AHAHAHAHAHAAH! (that's a "hell no") No, but I did play it, just to try Yes, it's Fallout, after all Yes, and it's a great game Yes, and I've been haunted by hellspawn ever since None of your business! Didn't buy, didn't play, but would if I had the chance Yes, but from the bargain bin
IGN AU has interviewed Pete Hines about Fallout 3 and asked quite a few interesting questions.
IGN AU: What did you learn from making Oblivion? What didn't work?
Pete Hines: There's no giant 'we can't ever do that again' stuff. It's more how do we design quests, what kind of choices do we let the player make, how do we account for things we think the player might try and do and anticipate those? So that they're like 'Oh, I wonder what happens when I do this?' And then there's actually something in the game that acknowledges it and takes it into account. And they go 'that's really cool that I got to finish this quest in a really unique way and the game recognised that and gave me a satisfying response.'
In Oblivion the most extreme example is the bandits, who's armour keeps going up and up as you're playing through the game. Suddenly they've got glass armour and amazing weapons. It was an obvious thing that didn't feel right. So we've spent a lot of time on making sure that the player has the ability to go where they want and do what they want, but to also provide them with situations where they're getting in over their head – so they've got to leave and come back. Or they're getting into situations where they're further through the game and their character is really tough and they get in there and they kick ass and feel like a bad ass for a while because they've spent a lot of time buffing up their character.
We've certainly tried to put more stuff on the screen in front of the player to make the world more believable. The dialogue is much more specific to those characters, as opposed to generic lists of things they can talk about. A lot of it is just tweaking and refining stuff that the player won't even notice. Stuff that we're doing behind the scenes to improve the way the game performs. A lot of it is taking those lessons and learning how to apply them better.
You know, Fallout is a very different game [to Oblivion]. You've gone from swords and melee weapons and one ranged weapon to now where you've got lots and lots of ranged weapons. It almost flips the gameplay balance stuff.
(...)
IGN AU: How do the choices you make about whether you play as a good guy or a bad guy affect the game?
Pete Hines: I don't think there are enormous differences. It's more the choices you make on a quest by quest basis. Whether or not you want to play them as a good guy or a bad guy and what the end result of that choice is. So it's not so much about people not talking to you because you're a bad guy with bad karma, as much as it is about using the karma to keep track and keep score on the kind of character you're playing. We want that reward and that payoff to be more in the choices you make and have it be more immediate. 'I'm playing this quest. I chose this path to try and finish the quest this way and how fun or interesting or rewarding was that experience based on the choices I made.' Or if you're playing as an evil bastard we want you to feel like the quest played out in a really satisfying way for me trying to be an evil bastard…
IGN AU: Tell us a little about how health system being tied to water levels has evolved in Fallout 3.
Pete Hines: It certainly plays off the original games where water was a big focal point - a theme. We've continued on that legacy. Water is a big, important resource in this world. Where you get it and what kind of radiation you take from it and what kind of health you draw from it.
We're playing up this idea that you're in this post apocalyptic world with all this radiation around and how it is affecting you as a player and what sort of impact is it having on you and what you're able to do. It gives you something else to manage and keep an eye on as you move through the world.
IGN AU: On the radiation point, if you're choosing to carry the Fatman gun (a mini nuclear bomb slingshot) and use it heavily, will that add to your radiation level?
Pete Hines: The Fatman itself doesn't but if you go into any of the locations where one of its nukes has gone off then that will give you radiation. So if you shoot an enemy over there and an explosion goes off and you wander into it, then there will be radiation in that area for a period of time that you will take damage from.
IGN AU: Was it tough balancing the RPG and FPS elements so that both felt right?
