Neverwinter Nights 2: NWN 2: MotB Interview with Chris Avellone

RPGDot.com found an article over at Technology Guardian, a portion of the British online newspaper, The Guardian. The interview focuses on Chris's involvement with the development of NWN 2 and his thoughts comparing NWN 2 to NWN. It's an unsurprising article all in all:

Technology Guardian The original Neverwinter Nights [2002] was a massive success and still sells well today. Were you worried about straying too far from the original formula?

Chris Avellone We definitely wanted to preserve a great deal of the first game. I think our CEO, Feargus [Urquhart], summed it up best with the idea that NWN wasn't broken. It was a great idea. So, our line of thinking was, "Well, let's just add more to it!" And I really think that was the right thing to do.

TG Working with licensed properties, as you've done throughout your career, must make it even more difficult, as you have to adhere to the source material.

CA Well, yes and no. Because everything is predefined, you need to learn what your boundaries are. And you need to learn everything you can about the franchise. That can require a lot of work. Second, you have to run everything by the franchise holder for approval, to make sure it's not straying from the franchise. But that's rarely been an issue for us - we've gotten on really well with Wizards of the Coast [Dungeons & Dragons owners]. Same with Star Wars - during the whole of Knights of the Old Republic II's development, we only got about 10 comments, and they were about little things like, "We know this guy's name isn't spelled properly."

Once again, I would much rather set the parameters myself and create my own world. I think that would be much easier to do. This is mainly because I find trying to mimic the tone of someone else's franchise difficult; you can never get it quite right. I'm never going to get George Lucas's tone just right, and I'm never going to get Ed Greenwood's view of the Forgotten Realms just right, either. To me, there's always something slightly off about it, and that's always bothered me.