

Among other things, Mr Avellone details how he got work at Interplay (referred to it by a pen-and-paper RPG company, who got 300$ worth of games in return), offers advice on writing for games (smart writing and logical choices made by characters are good), discusses his present and past game projects, what IPs he'd like to work with and more.

Particularly interesting are questions related to Fallout: New Vegas and Obsidian. Mr Avellone mentions that some core elements of their Fallout were dictated by the publisher, such as having a signature city (due to the success of Fallout 3, set in Washington DC) and not interfering with the eastern parts of the United States, where Bethesda games take place. Even more interesting is the part where he explains how Obsidian functions. Unlike post-Fargo Interplay, with its tendency to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate its employees, Obsidian maintains transparency, so that company members have a clear picture of the direction it is taking, its current state and can offer feedback to the Powers That Be.

Link: Karissa Barrows and Phil Barrows with Chris Avellone
 
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* traded to Interplay by his PnP overlords for 300$ (paid in games),
* Lawful Neutral,
* attractiveness of role playing games,
* favourite characters: Fall-From-Grace (Jennifer Hale), exemplifies 180 spins done on D&D cliches,
* recounts writing techniques and tips - eg. companions contribute to the success of the story, logical, plausible, smart approaches to crappy and scary situations are good, eg. Aliens and nuking from orbit, disctinctive elements (look, manner of speech etc.),
* companion design: need to be useful, act as sounding boards for the player, reinforce the themes of the game, using Cass as an example,
* with Obsidian, he wanted to introduce transparency: to avoid Interplay's trend to Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate, that led to its Downfall,
* as such, Feargus is open about Obsidian's direction, what contracts they are pursuing, the state of the company, regular meetings, to avoid confusion about Obsidian,
* currently only working on Eternity, discusses it, mentions will to make Alpha Protocol 2, but Sega is unwilling, which prompts a sad face,
*
* J.E. Sawyer was instrumental: bringing back elements and mechanics from the previous game,
* John Gonzalez, story guy, made a lot of research into the history of Vegas, in an effort to create a retrofuturistic take on the 1950s Vegas,
* development of New Vegas also drew from design done for previous Fallout games,
* some parts came from the PnP Van Buren game Avellone was running: Stealth Boy psychosis in Nightkin, Legion,
* Legion was a result of three different takes, evolving, from Chris Avellone, to J.E. Sawyer, to John Gonzalez,
* Big MT originally robotic military camp,
* loves fan projects,
* notes that Nuka Break gets the level of comedy Fallout is supposed to have,
* his favourite moment in Mass Effect is meeting the Rachni Queen on Noveria, which was great dillemma: genocide or risking another Rachni Queen,
* likes the design for Krogan, Wrex and Elcor,
* discusses RPG projects he'd like to do: the Wire, Firefly, but finds Dr Who hard to design,
* discusses Obsidian's approach to creating a sequel to a pre-existing IP: RESEARCH as much as possible, devour source material, analyze what people respond to, and formulate your own questions,
* Chris's work on comic book scripts, starting with Star Wars,
* breaking into the gaming industry: offer services to Kickstarter projects, make your own mods to showcase your skills; recalls Oscuro,
* MCA's travels all over the world for conferences and conventions, likes PAX the most, due to the "starting in the game industry" panels, where he can answer people's questions,
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Raw list of notes, selected the best for the newspost.
 
Having a signature city would be consistent with Fallout in general, not just 3. The first Fallout had Los Angeles (even it it wasn't called it by name) and the second one had San Francisco. Heck, even Wasteland had Las Vegas!
 
San Francisco is the signature city of FO2? When I think of FO2 I either think of New Reno, or The NCR city.
 
Haha, yeah, there's no real way to argue Fallout or Fallout 2 have signature cities. Most of LA is ruins in Fallout and it's never identified by that name, and it's very late-game content. Whereas Fallout 2 has at least 3 major cities, 4 if you count Vault City. So yeah, that argument really doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It's something Bethesda added.
 
I wouldn't have a problem with a single signature city, if the landscape just wouldn't be so damn compressed. A map-approach similar to Vampire Bloodlines is something I really would love to see in a future Fallout game. That means, a travel map for the city area, where you can jump from location to location, etc. It gives a real sense of scale for the locations, especially if you can see location1 in the distance of location2 and vice versa. Also you wouldn't need to force-fill huge empty or uninteresting areas with random clutter and generic mobs.

Though, we probably will never get that.
 
egalor said:
Christopher Frederic Avellone.
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I only know the third one, who are the first two? I think I've missed these names before.
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I'm not sure I understand the question, but that's simply MCA's full name.

See also how in the Wasteland 2 interview here on NMA he used the initials CFA.
 
Lexx said:
I wouldn't have a problem with a single signature city, if the landscape just wouldn't be so damn compressed. A map-approach similar to Vampire Bloodlines is something I really would love to see in a future Fallout game. That means, a travel map for the city area, where you can jump from location to location, etc. It gives a real sense of scale for the locations, especially if you can see location1 in the distance of location2 and vice versa. Also you wouldn't need to force-fill huge empty or uninteresting areas with random clutter and generic mobs.

Though, we probably will never get that.
Click to expand...
Drakensang was like that, and it worked excelent in that game. It gave you a feeling of size without making the content uninteresting which is what happens in my eyes with games that do it like Bethesda where every space has to be filled somehow.
 
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