Pete Hines: We certainly spent a lot of time on that because we felt that the shooter element, what you're doing minute-to-minute, has to look good and feel fun. If that's all you do for ten minutes it has to feel good. There is all this other stuff you can do behind the scenes. It's not just a shooter. It's not that limited. But the shooting has to be good. Because 99 per cent of people at some point are going to pick up a gun and start shooting stuff and if it doesn't feel right and doesn't look right then we have a big problem. We did spend a lot of time on that because we felt it was important to get it right.
I think from our internal play-testing, and from some folks who've been able to play it recently, the feedback is that it feels pretty good. It's clearly not just a shooter but it holds up well when you're just running around shooting stuff.
Since this one reached DaC, N4G, BGSF, Blue's News and here in record tempo, it might be a good idea for us to nip this rumour in the bud.
Some guy claims some guy he knows at the Australian rating agency (the Office of Film and Literature Classification) passed down word that Fallout 3 is refused classification and thus effectively banned for containing morphine/drugs in general (whichever).
Now, despite this being a "some guy I know" post, a lot of people seem to be taking it seriously. Which is probably why GameSpot rushed in to debunk it:
The official story: Red Ant Enterprises--the game's distributors in Australia--responded with a flat "no comment" when contacted by GameSpot AU. Coincedentally, Red Ant was also the distributors for Blitz: The League, which was also banned in Australia in early 2007. Blitz was refused classification due to its in-game drug use.
When GameSpot AU then contacted the OFLC, we were told no final decision had been made on Fallout 3, although the game had been submitted for classification. Fallout 3 is scheduled to hit Australia in October 2008 on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. The OFLC spokesperson said when a final decision is made, details will be made available on the OFLC Web site within 24 hours.
(No such details had been published at the time of posting this article.)
Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus for now, given the OFLC's official statement to GameSpot AU. But given Australia's track record, we'll be keeping a close eye on this situation and inform you with more details as they come to hand. For more information on Australia's game classification system, check out our special Censory Overload feature.
That's not to say Fallout 3 isn't a possible candidate for censorship under the OFLC, it's just saying it hasn't happened yet.
Angry-at-Bethesda blogger Solivagant teamed up with Angry-at-Bethesda site BlizzardGuru to bring us part II of the How to make a proper sequel line of thought.
I’ll say Blizzard has an advantage when confronted with Bethesda in this issue. The Diablo series has more fans than Fallout, but since the lore was never one of the most important parts of the game, not many of them will counter Blizzard’s changes to the lore, if they exist.
In the Fallout series, the story, the gameworld, is extremely important. In fact, several players keep stating that Bethesda is doing a good job because they’re trying to maintain the storyline, the dialog and the humour of what came before. Trying doesn’t mean succeeding.
The few tidbits and developer’s journals that Bethesda has released have all let on that they aren’t handling the material very well. The fans have all recognized several flaws, for instance, their decision to relocate a prominent faction from the series to a new area, when such a faction had little desire in expanding or relocating. Basically, it’s the same mistake Fallout Tactics had.
I’ll give them two things they got right, though: they chose an unused vault number, 101, and the teaser trailer itself felt true to the series. There was the wrecked city, the art deco statues, the old 50’s song (they even used the same band, The Inkspots). It was too bad that by the end of the trailer everybody knew that the game would be a first person shooter / rpg. It had been rendered in the game engine.
The BethBlog is bringing word of the first pieces of hands-on coverage of Fallout 3. Specifically, from PSM3 #103:
“You’ll also come across the Enclave; the remains of the US government who have access to incredible technology and broadcast patriotic marching band music. Their President is voiced by Malcolm “A Clockwork Orange” McDowell. He’s a major villain.”
And the July issue of Instock Magazine, which is not hands-on but just the regular demo showing.
TPCG: Can you tell us what the injuries shown in the Pip-Boy Status screenshot will have on your character?
Todd Howard: Having one or both of your legs crippled slows you down, and having your head crippled gives you blurry vision, but the blur is not constant, it’s like having a concussion that comes and goes.
