In a thread on the BethSoft forum discussing devs communicating with fans, Bethesda world artist Grant "TheGragster" Struthers chipped in for his .02:<blockquote>First off I would like to quickly say that I am an artist at Bethesda. I worked on environmental art for Oblivion and I have now moved on more to effects and such for Fallout. For this reason, I will not be able to answer any questions about the gameplay mechanics or story of Fallout 3. This is simply because my view/opinion of the current state of these things would be incomplete, inaccurate and/or irrelevant.
Now that that is out of the way, I would like to say something about working here. We are not in the business of making games solely for other people. We do not make our decisions based of market research, trends, polls or other such nonsense; and our business folks, while very good at their jobs, stay almost completely out of the development process. (Hey, they sign the checks, so we have to at least tell them what we’re doing.)
We simply try to make games that we think will be fun to play. We want to play these games and enjoy them, and we want other people to like playing these games as well. If we were only in the business of making money we would be selling WWII football games for the DS. (And I wouldn’t really want to work here anymore.)
There are a lot of people here who are very passionate about Fallout and want to stay true to what made the first games great. Personally, I have only played a few hours of the first Fallout and very recently at that, so it would be wrong for me to claim any great fandom. (Before your head explodes please refer to the disclaimer about me not being in charge of story or gameplay design!) However, I have enjoyed what I have played for the most part. I like the setting and dialogue and I like how your skills affect you ability to communicate with people a lot. I don’t, however, agree with you on the combat system. To me, it feels like an excruciatingly slow Diablo. I don’t see it as being particularly more involving, just much, much slower. To each there own I suppose.
I’m sorry if you hated Oblivion. I will not preach that every facet of the game was perfect. I could, along with the 60 or so others immediately around me, offer a laundry list of things I wish were different about the game, but I know we are proud of it as a whole. And I also know that by any impartial measure (i.e., not my Mom and not the people on these forums) the game is enjoyed by the vast majority of people who play it. It is ok to have on opinion on the game and no one here is going to attack anyone who does not like it, but don’t assume that because you know five, ten, or even a hundred people who hate everything about Oblivion, you should get an apology from us.
Fallout will be very different from Oblivion and it will be a game that I guarantee we will not release until we are happy with it. Will you like everything about it? No, of course not. Will you like anything about it? I have no way to guarantee that for you, but that’s ok, because as stated earlier, we are not in the business of making games solely for other people.</blockquote>Link: thread on BethSoft forum
Now that that is out of the way, I would like to say something about working here. We are not in the business of making games solely for other people. We do not make our decisions based of market research, trends, polls or other such nonsense; and our business folks, while very good at their jobs, stay almost completely out of the development process. (Hey, they sign the checks, so we have to at least tell them what we’re doing.)
We simply try to make games that we think will be fun to play. We want to play these games and enjoy them, and we want other people to like playing these games as well. If we were only in the business of making money we would be selling WWII football games for the DS. (And I wouldn’t really want to work here anymore.)
There are a lot of people here who are very passionate about Fallout and want to stay true to what made the first games great. Personally, I have only played a few hours of the first Fallout and very recently at that, so it would be wrong for me to claim any great fandom. (Before your head explodes please refer to the disclaimer about me not being in charge of story or gameplay design!) However, I have enjoyed what I have played for the most part. I like the setting and dialogue and I like how your skills affect you ability to communicate with people a lot. I don’t, however, agree with you on the combat system. To me, it feels like an excruciatingly slow Diablo. I don’t see it as being particularly more involving, just much, much slower. To each there own I suppose.
I’m sorry if you hated Oblivion. I will not preach that every facet of the game was perfect. I could, along with the 60 or so others immediately around me, offer a laundry list of things I wish were different about the game, but I know we are proud of it as a whole. And I also know that by any impartial measure (i.e., not my Mom and not the people on these forums) the game is enjoyed by the vast majority of people who play it. It is ok to have on opinion on the game and no one here is going to attack anyone who does not like it, but don’t assume that because you know five, ten, or even a hundred people who hate everything about Oblivion, you should get an apology from us.
Fallout will be very different from Oblivion and it will be a game that I guarantee we will not release until we are happy with it. Will you like everything about it? No, of course not. Will you like anything about it? I have no way to guarantee that for you, but that’s ok, because as stated earlier, we are not in the business of making games solely for other people.</blockquote>Link: thread on BethSoft forum
Oh, sorry, it's probably already done 
