Bethesda producer on Fallout

[Brother None]

In his blog, Bethesda senior producer Ashley Cheng revisits Fallout:<blockquote>Saw this story about Fallout development. With Shivering Isles, Oblivion's expansion pack wrapping up soon, the team is ramping into production on Fallout. It's fun to see more press about it in publications -- the OXM with Shivering Isles on the cover has a sidebar about Fallout. It's one thing to pull the build off the network and experience our day to day work; there is something about seeing official press coverage that brings a new reality to our work. Personally, I think the worse thing a team can do while working on a game is believe its own press. Still you can't beat the feel good factor that comes with seeing people get excited about your work.

Fallout has always been a personal favorite. It was not a commercial success, only hard core gamers played it, and its one of those games that is highly coveted by game developers. Efforts to expand the game to a more mainstream audience, like the Xbox Brotherhood of Steel game, failed miserably. Much like the philosophy behind Superman Returns (which I watched last night on my Xbox HD-DVD), I prefer to pretend Fallout stopped after the 2nd game

I've played the first one several times through, played Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics (never finished Tactics). I started to play Brotherhood of Steel (the one for xbox) but was very disappointed.

If you happen to get the urge to play Fallout, here's one way of enjoying the best parts. Roll a character with a really high Luck, and forgo other stats. Then go to your options and crank all difficulty to easy -- essentially, reduce the time in combat. This will allow you to see some of the cool hidden encounters (high Luck) and experience all the atmosphere, characters and quests.</blockquote>Link: Fallout revisited on Ashley Cheng's blog

Thanks Briosafreak.

 

[SuAside]

positive:
- FO1 > FO2 > FOT > POS
- prefer to pretend FO stopped after the 2nd game

negative:
- tune down difficulty? oh please...
- Xbox namedropping

 

[Brother None]

prefer to pretend FO stopped after the 2nd game

I'm not sure how to read that. Does he mean Bethesda is planning to pretend one franchise ended and another begins, just with the same name? That would explain the reference to Superman Returns, at the least. Enshrine an old franchise, start anew.

 

[Briosafreak]

prefer to pretend FO stopped after the 2nd game

I'm not sure how to read that. Does he mean Bethesda is planning to pretend one franchise ended and another begins, just with the same name? That would explain the reference to Superman Returns, at the least. Enshrine an old franchise, start anew.

The new Superman movie starts as if all the films after the second didn't existed. He's pointing out the fact that they are doing the same with their Fallout game, working from the cues taken from Fallout and FO2 and not paying attention to the spin-offs, continuing the tradition of Tactics and FOBOS not being considered canon, so they will work only with the setting and material from the first ones, as the basis of their work. At least that's what he's saying, we'll see.

 

[Praetorian]

This actually gave me some hope after that last "Fallout 3 headed to X-Box" news report. I am glad that he played Fallout and noticed the difference between 1&2 and those spinoffs and realises that they failed miserably. Could someone please explain just how important his position is in the Fallout 3 development team? I am not familiar with that project staff hierarchy in english

 

[zioburosky13]

The new Superman movie starts as if all the films after the second didn't existed. He's pointing out the fact that they are doing the same with their Fallout game, working from the cues taken from Fallout and FO2 and not paying attention to the spin-offs, continuing the tradition of Tactics and FOBOS not being considered canon, so they will work only with the setting and material from the first ones, as the basis of their work. At least that's what he's saying, we'll see.

Sounds like FO3 is setting between Fallout and FO2.

If you happen to get the urge to play Fallout, here's one way of enjoying the best parts. Roll a character with a really high Luck, and forgo other stats. Then go to your options and crank all difficulty to easy -- essentially, reduce the time in combat. This will allow you to see some of the cool hidden encounters (high Luck) and experience all the atmosphere, characters and quests.

Translation: We now have a kiddie/noob/munchkin mode for newbie.

Even if this 'producer' wants to put anything of Fallout into FO3, I fear some of it will be shot down by Todd (No turn-based! Kids find them boring! No whores/gore! We want to get a T-rating <--sells more to kids. No dialogue! Voice acting is cool! (except its done by 3 voice actors.. ), who's Ron Perlman? ... blah blah blah)...

