1UP interview with Emil

Making Their Game

Making Their Game



I'm a bit confused on when this Emil EDGE content was published, (a date 12-24-08 under the by line),
http://www.edge-online.com/blogs/emil-pagliarulo-writes-edge
yet the comments on the EGDE page seem from October - November - December,

AND a commenter points to a Gamasutra piece -->

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20908 ,

dated 10-31-08, appears to quote Emil's EDGE piece.


Was there a rewrite?


So, this is 'old' news that I think applies to this thread.


The designers of FO3 could decide - early on- that some content could have bad consequences for ...

Gold, Glory, and ... (that big laughing guy in the sky) ... God ...

as B-soft conquistadors subjugate the known universe.

Then, as the title shapes up ...

The designers of FO3 could decide - later on- the ending of the main quest could exploit
a few more consequences now that a some followers could tag along with the PC.

But.

It wasn't an important enough addition,

even for mo' to the -- X -- number of endings

to delay the publication and perhaps miss the build up sales momentum to Christmas Season 2008.

Here, this day, FO3 stands as it is,
a sell out ... fo' the PC edition at my local Micro Center,
but still a few copies available at yo' local Game Stop store front,
if yo' can't wait fo' a delivery to yo' do'.


Over all, sales do not seem impeded by these design decisions,
and the commentary associated with these - snips on cutting room floor - are mo' buzz fo' B-soft.




4too

 

i don't know why anybody is even pretending to be surprised about this concession. we've known from the very beginning that this was going to be a game full of "cool shit" to make console kiddies go "AWESUM! SPLOSHUN! KICK ASS!"

it's like...uh, surprise?

 

You know what; “at the end of a day” it is still mystery to me why Bethesda went for this IP. After Oblivion, knowing mentality of average OB player, they could have made just a contraction set, nothing more, and it would sell like hotcakes to OB players. No 4 years of waiting for … this. And that is what bugs me, personally. For 4 years whole careers were built. World tallest buildings were built. WW2 has started and ended and in almost same time-span man went to moon for-God-sake. Talking about efficiency.

Ahm…
Are they so small not to be able to create its own IP [like BW with Mass Effect]?. I wrote on their site how great stage was set in Morrowind [aside realization it is not the point]. Great and deep world with myriad of sidetracks in books and stuff. Original in many cases. And very coherent.

There is something personal when I saw something bad and of poor quality to be praised. It is somewhat insult to my… esthetics and anything that my notion of quality stands for.

And that is why it is, maybe not a surprise, but more revolt that I feel when thinking about it.

I know it’s pretty futile to speak about that, but we all sometimes play in this special Olympic from time to time

p.s. Eh, yes! HNY guys! Have a nice next one, stay cool
p.p.s Sorry Twinkie I reported you by error I'm writing this ffrom pda

 

(jk)

 

The Quick And The *Slagged*

The Quick And The *Slagged*




Surprise?

Learned an Italian adverb and an alleged anglo slang for 'skank' consuming the cornucopia of Per's FO3 Revues.

Amazing what slips through word-bot filters, this wiki-s as an adverb meaning suddenly with no warning, unexpectedly.

Surprise!

Surprise can be entertaining, and the mysterious alchemy of 'happy accidents' perhaps more a factor in nurturing electronic game 'classics' then the dictates of transient gushing "revues" with 11 out of 10 scoring.

Old enough to be familiar coal heating, resided in coal country and witnessed mighty slag heaps.

Was curious if the Italian meaning of 'slag', 'radioactive slags', aligned with my humble expectations of a surprise - prize in the FO3 box.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slag_(slang)&oldid=259824954 { <--not sure how to html the parenthesis - so hand load copy/paste to link}

... ! truth or spoof !... ...

Oh my, cross cultural implications can be explicit and prolific!

Warning glowing hot slag pile in links below!

http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_item.asp?path=/Assets/product_images/1020/&file=143952.1020.A.jpg

http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_item.asp?path=/Assets/product_images/1020/&file=382782.1020.A.jpg

http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/screenplay/vi163053849/



@TwinkieGorilla At NMA we can brown bag any flavor of SURPRISE we can imagine!

Swig a shot or sweeten your Nuka Cola, and work on the smile that greets the teeth of this impending New Year!



