Dhruin
SasqWatch
Vince D. Weller has a second Mask of the Betrayer design interview, this time with lead designer Kevin Saunders:
More information.3. George mentioned that Kaelyn was almost cut. I don't think the game would have been the same without her, so I'm curious whether you realized her importance during the development and what's involved in creating an NPC like Kaelyn for a game like MotB?
This might sound strange, but at least to some degree, she's as important as she is purely because she is in the game. Sometimes a character (or gameplay feature or whatever) will really come together and then you'll place a greater focus on it and its importance grows into something you can't envision doing without. Surely some aspects of the game and story evolved as they did because Kaelyn did exist.
With Kaelyn, and I think George mentioned this, we were planning to cut her early on. Chris Avellone, who wasn't officially assigned to the project, said something to the effect of "if I make the time to write her, can we keep her?" He did an excellent job (of course) and we also lucked out with casting the perfect actress for the role - her lines are superbly read.
At the risk of going on too much of a tangent, a similar phenomenon occurs with people on a development team. For example, if George were working on Storm of Zehir, it would be a different game than it has become. A better game? That's hard to judge objectively. Because instead we've got various aspects of George's role on MotB being filled primarily by Annie Carlson and Tony Evans. They've got their own styles, their own strengths. As another example, Tony Evans is the Lead Designer for SoZ. If I had been, it also would have turned out to be a different game. But not a better one.
Without Kaelyn, something else would have taken her place, at least to some degree. That said, we definitely made the right decision in keeping her and I am very thankful to Chris for his contribution.