In a recent filing, Interplay reveals that they have issued some stock in trade for services/discounts, amongst which:
On June 30, 2008 the Company issued to Interactive Game Group, LLC a warrant to purchase 2,000,000 shares of Common Stock of the Company as consideration for entering into a Game Production Agreement with the Company. Such warrant was issued, and any underlying shares of Common Stock would be issued, in a private placement exempt from registration pursuant to section 4(2) of the Securities Act of 1933. Such warrant has a term of 10 years, an exercise price of $0.13, is immediately exercisable as to 400,000 shares of Common Stock and becomes exercisable at any time after 60 days with respect to 400,000 shares of Common Stock for each game up to 4 games that meets the requirements for production and funding under the Game Production Agreement between the Company and Interactive Game Group, LLC , and was otherwise issued in accordance with the terms of the Form of Warrant Agreement filed as Exhibit 10.07 to the Company's Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2008.
Interactive Game Group is a company focused on financing and acquiring games and IPs, they are working with Majesco and SouthPeak, amongst others. The description from the Majesco press release:
About Interactive Game Group, LLC
Interactive Game Group (I2G) is a company producing and acquiring video games and other interactive entertainment properties, whether packaged media, online or wireless. Created by Frederic Chesnais, former Chief Executive Officer of Atari Interactive, Inc. with a decade-long experience in acquiring, financing and licensing intellectual property rights in the video game industry, I2G is developing and financing a portfolio of video game properties, joining forces with the best studios, publishers and distributors for each project on a worldwide scale.
This is good news, but still we should not expect to hear anything about FOOL this month.
Todd Howard posts on the BGSF to notify the answers for the BGSF fan interview - the questions of which were submitted May 28th - should be up the 7th of July, with the added fireworks of exclusive images.
Ok, I know this has been a long time coming. Too Long. I just wanted to drop in and apologize. It’s 100% my fault, and Gstaff can tell you that he’s asked me every day for the last several weeks for it and I keep saying “today!” but the days seem to be getting crazier and crazier. Finishing a game is kinda like that. Anyway, I finally started answering it today, and was hoping to have it up before the July 4th holiday, but that’s not going to happen. So – it will be up Monday, writing that here makes me stick to it as opposed to just telling Gstaff. And to seek everyone’s forgiveness - we’re also going to put up some exclusive images here on the forums, just for you folks who have been waiting. Thanks for your patience, you guys have been great.
Yahoo! writes a short tidbit about Fallout 3 in their Week in video-game news.
Bethesda acquired the rights to the long-dormant "Fallout" series while it was still working on "Oblivion." Part of what drew Howard to the original games (published by Interplay) was their "overall charm," with the bleak environment balanced by "retro '50s optimism, the idea that in a nuclear disaster you could just get under your desk."
Building on the lessons learned from the "Elder Scrolls" games, Howard and his team have taken that mix of sunniness and despair and translated it into a detailed, 3D universe. Some of the places still standing, he said, are "sun-baked suburban clichés, but you never know: Is there something bad or is there food?" And "Fallout" fanatics will be delighted to hear that Dogmeat, the loyal pooch from the earlier games, is back.
Screen Play on the Australian the Age Blogs has previewed Fallout 3. It's short, but has some interesting bits on RTwP.
Hines says Bethesda is currently balancing the VATS system so it is not too powerful.
At present, you can obviously try to cheat and run up to creatures and then use VATS to increase your chances of a successful strike, but they will do plenty of damage while you are charging towards them, which should be enough of a deterrent.
Hines believes VATS really adds to the game's dramatic tension.
"I've got enough ammo and health packs to keep myself alive, but in the game all that stuff is fairly hard to come by, so we really want to play up that idea like you're down to your last clip of ammo, you're low on health, you queue up some moves in VATS, and you're like: 'Please, God, let this guy die with this shot...'"
The same feeling was very common in TB combat, one should note. It'd be cool if they managed to reproduce it.
