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Industry Gamers interviewed Obsidian's creative director Chris Avellone, whose latest work has been most of the Fallout: New Vegas downloadable content, with questions on subjects such as his duties, advances in RPGs and the gaming industry at large. Here's a snip:<blockquote>IG: What's the most important advances in RPG design in the last few years?
CA: That's tough. I'll say the "advances" have been more for player convenience, sometimes good, sometimes bad, in my opinion. Journals, quest compasses that point directly to the goal and show you the route, auto-maps, etc. are helpful; at the same time, I think it undermines the thrill of victory and discovery and a lot of what makes an RPG an RPG (exploration, notably). In terms of non-interface elements, I feel the idea of morally gray choices and more focus on actions and consequences has been great for RPGs across the board. Lastly, fully voice-acted characters has been something to adapt to since Knights of the Old Republic 1, and the amount of localization, recording and audio work that requires is substantial, but I feel it's a net positive for the player.
[...]
IG: What do you enjoy most these days about the game industry, and what annoys you the most?
CA: I enjoy the fact that role-playing game mechanics are bleeding into other genres, and the "genres" aren't as clear-cut anymore – developers are seeing the worth in customization, leveling, dialogue, choice and reactivity and other elements that would normally be considered RPG mechanics and introducing them into multiple titles. As for challenges in our line of work - I do get concerned sometimes that for the majority of my job, it's difficult to iterate on voice acting once it's recorded and localized, so there's some stress there in fixing bugs or fixing level flow when you absolutely have to get it right the first time. Still, there are ways of planning ahead to prevent the larger obstacles (recording generic lines, making sure journal and quest objectives are never voiced text, etc.), so it's not a big deal. You just adapt and move on.</blockquote>
CA: That's tough. I'll say the "advances" have been more for player convenience, sometimes good, sometimes bad, in my opinion. Journals, quest compasses that point directly to the goal and show you the route, auto-maps, etc. are helpful; at the same time, I think it undermines the thrill of victory and discovery and a lot of what makes an RPG an RPG (exploration, notably). In terms of non-interface elements, I feel the idea of morally gray choices and more focus on actions and consequences has been great for RPGs across the board. Lastly, fully voice-acted characters has been something to adapt to since Knights of the Old Republic 1, and the amount of localization, recording and audio work that requires is substantial, but I feel it's a net positive for the player.
[...]
IG: What do you enjoy most these days about the game industry, and what annoys you the most?
CA: I enjoy the fact that role-playing game mechanics are bleeding into other genres, and the "genres" aren't as clear-cut anymore – developers are seeing the worth in customization, leveling, dialogue, choice and reactivity and other elements that would normally be considered RPG mechanics and introducing them into multiple titles. As for challenges in our line of work - I do get concerned sometimes that for the majority of my job, it's difficult to iterate on voice acting once it's recorded and localized, so there's some stress there in fixing bugs or fixing level flow when you absolutely have to get it right the first time. Still, there are ways of planning ahead to prevent the larger obstacles (recording generic lines, making sure journal and quest objectives are never voiced text, etc.), so it's not a big deal. You just adapt and move on.</blockquote>
