The making of Fallout 4 - Game Informer article

[Kilus]

Game Informer visited Bethesda and talked to the developers on about the making of Fallout 4. Here are some excerpts from the article:

On the Adam Adamowicz's influence:

Artist Adam Adamowicz, who passed away from cancer in 2012, was a key contributor in this form of Fallout 4’s world building. Many of his designs are a part of the final game. He brought a lot of color to the game, and made such a large mark on the project, he was mentioned numerous times for making the world more vibrant.

On Dialogue:

Sound also weighed heavily on the writers’ scripts, as they learned early on that giving voices to the protagonists meant that they had to approach their dialogue in slightly different ways. “Once Brian [Delaney] and Courtenay [Taylor] came in – the two voice actors for our protagonists – it was like, ‘Oh, this is what a professional actor can do with my words.’” Pagliarulo says. “In Fallout 4, some of the choices are different, but even when they are the same, the way [Courtenay and Brian] deliver them is so different that it actually changes the context. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s really interesting.’ In a lot of ways, Brian’s take for the male protagonist is a little bit more sentimental, whereas Cortenay’s tougher and in your face. That isn’t how we intended it, but we thought it was pretty awesome.”

On narrative structure and player freedom:

Pagliarulo recalls being a little too obsessed over the narrative arc with that game. “Whenever you start to think about just story, you can really screw yourself because you lock yourself into this narrative structure that doesn’t give a lot of player freedom,” he says. “We’ve been doing this long enough together now that we always think in terms of player experience. ‘Okay, if this is the high-level thing and we end up here, what is the player doing? What am I doing to get there?’ We do have our major story beats, but we also have our gameplay wish list.”

...

Fallout 4 offers more player choice than any Bethesda game has before. This even affects little things like conversations. If players want to play the entire game sarcastically, they can, as one of the conversation buttons often delivers that tone. If they want to veer off of the beaten path to build settlements for days on end, they can, and can even link them together to share resources.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/11/06/the-making-of-fallout-4.aspx

 

[Crni Vuk]

What really makes choices different though, is the effects, not how you say it ... it doesn't matter how you say it, ironic, sarcstic, friendly, agressive ... when it always leads to the same outcome ... honestly? I could care less about a voice for the player, as long as I get choices and concequences.

*Edit, this will be a little rant about game development in general. Now, I am not a game devloper, but I find this a bit frustrating and disturbing. Don't read it, if you don't like silly rants, you have been warned!

Spoiler

They always mention how much passion they have for the game they create, as like they would actually have to pay money tothe company for allowing them to do it. They never get tired to explain how everyone, everywhere, responsible for something is either obsessed with his work, or overdoing it (just a little of course!), creating thousands of art assets, spending so many hours working on tiny little problems and details etc. Seriously. When you read about stuff like those The Horrorible World of Video Game Crunch, you realize how much of a marketing gimick this talk actually is, and how much of an assembly line it has become.

I have absolutely zero doubt about the fact that many people have a deep love for their job, you kinda have to. But seriously, we are talking about making games, not curing cancer ... at the end of the day, it is a job. Not everyone has the luxury of runing around on press conferences talking to reporters and telling everyone how awesome his job is.

And this over-excitiement is kinda disapearing very fast once you realize that the last time you saw your family, friends and a real bed was actually 6 months ago ... not to mention a real hair cut. And all of that while you're doing a job that eventually earns you half as much like in other industries for doing the same stuff with more humane work hours.

 

[Walpknut]

Wait, it was until the got voice actors for the protagonists that they realized what voice actors do with words? What the fuck? Don't all their recent games have voice acting for all NPCs? Are they admiting that their voice directing has always been shit?

They can play the game sarcastically! Oh holy molly, that's new.....
Hey can you play the game fully pacifist? no? Oh, didn't think so.... More "choice" sure, because they can choose a "sarcastic" option that doesn't even tells the player what they are actually going to say... do these people even understand what an RPG even is?