In a thread on aiming and accuracy on the BGSF, Fo3 lead designer Emil Pagliarulo dropped in to say the following:
For us, balancing the combat is very much a "feel" thing. It's something that takes a ton of playtesting (involving the entire dev team), and determining what feels right for everyone. It's all about finding that nebulous perfect balance between player skill and character skill.
In run-and-gun, melee feels a lot like melee in Oblivion. If you connect with the weapon, you hit. There's no die roll to determine that. But your character's skill, as well as the condition of the weapon, determine the damage done.
In run-and-gun, ranged combat is... I dunno. I'd say it feels a lot like Deus Ex 1. Accuracy is affected by player skill and weapon condition -- so if you've got, say, a really high Small Guns skill and a perfect condition assault rifle, your aim will be dead on. Low Small Guns and crappy assault rifle, and you'll miss more. The skill and condition also affect the damage you'll do.
With most ranged weapons in run-and-gun, you can also go into an aim mode, which zooms you in and increases your accuracy. With Melee and Unarmed weapons, the player will block instead of zooming in.
Based on all the feedback we've gotten, it feels really solid now.
Of course, V.A.T.S. is its own story completely...
I'd say for combat, I generally go 70% V.A.T.S., 30% run-and-gun (but that's different for everyone, really).
He follows up to say that for someone with a less than stellar hand-eye coordination, "V.A.T.S. is definitely going to be the way to go."
I know it's been mentioned in some preview or other that all the apparel (armor and clothing) is a single suit. Headgear is separate. There are a LOT of apparel options, and yes, there are are some pieces of clothing that give stat boosts, so if you decide to wear clothing and not armor, you'll still get a discernible gameplay benefit.
I've seen some apparel/headgear combinations I never would have imagined (some which involve a big pre-war lady's sunhat...)
And finally he also talks about level scaling, which contains little new material other than the blessed words of "no Raiders in Power Armor".
From a gameplay perspective, most aspects are very solid. The emphasis on exploration and discovery are also punctuated with the interactions that you have between others in world and the numerous factions that are out and about. So exactly how you go about these things will determine your course towards the final destination. For example, if you are a jerk towards the sheriff in the first town you’ll likely visit, he’ll diplomatically blow you off. However, if you are polite, he will confide in you, which will have further implications. Your personal interface is now governed by the PIP-Boy 3000, which is upgraded from previous games and gives you access all your stats and inventories and what not.
Interacting with your environment is very important as well. Often you’ll search for water, though it will be contaminated by radiation. So you need to make a choice whether or not to heal yourself and take radiation damage, or go at it until you find another source of healing. At one stage, a radio signal was picked up about a man sheltering his family and asking for assistance. Upon discovery of their location, it was actually found that they’ve been dead for a long time, but left a lot of items for you to collect. It’s this part of Fallout 3, the numerous choices behind what you’ll be able to do that drive the game.
A point of contention in Fallout 3 is change in perspective. The game is now played from either first or third person. From the above mentioned gameplay features, the perspective fits in very well, though the one issue that remains relates to combat. Relying on playing like a first person shooter isn’t bad, though just like Bioshock, the combat doesn’t excel as much as the other aspects in the game. However, there are some great additions. In particular, the fact that you’ll have to be on the ball as weapons wear-and-tear, you’ll get to build custom weapons and pick-up and play with whatever you find.
Following a brief mention of Diablo 3 on Bethesda producer Ashley Cheng's blog, Blizzard Guru has written a new article comparing Bethesda to Blizzard, and how Bethesda can "suck it":
I used to like Bethesda, it being the developer of Morrowind and all. Over the past few years however, Bethesda progress upwards as a “pretty good” game company came to a grinding halt, and its progress is now somewhere between stagnant and half past dead. Still, there’s a growing sense that someone at that company forgot to take Ritalin the morning they announced that isometric games are dead and that PC gaming is dying.
