E3 2010: Chris Avellone Interview
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GB: Switching gears to Alpha Protocol, what are your thoughts on the reviews? They've kind of been all over the place. Some people are criticizing the technical polish and shooting elements, but then others are happily praising the RPG elements, the dialogue, the storyline, or the reputation system. Do you think some people just aren't (getting) the depth of the game? Chris: If you know nothing about the game when you pick it up, it looks like a shooter, which is part of the problem - it doesn't naturally sell itself as an RPG at first glance, so you're fighting expectations there. I think people who enjoy RPGs found Alpha Protocol fun and recognized conventions they were familiar with (or ones they saw in new ways), I think people who enjoyed shooters found it more frustrating because of the RPG mechanics, which is fair.
GB: During the game's nine-month delay, was there anything that you guys were busy tweaking or were you pretty much hands-off at that point?
Chris: I was off the title in October 2009. Last I heard from SEGA, the delay was due to a marketing decision.
GB: I personally have never been a big fan of Mass Effect, and despite the original having a great storyline, I'd play Alpha Protocol any day over it. To me, Mass Effect put the RPG elements in the background and the shooting elements in the foreground, and Alpha Protocol did just the opposite. Alpha Protocol is more about coming up with a build for your character, purchasing the right intel for the missions, modifying your gear for the effect you're trying to achieve, and that type of thing. I just feel like a lot of people missed the point.
Chris: We tried to bring RPG mechanics from intel, rep, and all the way down to your inventory selections, and I really enjoyed going into my inventory and customizing my gear, weapons, and mods down to the type of character I was playing (in my Suave playthrough, I consciously chose weapons and mods that did less damage over silence and accuracy of shots, and I was glad I could customize my weapons accordingly and play around with the advantages and disadvantages). My loadout actually complimented my character in terms of the equipment's advantages and drawbacks.
GB: Based on the reception the game has received, is there anything you would have done differently if you could go back?
Chris: If I could go back and start on the project from the outset? Sure, absolutely - and don't take anything I say as this would somehow magically be a better game, it would just be different, and most likely have other things people hated about it. Anyway, I'd make a spy version of Kill Bill (if it had to be a spy game at all and not just a real world RPG title, which would be great), change the main character to not be a set character, screw the realism and focus on the fantastic, add more mission reactivity between missions and between cities, change the mission structure to the honeycomb mission structure our Systems Designer proposed 2 years in (and what our Exec Producer originally wanted), remove cinematic conversations, screw trying to compete with other stealth or shooter games that have already mastered those areas and look for ways to make the player feel like spies in other ways - again, assuming a spy game is what you'd want to do with a real-world RPG at all.
But that's all fantasy and wishful thinking, and again, it's easy to say that, and it would have most likely resulted in something else that people liked and disliked for different reasons. If I could go back to when I started mid-way through the project and was in the same situation? No, for logistical reasons. I'm sure the other leads felt the same way and so did our Project Director (who became Project Director at this time), and our Project Director who took on the role at this time saved this game from cancellation - or worse. We had a team that was low on morale, that felt like they didn't own the work they were doing (if you keep trading areas and design elements every other month, you can't focus on carrying something to completion), who were on the tides of iteration, and being able to go in there, give people ownership of interface, systems, an area, a Hub, make decisions, add more RPG elements, add more reactivity, restore focus and get rid of the blockages that were keeping people from moving ahead with work was satisfying. It took a while, and it was tough, and some of the decisions weren't ideal, but you can't always be in a perfect situation with development, so you do what you can. We had little to no time to redo anims, redo character models, redo locations from previous iterations, so we did what we could with what he had, and it made sense to us for the time frame (even when the time frame kept changing, we had no clue the release date would be what it became, and we didn't work toward that release date).
I'm proud of what we did during that time to help get the project going, organize the design staff, kill a lot of problems, and try to use what assets, locations, and story elements we had to work with to make a game that worked and took RPG elements in a new direction.
GB: What are the odds that we'll see an Alpha Protocol 2?
Chris: Don't know, I imagine if the sales were strong enough, SEGA might want to do a sequel, whether with us or someone else.
At that point, a knock on the interview room's door brought our conversation to a close. After expressing my appreciation, I headed off to my next appointment while Chris returned to the enormous crowd impatiently awaiting another demonstration.
