Will Ooi » Unmasking the Gamers

Unmasking the Gamers: Tim Cain – Industry Veteran, Programmer, and Original Creator of Fallout

Will Ooi — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 06:47:28 +0000

This is the latest edition of an interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character; the person behind that First Person game. Previous interviewee(s): Brendan Stapley, Andrew Doherty, Cody Winn, Chris Avellone Part 1, Chris Avellone Part 2, Jason Bergman, Chris Avellone Part 3, JE Sawyer To continue the recent trend of this series and having spoken previously with Obsidian and Bethesda team members about Fallout: New Vegas, in this edition of Unmasking the Gamers I had the privilege of chatting with one of the key members and creators of the franchise itself, Mr Timothy Cain. Having had a hand in titles such as Fallout, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines in a career spanning three decades, we discussed the evolution of the gaming industry, his experience in setting up the now-defunct Troika Games studio, some of his career highlights, and a bit more about the man himself.

Will Ooi: Hi Mr Cain, thank you very much for taking part in this interview series, and first of all congratulations on securing a role at Obsidian. How do you feel about this move, and what does it mean for your and Obsidian's future plans? Tim Cain: I really enjoy working at Obsidian. I know many of the people there from our time at Interplay or Troika, and I have played all of Obsidian's games, so in many ways this new job was the smoothest transition I have ever made. Everyone there has been very friendly and welcoming, and I am excited to be back in the RPG game space. But I should explain that I am a temporary contracted employee at Obsidian. I am considering joining another company in the spring of 2012 and have been talking with them since August, so in the meantime I am working at Obsidian on one of their games as a senior programmer. My contract extends thru March of 2012, at which time all parties (myself, Obsidian and the other company) can decide what the next step should be.

[Gamasutra Feature] & [Fallout Wiki]

Unmasking the Gamers: JE Sawyer – game developer, biker, and cat lover

Will Ooi — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:38:42 +0000

This is the latest edition of an interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character; the person behind that First Person game. Previous interviewee(s): Brendan Stapley, Andrew Doherty, Cody Winn, Chris Avellone Part 1, Chris Avellone Part 2, Jason Bergman, Chris Avellone Part 3 Following the release of Fallout: New Vegas' final DLC, Lonesome Road, and with the upcoming Gun Runners Arsenal add-on approaching, this edition of the series features a chat with the Lead Project Designer Joshua E. Sawyer about getting into the industry, linking in-game worlds with real life considerations, religion, overcoming game cancellation disappointment...and cats =)

WO: Hi Josh, thank you for your time. Please tell us about yourself, your role at Obsidian, and what your interests are. JS: Hi, Will. I'm glad to be a part of the series! I'm a project director at Obsidian and I've been in the game industry for about twelve years, most of that as a designer. Project directors are the "lead of leads", on the team, the individuals who define the high-level goals and scope of the project and help keep things focused on quality and consistency. Though technically part of the production staff, project directors have a somewhat adversarial relationship with the project's lead producer (in the case of Fallout: New Vegas, Larry Liberty). The project director defines the direction, but the lead producer tracks resources and effectively "writes the checks", serving as a voice of sanity for scope and scheduling. My game development interests are primarily in finding ways to give the player more meaningful choices in how they build and use their characters and in how they can influence the story. I'm also a fervent, possibly fanatical, advocate of strong core mechanics. "Good for an RPG" is an insult, and no player or developer should settle for that level of quality. Outside of video games, my interests are varied but shallow. I enjoy bicycling, motorcycle touring, firearms, languages, music, history, and a bunch of other things I never feel I explore in enough depth.

[Gamasutra Feature] & [Fallout Wiki]

Unmasking the Gamers: Chris Avellone – game designer, writer, and former ‘unlucky schlep’ – Part 3

Will Ooi — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 02:48:01 +0000

This is the latest edition of an interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character; the person behind that First Person game. Previous interviewee(s): Brendan Stapley, Andrew Doherty, Cody Winn, Chris Avellone Part 1, Chris Avellone Part 2, Jason Bergman. As we near the release of Fallout: New Vegas' fourth and final DLC, Lonesome Road, this edition of Unmasking the Gamers similarly sees the last instalment of a discussion with Obsidian Entertainment's Mr Chris Avellone, lead designer for three out of the four content add-ons. Having spoken previously about RPG design, his work on Alpha Protocol and personal interests, this interview finale focuses specifically on Fallout, the creation of New Vegas, as well as the goals of its narrative-driven DLCs.