To confirm their position on the manner, Bethesda has:
# Completely reimagined Fallout to look like a Post-Nuclear version of Oblivion, much to every gamer’s chagrin
# Pissed off the majority of their fan base with ignorance, arrogance and misunderstanding of the Fallout franchise
# Signed shoddy deals with game journalists (what journalists?) to limit the flow of information with regards to Fallout 3
# Compounded their mistakes with lies towards the fan base about how the game isn’t anything close to being “Oblivion with guns”, despite the fact that several of those “journalists” confirmed that the game does indeed feel that way.
# Had a guy who has no idea what he’s talking about represent the company
Having said that, since Blizzard has absolutely no idea what they are doing releasing a 3D Isometric PC game, let’s see how they dug themselves into a hole:
# For the past few weeks Blizzard has had a front page splash of mysterious clues hinting towards their next game
# Each consecutive clue came closer to revealing the mystery, building an exponential amount of hype
# On June 28th in Paris, France at the WWI, Blizzard announced the development of Diablo III and revealed their new website, complete with two trailers, screenshots, and game lore, and have since been updating the website with more information
# Fans around the world got hyped about up the upcoming game, and communities were formed. The number of Diablo 2 players on Battle.net substantially increased
At the moment, Blizzard is in a PR hellhole. Vivendi stocks are plummeting because of the recent announcement of Diablo III, and several of its key designers were leaving in droves.
Or so Bethesda probably wishes.
Now excuse me while I go spend more money on horse armour and 15 minute quests.
Bloody mess: Pete himself comfirmed that this perk was in. In addition to increased gore, this perk will provide a small damage bonus, making it better than the original.
Swift Learner: This perk functions the same as it did in previous games. For each rank of Swift Learner you take, the player will receive 5% extra experience. (...)
Lead Belly: This perk, which can be taken multiple times, reduces the amount of damage you take from radiation when you drink water from a contaminated source (such as a toilet in an abandoned subway) by 5% per rank.
Also:
Going through my notes, I realised I missed one! Called Strong Back, it allows you to carry an extra 100 pounds of equipment. Again, it's an oldie from the previous games, altered to suit the mechanics of the new title.
I should mention that Bloody Mess was originally a trait. It seems it's been changed to a perk for Bethesda's instalment.
There's also something (unimportant, really) about cheats or something:
Towards the end of his presentation, Hines gave us a quick look at the world map. Like Oblivion, nothing is revealed to start with, but once you've visited a location you're free to "fast travel" to it at any time. In order to show us the markers on the map, Pete's assistant had to enter a cheat code via a drop-down console. Here's what was typed:
“tmm 1”
Considering Oblivion also had a console in which the player could enter cheats, I'd say it's a good bet this little command will make it into the final build.
David Wilgoose from the Official XBox Magazine has updated his blog with some thoughts after playing a bit of Fallout 3 in Bethesda's office (and yes, we are to expect a wave of hands-on previews soon from preferred magazines & sites invited by Bethesda, followed by hands-on previews done at E3).
Bethesda has to combat all these factors. They have to bring a new Fallout into a world where multi-platform development is vital; where RPGs flounder without production values as high as the next big budget FPS; where many of the play mechanics of the original games now seem anachronistic; and where Bethesda has charted out their own successful course of what a role-playing game can be.
Other games and developers have survived such battles though, and perhaps more often than you think. Ion Storm took over development duties from Looking Glass for the third Thief game, although there was certainly some cross-pollination between the companies. Still, Thief: Deadly Shadows turned out to be quite a different experience to what the Looking Glass folks had envisaged. It kept some of the open world structure of the original design, but reined it back and applied a more discrete mission progression. Ion Storm were faced with the additional challenge of developing for a console as well as PC which no doubt had an impact, especially from a technology point of view. But ultimately, Deadly Shadows was a genuine Thief game, just served with superior lighting and some minor tweaks to the mechanics.