 

[VDweller]

Sounds awesome, I'm excited myself.

http://archive.gamespy.com/interviews/october03/falloutbos/

"We looked at a lot of different licenses. I mean obviously BGA, Baldur's Gate is on console, so a lot of people were thinking Fallout as well. So a couple of us, way back, threw together a some ideas on a Fallout game on console, and that's basically it. It wasn't so much "right here, right now," but "hey, this is a property that people love and I think we can make something pretty fun."

"So for some people here they're just excited to work on something that was for them a classic game. I [Chuck Cuevas] was pretty psyched about working on Fallout."

"A lot of us were like, with this really cool post-apocalyptic world, how is turn-based combat and a keyboard and mouse intrinsic to that?"

"Yeah, you know. The PC sites, we basically don't talk to them anymore because they were so negative, and looking for things to jump on that we just stopped talking to them, stopped providing them things because all they did was turn it around and use it against us. "

 

[Brother None]

At least Chuck vindicated himself with the awesome success of BoS.

 

[keyser Soeze]

Ashley Cheng

Xbox namedropping + this pic

I rest my case 8)

Edit: you can't hotlink mobygames images, so I turned your image into a link. Hope you don't mind - Jabberwocky

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Fallout was for hardcore gamers?

I gave a copy to my girl and she loves it, and I can hardly call her a 'hardcore gamer'.Hell I'm not even by far that.

I am deeply saddened by the fact that no one anymore cares about
the other markets.While in the States or western EU money for consoles or games isn't a problem, in other parts of the world a PC is all you have.And with more consoles, mp3 players, mobiles, dvds, blue rays and all that, I can't compete.Simply put, gaming has become to expensive and restrictive.You have to have a super comp to play the latest and lousyest RTS or RPG out there.



So, what is their excuse?

 

[Per]

Too bad Superman Returns wasn't very good. But the idea is sound I suppose.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

The excuse is simple, and sadly enough... it makes sense....

On those markets there's simply no profit. Why should they invest?

Anyway... back 2 topic....

This producer comment lifts my hope... at least a bit
Despite those really bad "Fallout on Xbox 360...blahblah" news, I really hope there still is a chance they dont ruin the whole game by making it too concole-like and by changing too much stuff.

At least they appreciate the original games and know what games they SHOULD have to reach....

 

[Lumpy]

I think what he says is preety obvious.
He says that Fallout 1 and 2 are good, that Fallout Tactics was decent but he never finished it, and that BoS sucked.
Now, if he means it, all the better. On the other hand, if I spent some time studying the Ultima Series, I could sound very much like a hardcore fan, without even having played any of the games.
And he'd have plenty of reasons to do that. A couple of articles such as this, and it could substantially lessen the shitstorm of hardcore fan sites.

On the other hand, the final quote doesn't look like the kind of thing you'd copy from anywhere, nor something you could write about without having played Fallout AND understood what makes it great: dialogue, quests and choices, not combat and shit. It's preety much the approach I took on my first run through PST.

 

[Brother None]

tune down difficulty? oh please...

I forgot to address this. Obviously Cheng is not the kind of fan that can replay Fallout infinitely, maybe he takes issue with the combat, whatever. Why he doesn't advise people to install the AWESOME MODS ON NMA to replay the games is beyond me, but his replay advise isn't bad.

He says turn down difficulty so you can skip over combat. Fallout is not a combat game, and while you can vary types of weapons and skills easily, it does turn out to be much the same after run-through number 10. So he's advising a mode to skip over the part which is the same and explore details you might miss if you concentrate on a more rounded character.

Why max luck and not max intelligence and speech to explore? I don't know, but that's a bit of a bad sign, since the most "exploreable" and "variable" part of Fallout is without a doubt SpeechBoy. ScienceBoy, CombatBoy and StealthBoys all over modes of play, but none offers as much detail and different paths to take as SpeechBoy. Why did he miss that? Dunno.

Could someone please explain just how important his position is in the Fallout 3 development team?

Ashley Cheng is the production director. He's responsible for day to day work, making deadlines, checking schedules, etc. for all internal Bethesda projects, including Fallout 3. I don't think he influences the design much, but I wouldn't know.