 

[whirlingdervish]

But, it offers more player choice than any Bethesda game has before!!

Seriously.

In Skyrim I could be one of a multitude of different races, and male or female, and actually kinda build my character toward a specific skillset and imagine my own backstory.

In this I can be male or female, and have the exact same voice regardless of the appearance I choose, and unlock perks in the order they have decided for me and I can't manually adjust skills in any useful fashion. I will also be forced to be the parent of a child, and a former soldier.

It's like these people didn't even play the last Bethesda game, much less any other Fallout game.


Protip: Stop paying these "gaming journalists" who don't know how to write and who don't actually play or understand games.

 

[TorontoReign]

But, it offers more player choice than any Bethesda game has before!!

Seriously.

In Skyrim I could be one of a multitude of different races, and male or female, and actually kinda build my character toward a specific skillset and imagine my own backstory.

In this I can be male or female, and have the exact same voice regardless of the appearance I choose, and unlock perks in the order they have decided for me and I can't manually adjust skills in any useful fashion. I will also be forced to be the parent of a child, and a former soldier.

It's like these people didn't even play the last Bethesda game, much less any other Fallout game.


Protip: Stop paying these "gaming journalists" who don't know how to write and who don't actually play or understand games.

Game Informer are paid shills. That is why you get a sub when you get a Gamestop card.

 

[Presper]

Wow, video game crunches sound horrible. I can't believe developers work that many hours unpaid. This is a really insightful article, thanks for the link. For the longest time I would wonder why so many games were bad, but now I know.

 

[THIJAKA]

It's good to see that they seem to be heavily focusing on letting us craft the story as we go this time. I don't care that there's a voiced protagonist or anything like that, as long as they give me a morally grey story with an outstanding villain, brilliant characters and lots of choices all set against the bright, but also dreary Boston skyline, then this die hard is happy!

Welcome Home.

 

[Walpknut]

This thing so rigid and forces you to such a specific role that they even removed Karma.

Spoiler

THere is a quest where some BOS member has to fight some synths in a room with an engine that is about to start on top of them for some reason. The engine starts and he has to take the hit, even if you open the door for him. When you activate him to talk they don't even give an option on how to react, your characters says for you "Oh my god! Are you okay?". It's fuckign dumb that people think you have more options now...

 

[Doctor 0]

This game will be a true test of human intelligence.

 

[THIJAKA]

I'm not bothered that karma is gone, the system was beyond broken.

In 3 you had the water beggar problem and such like that, and in NV it was even worse! Slaughter the whole of Caesar's Legion, here's some karma gain for you! But steal the sugar bombs of the people that you where just rewarded for murdering? Here's some karma loss.

 

[Walpknut]

Yeah, but now you are forced into reacting in a goody two shoes fashion on quests, like the example I gave.

 

[THIJAKA]

This game will be a true test of human intelligence.

Or you can accept that all art is subjective, all our likes and dislikes in art are fuelled by our experiences. A song many might hate might be adored by another simply because it takes them back to a time when they were happy. Someone might like a particular scene in a film simply because it reminds them of something that happened in their life, and people might shit on Fallout 3 for its aliens and the throwaway line that they started the war despite the fact an earlier game in the franchise did an even more blasphemous act of having a f*cking ghost and an A.I. that implies he and other A.I.'s started the war simply because they were bored.

Art is subjective, and liking any Fallout game the most is perfectly fine, whether this be 1, 3 or even BoS. Things have personal value to us, and that's what matters.

 

[THIJAKA]

Yeah, but now you are forced into reacting in a goody two shoes fashion on quests, like the example I gave.

I apologise that I can't go more in-depth here, as I can't read your example due to not wanting to be spoiled. I'll discuss this at a later date.

 

[TorontoReign]

This game will be a true test of human intelligence.