In a similar vein, Obsidian assumed responsibility from Bioware for both Neverwinter Nights and Knight of the Old Republic. Those guys had worked closely together at Interplay’s Black Isle RPG division and the development of both series continued fairly seamlessly. Fundamentally, the sequels really aren’t that different and, for the most part, merely benefit from newer technology.
He continues listing a lot of examples of franchises successfully changing hands and style, but for some reason completely fails to discuss the many times such things have failed painfully, such as for example X-Com: Enforcer or Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.
The Greek magazine PC Master has a preview/interview of Fallout 3. A few tidbits and some questions from the interview:
-Vault 101 is called "Jewel of the Desert"
-Programmers of Bethesda ditched the Van Buren code and all material that has been created by Black Isle for it "cause it was obviously very dated and completely useless"(Interviewer speaking)
-1st person perspective is an "innovation"
-The test you pass to define the attributes of your character is called G.O.A.T.(Generalized Occupational Aptitude Tests)
-Player can control a team of up to three members
-There is no car for the player
-Level cap is 20
Some Interview Questions:
Q: Can you estimate total playing time including sub-quests?
Hines: At this point to fully complete the game you'd need to spend over 100 hours.
Q: Do you intend to create a Fallout 3 that will be...mod-friendly? In other words provide people with the toolset to experiment on?
Hines: We have not yet decided on this. Right now, we have not announced any plans for the tools issue. It takes time to perfect a toolset in order for it to be usable by players and so far we didn't have time, working on the game itself.
Q: There is a sensitive issue attracting the attention of many; the presence(or absence)of children as NPC's. The impact on game's rating is a given(especially if the player will be able to chop kiddies in half through critical hits). How are you handling that?
Hines: There are, in fact, children in the game. How we'll handle them on game is a matter we haven't concluded on yet.
Q: Can you name the various guilds and factions of the game? Will they work like the ones in Oblivion?
Hines: There are many groups and factions that you shall meet in your way...Super Mutants, Slavers, Brotherhood of Steel, enclave and others. These are groups you shall meet and will have to make choices on how you will interact with - but htey're not factions that you can join and increase your rank.
Q: We're curious regarding how stats work during a first person battle. For instance if the player is, say, half a meter away of the target and shoots, will it be possible to miss for some mysterious reason, just for having low stats?
Hines: Your stats and weapon you use, will definitely affect your efficiency during battles.
How often you hit your target, damage done, all that stuff has to be affected up to a point by the character you made.The factor of that influence is something we're very concerned about at this phase. We're playing the game ourselves and watch what seems to have the best, most "normal" feeling.
In a possible scenario you're referring to, well, you'd hit the target most times, but you wouldn't damage them so much. The goal is the numbers to have a meaning in a way that seems logical to the player.
After reproducing 3 articles that were originally printed in 360 magazine a few months back for their "week of Fallout" (no explanation forthcoming why they reproduced articles from a magazine and presented them as brand new*), Gameplayer bucks the trend by presenting their own impressions of Fallout 3, quite expansively I might add.
Fallout veterans will have plenty to smile about inside The Vault, with a lot of props taking their queues from those in the original. Chatting with Pete Hines after the demo he informed us that Bethesda own Fallout completely: so not just the brand name but everything, which has surely facilitated their ability to get these elements just right.
This includes the design of Pip-boy. Its hazy green colour scheme – reminiscent of those old NEC computers from classrooms of the eighties – is spot on perfect, although you can change its colour scheme if you’re an idiot. The Pip-boy is stacked with information, to the point of almost being overwhelming when you first turn it on, but that is what you get with a deep RPG and we’re sure fans of the genre will greedily feast on its innards.
Various characters roam the halls of the Vault, each with their own agendas and distinct character quirks. One of the first things we saw as a 19yr old (which is where the game starts proper) was a gang of thugs loitering in the halls. We had previously been bullied by them as a 10yr old and they, like us, had now grown up. Little more was seen of the Vault, other than the ability to get a host of primary and secondary quests and the solving of puzzles which involved flicking leavers and hacking computers.