 

[SumsoluS]

bollocks I lost my one page rant.


uhm booo consoles!

I love this quote from amazon uk though for F:BOS

In your face Pc, 24 Oct 2003
Reviewer: A gamer
I also play an demo if this game and I can say with out a doubt it is brilliant. You get to kill all kinds of mutants that come after you with lots of different weapons.
It is good to see that Interplay feel that Brotherhood is good enough for the console market and not just the pc. It will be a real dynamic game where everything will be moving.

Order a copy now!

 

[Bunkermensch]

A-A-Ashley is Bethesda senior producer and he is telling us *this*?...

Cant he tell us something useful? I really don't like guessing which of these kiddy speech lines can be a hint to what Fallout 3 will be like.

He is telling some uninteresting shit, then he is doing some uninteresting compares, more uninteresting shit and he is giving stupid childish hints.

He is scratching the surface of some of his subjectively ideas which are of null importance.

Additionally he uses XBOX minimum 3 times plus holding his love in his arms, his XBOX XBOX! That makes me shiver each time

I guess Bethesda is producing mainstream rpgs because they are mainstream people who like playing mainstream games on their mainstream XBOX.

But i will wait until i see a first screenshot of their masterpiece named Fallout 3 before i say they will fail. Maybe it will be some surprise or better say "wonder"

 

[penumbra]

well, i am encouraged hearing this from a bethesda producer. i'm not really bothered by what difficulty he played at, his opinions are basically mine. (i didn't even bother trying POS tho, ethically i guess i would have had to have shoplifted it or something.) this guy sounds like someone we could talk to if he were open to the community or whatever. doesn't "producer" mean he's pretty high up in the company?

i really hope that other guy that they have doing some maps takes more from his aeon flux map making experience than his oblivion experience. i guess i don't know how hopeful i am personally, we still haven't seen anything...

hopefully they take in enough inspiration from stalker and bioshock as far as recent projects go. and then watch lost highway about 400 times. maybe they could even hire people from the stalker and bioshock teams when those projects are finished.

 

[Sytxferryman]

Fallout was for hardcore gamers?

I gave a copy to my girl and she loves it, and I can hardly call her a 'hardcore gamer'.Hell I'm not even by far that.

Ditto to that. While undoutably Fallout is my all time favorite game, F2 being the 2nd I think it to be far from hardcore. Mabey for people with add that cant sit still for more than 5 seconds and cry for "graphix graphix GRAPHIX!!!" all the time but us normal people, no.

Although in my divorce my x-wife had specificaly listed my copy of Fallout1 in the papers so I dont think she would fit in the non-hardcore catagory

EDITh yeah... the dificulty thing kinda bothered me also, am I alone in wishing Fallout actualy could have been more difficult than it was?

Still it is atleast not the standard repetive bs we have been getting from them, this seems down to earth... even if he does mention the unholy crackbox I think there is some positive things here to look at and I have to think... after all this time has gone and we all have waited a eternity for would god really let us get a crappy sequel to Fallout? F**k yeah... but such is life.

BUT atleast this guy didnt like BOS>POS so thumbs up to that. I remember last time fallout came out on console... the console had to die... on film... in the fireplace. Those things really really really burn hot, there should be a label or sompthing on consoles about that.

 

[penumbra]

while on the topic, is anyone in the position to ask this guy if he is more open to better speaking terms with, and/or even the hiring of former troika staff? (comparing to the other bethesda types that just weren't intetested for whatever half-wit reasoning.)

 

[Brother None]

while on the topic, is anyone in the position to ask this guy if he is more open to better speaking terms with, and/or even the hiring of former troika staff?

I can answer that without asking him; no he isn't. His individual willingness to speak with Troika staff would be irrelevant as he does not influence development, only timelines and milestones. And for anyone who knows anything about Troika-Bethesda communications it's obvious the company has very little willingness to let any former Fallout devs even advise them, let alone work for them. There is zero hope for anyone from Troika working on this game.

Sorry, but it's the cold hard facts.

this guy sounds like someone we could talk to if he were open to the community or whatever.

He isn't.

doesn't "producer" mean he's pretty high up in the company?

Yes and no. He probably has a vote on some big decision, but doesn't get directly involved in actual development.