Or you can accept that all art is subjective, all our likes and dislikes in art are fuelled by our experiences. A song many might hate might be adored by another simply because it takes them back to a time when they were happy. Someone might like a particular scene in a film simply because it reminds them of something that happened in their life, and people might shit on Fallout 3 for its aliens and the throwaway line that they started the war despite the fact an earlier game in the franchise did an even more blasphemous act of having a f*cking ghost and an A.I. that implies he and other A.I.'s started the war simply because they were bored.

Art is subjective, and liking any Fallout game the most is perfectly fine, whether this be 1, 3 or even BoS. Things have personal value to us, and that's what matters.

Compare the dialog in Fallout 2 to the dialog in Fallout 4. Some things are bad no matter who you are and what taste you have.

 

[Walpknut]

Art is subjective, but math isn't. If people seriously can't see how more limited this game is in actual amount of player choice or dialogue options then they are just blind.

 

[THIJAKA]

This game will be a true test of human intelligence.

Or you can accept that all art is subjective, all our likes and dislikes in art are fuelled by our experiences. A song many might hate might be adored by another simply because it takes them back to a time when they were happy. Someone might like a particular scene in a film simply because it reminds them of something that happened in their life, and people might shit on Fallout 3 for its aliens and the throwaway line that they started the war despite the fact an earlier game in the franchise did an even more blasphemous act of having a f*cking ghost and an A.I. that implies he and other A.I.'s started the war simply because they were bored.

Art is subjective, and liking any Fallout game the most is perfectly fine, whether this be 1, 3 or even BoS. Things have personal value to us, and that's what matters.

Compare the dialog in Fallout 2 to the dialog in Fallout 4. Some things are bad no matter who you are and what taste you have.

You mean the dialogue that is half references to things that break the entire immersion of the world because the development team had, and have since came out and acknowledged this, that there was no focus, and everyone threw in references where ever they liked. Dialogue such as "I've always wanted to look like Kryten." and "You look like you belong in a battle mech computer game. This is Fallout 2. Maybe you opened the wrong folder on your hard drive." KRYTEN doesn't even exist in the Fallout world!!! IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. But yeah, main villains that are simply a reference to either Mel Gibson and Richard Nixon are the epitome of well dialogue when compared to a game were we haven't even remotely seen the majority of the, claimed-to-be, 400 hour long gameplay.

 

[THIJAKA]

Art is subjective, but math isn't. If people seriously can't see how more limited this game is in actual amount of player choice or dialogue options then they are just blind.

Without spoilers can you tell me if it is worse than 3? I personally believe that Fallout 3 being a bad RPG is a myth but it is far more limited than the other games for sure, so if it's better than that I won't be too disappointed, but if it's worse *shudders*

 

[Walpknut]

So far it is. Not only are the dialogue options more limited and unclear but with skills being removed it's even less of an RPG now. Many quests are very obviously funneled towards combat, with many generic "Kill these X in this location" everywhere and even npcs refusing to talk to you unless you clear enemies in a location.

 

[THIJAKA]

So far it is. Not only are the dialogue options more limited and unclear but with skills being removed it's even less of an RPG now. Many quests are very obviously funneled towards combat, with many generic "Kill these X in this location" everywhere and even npcs refusing to talk to you unless you clear enemies in a location.

Thank you, and this is sad to hear. Hopefully the leakers had very low charisma so that might be an explanation for it. Even if this is the case, I hope we can still convince major villains to walk away. Convincing The Master that his plan was flawed and convincing Autumn that he should just "walk away" with no less than 4 intelligence checks were some of the most emotionally satisfying moments in the franchise.

 

[Practicat]

The appeal to subjectivity is what I see as a problem to your argument. We set standards so we can evaluate games. They aren't concrete like laws of physics for example of course, but we have standards, otherwise there wouldn't be much of a way or any way to rate games.

The nigh nonsensical, such as transplanting three of the most powerful factions spread out on the west coast (BoS, Enclave, super mutants) into D.C. on the opposite side of the continent, falls beneath even the lowest standards.