(...)
Oblivion with guns
One of the worries with the Fallout faithful is that Bethesda’s take on the series will just become “Oblivion with guns”. While that undersells the game incredibly, it is also a decent description. Operating off a far advanced version of Bethesda’s own Oblivion engine, Fallout 3’s game design shares obvious traits with its medieval cousin. This is mostly apparent in the rather static way characters move (read ice skate) around, and the way conversation occurs. It’s not shit per se, but it isn’t exactly Mass Effect. Much like Oblivion when you engage in conversation the screen zooms in on the character’s face, dialogue options appear and you select. And the voices sound awfully familiar… same cast perhaps?
That all said, judgements on these elements are wafty at best this far out from release and you should not take the above as religion. Visuals and SFX improve dramatically in the final few builds. But expect character interaction and thus plot progression to follow a very similar method to Oblivion.
There's an enormous factlist in pages 6-8 which contains some new facts, including the fact that the map "(visualised in a similar fashion to the land of Tamriel)", is "stacked with things to do" and includes "other vaults". Also, you can kill someone with a teddy bear.
* EDIT: so here's the explanation from Chris Stead (thanks Vasara).
We have an agreement with a few magazines to get access to content (and vice versa) when either of us do something special/cool. While some of the Fallout stuff over the course of this week is based on the 3hr Fallout presentation we had on Monday, we have also used some of the content we already had access to in order to ensure we covered every corner of the game completely.
Solivagant on his Destructoid blog gives us his view on the Diablo 3 news and how it relates to another favourite franchise of his, Fallout.
And now we got D3. It looks the same as D2 and D1. Two orbs. Mouse clicking. Iconic classes. It looks gorgeous as well. Using the same isometric (sic) perspective. And from what I can see, people are lapping it up. People are loving it, me included. Why? Well I guess it's reassuring to see a team that is made up of several different members from D2's team (even though it's still Blizzard) behind the steering wheel of this game, and how they managed to make the game be like what Diablo III SHOULD be like, in the hearts of fans and gamers in general.
All of this disturbs me. Why? Because I'm a fan of another franchise. One where action takes a sidestep into turn-based chaos, and dialog, options, different routes, take the center stage. A game whose setting was, and still is, unique.
...
[Bethesda] decided to scrap turn based, scrap the isometric perspective of Fallout, and are basically modding their Oblivion game with new textures, models and weapons, turning it into, you know it, Oblivion with Guns. And everybody is lauding them for it. No one is recognizing their lack of creativity and courage to bring out Fallout 3 as a turn based isometric rpg. Instead, most people are accepting their excuse that Fallout was only originally like that because of "technological impairments at the time".
...
It would take Blizzard to show them how to do a proper sequel.
But now it's too late.
Is he right? Is he wrong? Read, reflect and comment.
It's been a while since there's been a status update from Mutants Rising, so we were glad to get word from project leader Chris Parks.
MR UPDATE JUNE 2008
First things first as they say, the MR team is sorry that we haven't kept you all up to date recently. This is due to two things: we've been very preoccupied with the mod and CP (Team Leader) has finished University for the year. Whilst that may make no sense to you, it means CP no longer has broadband net access, just dial-up. CP is the only one who has access to update the website, so no net means no updates.
Anyway, that's irrelevant. The mod progress has been superb over the last month or so. CP's (Scripter) time left with the project is fast running out so we're pulling together to get things completed. Several large new maps have been finished, two or three loading screens and town maps have been completed, Wild_Qwerty is working on some new critters and Continuum has finished many new pieces of art and is currently working on what we believe is the biggest piece of scenery fallout has ever seen! A couple of old members have also returned and we have about four talking heads in progress. The whole thing is being pulled together script-wise and all things considered, we are about 60% of the way through the game.