WillOoi: Could you see the Fallout series taking place in a different setting? Seeing the post-apocalyptic world from the perspective of a Chinese character, for instance. Mr Chris Avellone: Character perspectives aside, the ability to properly give context to that setting is more difficult the more removed the developers are from that location. There's likely a good reason why Bethesda did F3 in Washington DC, for example, and why Obsidian took the West Coast/SoCal region - we know more about the area where we live (or the areas that the Project Director, JE Sawyer, can ride to on his bike) than, say, China. Not having intimate insider knowledge of a location I feel makes the level design for those areas weaker as a result, not to mention the comments you'll likely get from folks living in those areas about getting various details wrong. WO: You were initially the lead of the cancelled Interplay Fallout 3, Van Buren. Did much of your original vision of the game differ from Josh Sawyer and the rest of Black Isle's final design documents? MCA: I believe most of it was changed, except for Denver, which remained largely the same as far as I could tell from the docs. The revised take on the Circle of Steel was different (for me, they weren't evil, they were just hardliners who thought the rest had drifted from the original principles of preserving tech and policing their own rogues - kind of like Internal Affairs), same with the central prison/quarantine facility, the Hanged Man, etc. Still, that just gave me the opportunity to include locations like Old World Blues' Big MT in the DLCs, so it all worked out. And plus, it's always fun to drop references to the old tribal groups that I'd created (Twin Mothers, Hangdogs, the Ciphers, etc.). Also, the Prisoner's Dilemma was a core theme in the original spec, as well as the conflict with the rival "player character group" and the reactivity spawning out of that. All that being said, Van Buren was shaping up to be great with the direction, it's a shame it got cancelled. I feel Interplay could have made it clearer they had no interest in PC-only titles earlier and saved a lot of expense and time.

[Gamasutra Feature] & [Fallout Wiki]

Unmasking the Gamers: Jason Bergman – game producer, father, and Superman fan

Will Ooi — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 01:07:54 +0000

WillOoi: Hi Jason, thank you very much for agreeing to take part in this interview. Please tell us about yourself, and how you ended up at Bethesda? Jason Bergman: Gosh, that’s a long story. I’ll do my best to summarize my career, since it’s a long and probably not very interesting story. I started writing about games while I was a college student in the mid-90s for various online and print publications. When I graduated, did that full-time, and during that period I met some of the guys here at Bethesda (most notably Todd Howard). Unfortunately the bottom fell out of the online advertising market and I was forced to get a day job to supplant my income as a journalist. That wasn’t much fun, so I looked around for a full-time job in games, which led to my joining Take-Two as a PR manager. I worked out of the Rockstar Games office on the non-Rockstar titles, and that team eventually formed what’s now the 2K Games label. I enjoyed PR, but I really wanted to get more involved in games production, and in time they made me a producer. At 2K I was able to work on some pretty amazing projects, like the Civilization series, Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Bioshock. In 2007, 2K Games merged their offices with the 2K Sports division out in California, which meant moving to the west coast. I stuck it out for a couple of years, but as a life-long New Yorker, I really, really missed the east coast. So I contacted some people at Bethesda to see if there was an opportunity for me here, and sure enough there was, in the form of Fallout: New Vegas. The rest is some kind of history.

[Gamasutra Feature & Fallout Wiki]

Unmasking the Gamers: Chris Avellone – game designer, writer, and former ‘unlucky schlep’ – Part 2

Will Ooi — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 02:51:50 +0000

This is the latest part of an interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character; the person behind that First Person game. Previous interviewee(s): Brendan Stapley, Andrew Doherty, Cody Winn, Chris Avellone Part 1. This edition of Unmasking the Gamers features part 2 of an interview with Chris Avellone. Having spoken previously about RPG design, this time round we had a look at the development and eventual reception for the espionage-RPG Alpha Protocol, the process of casting voice actors to suit written characters, as well as a bit more about Chris himself.
Will Ooi: Alpha Protocol took players on a spy's journey through ambiguous political agendas and dealt with current, real-life events concerning the transparency of governments and questionable ethics of multinational corporations, amongst other things. Was one of your aims for this game to educate the player? It's not often we see Taiwan-China relations mentioned in this medium... Mr Chris Avellone: Some of the story framework was based on the two previous iterations of the storyline. I inherited Halbech, the Taiwan angle, etc, so I couldn't speak to that. What appealed to me most about the original plot was the characters, which I always felt were strong and each had a cool visual and ego signature. In AP2, because of this, our plan was to simply make the plot more character-driven than event-driven, and cater to the characters the setting allowed for.
WO: Was the dialogue response option 'headslam' inspired by anything in particular? MCA: I think everyone's had that moment when talking to a jackass where you imagine his face kissing the nearest concrete sidewalk/brick wall/bar counter. When writing the Alpha Protocol characters, the question you always have in the back of your mind is how Bond/Bauer/Bourne would respond, and usually, all the "actions" in Alpha Protocol are Bauer-inspired, since he doesn't have the time or patience for anyone giving him lip when lives are at stake.

