Fallout 2 Interview

After much prodding and poking, we were finally able to pull Chris Avellone away from his grueling Neverwinter Nights 2 schedule for a quick chat about his previous experience working on Fallout 2, Fallout 3 (Van Buren), and more.  The exchange:

GB: You were offered a chance to work on the original Fallout, but declined. Who actually offered you the position and what were the circumstances that kept you from joining the team?

Chris: Tim Cain offered me the position (and I sadly suggested he ask Scott Bennie instead), but I couldn’t because I was working full-time on Descent to Undermountain and Planescape. I would rather have ditched DTU, frankly (and I asked to be transferred a year before its release). The people working on it were all solid, but the underlying engine with all the modifications that had been done to it was bad news, as I’m sure people found out. The engine just wasn’t meant to make that kind of game, and it had all sorts of headaches with it. I eventually asked Ferg if I could transfer and work on Planescape full time.

GB: What was your role on Fallout 2? Which areas of the game did you work on?

Chris: I was an area designer, responsible for Vault City, New Reno, the Raider Camp, and most of the Special Encounters. I inherited Vault City from 2 previous inheritors (Leonard, then Ferg), but there was still plenty of room to flesh it out, which was fun. I was also supposed to do the EPA, but that got cut.

GB: Had you played Wasteland or Fountain of Dreams before joining the Fallout 2 team? If so, did either of these titles influence your work on the game?

Chris: Wasteland – many times. Fountain of Dreams – not at all, though it was in the queue for playing for Fallout 3 research. A lot of the Wasteland research was going to factor in to the puzzle design (just general feel, not specific puzzles) for the EPA.

GB: What was it like to be a part of the Fallout 2 development team on a day-to-day basis and what was the general “mood” of the development team as the game progressed? Any fond memories you can share with us?

Chris: It was pretty hectic, but fun. We had a really tight timeframe, and even though it was exhausting at times, having everyone pull together on the frontlines to put things together gave everyone a lot of momentum. It didn’t do much for my health when combined with being on Planescape (I gained 30lbs and strange chest pains), but I was able to recover.

But back to Fallout 2… I guess the most exciting part of it for me was that I finally got to do characters, dialogues, and more exploration-style-playground elements and learn how to set up all the templates and scripts for what I considered a true RPG was like. A lot of the layout stuff factored into the organization for Planescape.

GB: Looking back, is there anything about the development of Fallout 2 that you would have liked to change? Was any content removed due to cost or time constraints that you would have liked to see implemented?

Chris: Less in-jokes, it’s a pretty immature way to design a game (it’s a design directive here at Obsidian that we don’t do in-jokes or cultural references). We ran out of time at the end to do everything we planned (it always happens), so some locations had to be downscaled or cut. I did want to have the EPA location in the game (I put up a rough area doc of that way back when for a Fallout Bible entry), but it was better for the game getting done that we didn’t put it in. I also wish there’d been more time for the Raider Camp, which was pretty empty.

Chris: I was the lead designer for about 3-4 years before resigning (Ferg leaving was the last straw), then the co-designer (creative lead) when Josh came on board. I did rough drafts of initial system mechanics (which we tried out in the pen and paper games, since a turn-based hex system doesn’t matter too much if it’s on paper or in a computer game – Josh rightfully revised a number of these) and did area design, maps, character breakdowns, items, and plot elements for all locations in the game including Hoover Dam, Fort Abandon (Aradesh), and these were passed off to the designers who then revised them and made them their own – some changed a great deal from the initial premise (Hoover Dam, New Zion, the Cyphers, Hangdogs, the Nursery) while others were relatively unchanged (Boulder Dome, Caesar’s Legion Slavers, Daughters of Hecate, and Denver). Before resigning, I’d done the most work on Leavenworth Prison, Denver, Circle Junction, the Boulder Dome, Fort Abandon (Aradesh), and the Military Boot Camp area (The Big Empty). I was probably most looking forward to designing the Nursery, which was a homage to the Agricultural Station in Wasteland (but without the giant animals).

GB: What were Black Isle Studios’ main goals for Fallout 3? How was the third installment going to build on what the first two titles had to offer?

Chris: Before I resigned, the goals were epic, post-apocalyptic world where you fight against a rival party of survivors (I thought this would be a more interesting series of adversaries – instead of a Foozle villain, you have a group that’s a lot like your band – they’re not evil, just have a different approach), have a few more Science-based options for braniac characters to solve problems (Science Boy), and try to push the theme of the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” (bad, quick explanation – it’s a theorem that cooperating with an opponent yields a greater reward than trying to beat them) to explore even new ways of solving situations in role-playing games. I also wanted more gender-based epic options (male players could fight for control of Caesar’s Legion and use them as an army, Postman-style, and female characters could take charge of the insidious medical infrastructure and “midwife” structure” of the Daughters of Hecate as informants to gain power). I did want to include more elements I’d liked from Wasteland in Fallout 3. I didn’t want the game mechanics or view to change much at all, since I didn’t find much wrong with the initial two except for the skill imbalance problems and armor and weapon balance problems.

I also wanted to play around with post-apocalyptic locations in fun ways like the sealed airtight science chambers in the Boulder Dome that you could unlock over the course of the game room by room until its deadly secret was revealed (gasp), and adventuring on the tops of skyscrapers in Denver. I also wanted to explore more with the Brotherhood of Steel, NCR, and slavers… and the unique civil war challenges those organizations were facing within their own faction (the BOS, especially).

I guess what I miss most were the companions you could get. I don’t think I’ve felt the same energy since Torment for the companions you could get over the course of the game – we had a police administration Mr. Handy robot (Job), as a homage to the police admin bot in Wasteland, a cameo appearance from a young girl in Fallout 2 who became a soldier in NCR, a new version of ZAX who’s desperately trying to save the world even as he runs out of CPU space, the Hanged Man, and even members of the rival party you could convince to see things your way. We also had some great “villains” as well, and I am sad they will never see the light of day.

GB: Were any of you at Obsidian interested in acquiring the rights to Fallout 3 when they became available? What was your reaction to the news that Interplay had sold the rights to Bethesda Softworks?

Chris: I don’t think it was ever an option that ever came up (I think it was offered to much higher bidders than we could hope to be) – and Bethesda totally works for me. Oblivion kicked a great deal of ass.

GB: Why do you suppose Interplay retained the rights to any massively multiplayer Fallout titles? Do you think we’ll ever see such a game, and if so, would a Fallout MMORPG even work?

Chris: I have no idea, but I think it would totally work, though.

GB: If you were given the choice, would you like to see Obsidian pursue a post-apocalyptic RPG in the same vein as the Fallout series? Why or why not?

Chris: Nope, I’d rather we do something brand new that builds on the RPG mechanics and aesthetic style guides of that and other Interplay RPGs to create something that’s better than Fallout. If it’s post-apocalyptic, so be it, but it doesn’t have to be similar to Fallout.

All right, now I’ve got to get back to Neverwinter Nights 2 – and Obsidian should be making more announcements about upcoming titles in the future, so please check out our webpage at www.obsidianent.com, and if you want to see some unofficial tradeshow coverage of NWN2 (and other Obsidian hijinks), feel free to check out my blog at http://www.myspace.com/sicilianchris.

Thanks Chris!