4too

 

I remember reading a book on how to wrtite stories manye years back. The best advice was this: 'If you do not know to land, then don't write the story'.

It seems to be that neither Todd nor Emil as professional writers have sat down and thought about the ending. Or they did. And wanted the player character to sacrifice himself or herself in order to save everyone - probably a nod to Planescape: Torment's ending?

I thought design docs were made before the game? not during the game? To me, what Emil tells us about the making of FO3 seems like they just added everything that sounded cool in it; no-one apparently took a step back and said 'does this make sense in the setting?'

Note that am not critizing Emil and Todd as persons, but as game designers. And shouldn't Todd be the one that keeps an eye (or both of them) on the game, making sure, it all fits together...?

 

I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so glad we didn't end up piloting a giant anime robot

The fact that we came this close to it frightens me however

 

Yeah, but it'd still suck though...

 

yeah but it would suck less.! Every improvement is a improvement!

 

Probably true. An autonomous, humanoid robot that fights communism is ironic. Man as mechanism is a hallmark of Soviet tradition. An individual controlling an avatar-like robot would at least be more emblematic of the American tradition of individualism. Change the name to 'Liberty One' and hinge the operation on a high Science skill and you might be onto something.

 

a guy simple enough to realize he wouldn't be the first person to have done such a thing in the history of the united states. or if you want to look internationally and want to stretch it a little, there's this.

seriously, though it may be cool to hate on F3 (and i was as disappointed with it as the rest of you) you're being almost childlike with your nitpicking. it's called suspension of disbelief, and in the republic of dave's case, it's really not that much of a stretch.

lamplight caverns was disgustingly lame, but even that had historical precedent from the mid 50s. a few people have made reference to "lord of the flies" but aside from a bunch of children fending for themselves i don't see the similarity since there really was nothing dynamic about it-- they weren't exactly infighting or resorting to cannibalism.

put a few more points into the "american history" skill and you *might* find some of the game's more subtle nuances a little more interesting. a lot of people obviously did a lot of research when they created all the social environments and ideosyncracies for this game, and honestly i wouldn't do anything different for a sequel. isolated groups of people will come up with their own cultures and societies and they actually did a decent job of capturing this mechanic in various ways, although i am surprised religion played such a minor/passive role (briefly involving the bomb at megaton).

on the other hand below the surface a lot of it was crap. they did the research but they failed to make it an interesting experience. some were interesting (megaton, tenpenny) but almost every settlement was exactly the same. lamplight was just annoying and a lot of the other characters were just wooden or shallow.

(emperor norton principality of sealand robbers cave)

 

Lech Walensa (the guy who was the leader of an anti-communistic movement "Solidarnosc" in Poland) was an electrician.

 

No, just saying that a "simple person" can make a lot of things (creating a republic, or something).

Nevermind

 

I have not played this quest. My thrust was toward the depth of meaning implied by republic versus the lack of depth illustrated in the game in general. I have assumed that the subject wasn't "treated" with much beyond an elementary level and if I am incorrect, I apologize. I will go back and play this bit and amend my post.

 

i can see why your expectations would be so low, but i doubt your opinion will change much after a subsequent playthrough. knowing what you now know won't exactly provide any additional sense of depth to the settlement-- all said and done it's still as shallow as the rest.

my objection was to your dismissal of the concept itself.

 

Cutting the robot from the game would have been a larger improvement. They might have actually spent some time fitting the followers into the ending then.

 

I think NMA would have hated Fallout 3 no matter what Bethesda did. The way people here think about things blows me away sometimes!

Also it blows me away that there's people here who actually think the Enclave would have had no presence at all in the Washington DC area. It was the central hub of the pre-war government, and they had to have come from somewhere, not to mention there would have been government holdouts (at least one) and vault-like environments in that area simply due to government planning.. IRL the government has bunkers etc set up and its realistic to imagine they would be in or near the area that they ran things from in case of a catastrophic event.

Also... I just want to add that the comment about "what simple guy knows what a republic is" has to be one of the most grossly ignorant comments I've ever seen. Are you implying that people of the working class are stupid?

 

200 years after nuclear war? Yes. Because there isn't a working class anymore.

And if the Enclave were going to do anything, it would've been a lot sooner.

That's the problem. Their stuff doesn't make logical sense.