If all things go as planned we hope to have a workable version of the game to test and subsequently improve by October. Judging by the number of people we have on the mod and the enthusiasm they are showing, this probably won't be a problem.
In the meantime, here's a couple of screenshots just to keep the appetite up!
Cory Edwards. World artist. No mention of Fallout.
What’s your job at Bethesda?
I’m a world artist working on texturing and modeling for our environments. My primary focus is on making kits for the level designers to use and abuse. I’ve spent the last two years making a large number of the dungeons kits used in Fallout 3 and the kit pieces for Megaton.
What other games have you worked on?
My first title was BloodRayne 2 and then I worked on Aeon Flux, both while at Terminal Reality. I moved on to Paradigm and worked briefly on Stuntman 2 before I discovered that racing games kill my soul.
For real this time, though it seems off by a day. Episode 3 brings us some location art we've already seen, and "bite sized Fallout factoids" strewn across seven pages. We are told about Marcus, The Road, factions from the first two games (like "New California Republicans"), Ron Perlman, pimping your spouse being one of "the very best bits of the Fallout games". Nothing new for us, but may spark the interest of some curious soul somewhere.
Just an aside - your father at one point shows you a bible passage set in a picture frame that your mother claimed as her favourite. It's from revelations, and it's worth repeating here: "And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." Prophetic indeed, and a glimpse at Bethesda's attempt to link casual first-time gamers with the lore of the Fallout series.
Bible = Fallout lore? Otherwise, the preview is very informative.
A point about the statistics here - although you may be able to choose a certain dialogue option or end result, thus shaping your character, the outcome is also driven by your attributes and skill level. For example, conversing with someone may prompt three possible dialogue options. Next to these may appear a percentage chance to succeed, so perhaps you'd like to convince someone to give you an object - your level of persuasion might only grant you a 25% chance of success, so you may find it better to choose a different option with a higher percentage. This allows your progression to be shaped on the fly through chance as well as choice.
(...)
We've seen terminal hacking as a mini game in BioShock, and just like that title, hacking in Fallout 3 seemed a little basic. Essentially if you've played the old classic Mastermind you'll understand - you are presented with a table of words interspersed with random characters, and you need to type in whichever word on the list you think the password is. You have five attempts, and each failed attempt will tell you how many of the letters are in the right place. After the fifth failed attempt, you are locked out of the console and can only bypass it with a key, which must be found somewhere within the vault. This forms the basis of another mission, but it is necessary as without the ability to leave Vault 101 it'd be a short game.
(...)
From here, we're shown a few saved games from later on in the story. First up is the introduction to Dogmeat, your faithful canine companion who has returned to assist you in your trek through the game. You meet Dogmeat by accident at a random stage early in the game (when and where is based on choices you have made up to this point) when his original master is set upon, and killed by Raiders. After defeating them, Dogmeat becomes loyal to you, and he can be tasked with various jobs such as fetching food or attacking enemies at range.
And also an interview with Pete Hines on pages 3/4.
Press: What do you say to all the fans out there that are concerned about the direction the franchise has taken?
Hines: Well two things really, firstly this is the next game we're doing after Oblivion, which obviously did very well for us, so we have our own expectations around stepping up our game, so to speak, and doing another game of hopefully better calibre than Oblivion. And secondly, we're huge fans of Fallout, we really took to that game, what it meant for gaming in general, and for people who played it. So we're very aware that this is a beloved franchise and a really important thing, and we have a lot of expectations in ourselves. We don't want to screw it up. This is what we think would make the best Fallout game.
Press: You didn't really look at a map in the game - how do you know where to go?
Hines: (Hines brings up Pip Boy 3000) There we go - this is what the world map looks like. This is every location in the game you can discover, it's enormous. What will happen is when you explore around the world you'll get map markers, given to you by NPCs. If you're familiar with Oblivion it works in very much the same way.
Also included are scans of brochures the press gets from Bethesda.