[Gamasutra Feature & Fallout Wiki]

Unmasking the Gamers: Tagaziel – law student, Fallout devotee, and role-playing afficionado

Will Ooi — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:34:06 +0000

This is the latest part of an interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character; the person behind that First Person game. Previous interviewee(s): Brendan Stapley, Andrew Doherty, Cody Winn, Chris Avellone. Hot on the heels of the last interview with Fallout designer Chris Avellone, in this edition of Unmasking the Gamers I had the privilege of speaking with Tagaziel, aka Mikael Grizzly, an administrator of the Fallout Wiki and No Mutants Allowed - the latter known as the online home of perhaps the most hardcore of the series' fans. Having encountered Tagaziel in forums and blog discussions, this interview presented an opportunity to find out more about the man himself, his motivations, as well as his passions.

WillOoi: Hi Tagaziel, thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. May we start by finding out a bit more about yourself, for instance where you're from, your background, and what you do with yourself on a current day-to-day basis? Tagaziel: I'm bad at these kinds of introductions, so bear with me. I am 23 years old, I come from Poland and at the present I am finishing my law degree at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Apart from that, I'm a happily wedded husband who's now enjoying his freshly earned free time after finishing a contract with the Central Statistical Office. As part of the summer vacation programme, I'm passing time with games, books, movies and of course spending time together with my wife. This is the last time I'm going to enjoy such free time, so I try to make the most of it. It goes without saying that I'm also using my free time to contribute to various wikis I'm a part of.

[Fallout Wiki]

Unmasking the Gamers: Chris Avellone – game designer, writer, and former ‘unlucky schlep’ – Part 1

Will Ooi — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 02:31:55 +0000

WillOoi: Hi Chris, thanks very much for taking time out to participate in this interview. You're quite the hero to many RPG fans out there and your willingness to answer questions is well documented and much appreciated. So what are you up to at the moment? Chris Avellone: Still working hard here at Obsidian, wrapping up the last bits of Fallout New Vegas DLC, Lonesome Road. We had the last narrative tasks and voice-acting session last week (Ed: end of May), it went well, and now it's a matter of doing more run-throughs of DLC4 to get a feel for the pacing and polish what we can. It's been a long road from New Vegas to the end of the DLCs, and now when I go home, I'm not sure what to do with myself - on NV and the DLCs, it was easy, I just didn't go home. As for what's next, we still have a number of titles in development, so I've been playing those builds, going to design meetings, making and reviewing critiques and working on pitches for additional products. One thing I'll say - being an independent developer gives you access to franchises I never thought possible a few years back.

[Gamasutra Feature & Fallout Wiki]

Unmasking the Gamers: Cody Winn – Games Blogger, Artist, and Knitted Hat Enthusiast

Will Ooi — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:01:28 +0000

This is the third part of an interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character; the person behind that First Person Genre. Previous interviewee(s): Brendan Stapley, Andrew Doherty This edition of Unmasking the Gamers features an interview with Cody, an old 1up friend, artist and up-and-coming gaming journalist. A vocal and influential member of the 1up network for several years and I had the good fortune of being able to sit down with him for a Q&A (or rather, sitting down in front of a computer, half the planet apart from each other and exchanging emails over time) =).

Unmasking the Gamers: Andrew James – Web Developer, Artist and Non-gamer

Will Ooi — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:21:34 +0000

This is the second part of an interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character; the person behind that First Person Genre. Previous interviewee(s): Brendan Stapley Andrew, my friend, co-writer and neighbour, isn't really a gamer. A web developer by trade with a gamer boyfriend, he has seen gaming from an outside perspective and recently become a fan of Battlefield Bad Company 2, establishing himself as a skilled sniper with a ridiculously good kills/headshots ratio. In this interview, we find out more about Andrew and what his thoughts on the medium are as an "outsider".

Unmasking the Gamers – Brendan Stapley – Gaming Paragon, Scholar and Completionist

Will Ooi — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:47:17 +0000

This is the first part of a new interview series, “Unmasking the Gamers,” humanising the people who play video games: the real character controlling that fictional character, the ‘person’ behind the First Person Genre. Brendan has always struck me as a guy possessing a real passion for the medium – in particular story and morality-based titles – as well as being a strong advocate for gaming to be recognised as a legitimate entertainment medium. He lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife Megan (they pronounce it ‘Meggen’ over there), and we have spoken at length on Xbox Live chat about Australian, Canadian and American culture, the deeper meaning of games, and the patenting of Brendan’s ingenious idea of ‘Ninjabread cookies’. His comments in this interview on the topic of ‘Games as Art’ and thoughts on the ‘virtual embodiment’ of Bioshock are a particular standout. Here is a downloadable copy of a conference paper he has written on the latter topic: “It’s All Fun and Virtual Games Until Someone Gets Their Eye Poked Out: Virtually Embodied Spaces, and the Inherent Risk of Instantiation by the Implicit Imperative of the Second-Person ‘You’“ [Copyright Brendan Stapley, 2009.]