Game Scoop! Podcast: Episode 55 features a chat with Pete Hines (who sounds like he has a bit of a cold) at 33:10. Some bits:<blockquote>IGN dude: one thing we didn't see [in the demo] was the overworld map, how you actually get around in the world. In Fallout people told you about a city and you could travel there in an overworld map, but then you could encounter random enemies on the way. Whereas in Oblivion you would just fasttravel there.
Pete Hines: In Fallout they used this method of traveling across the world that was dissociated with actually having to walk across it. You were a little x moving across the map and you could actually explore unexplored parts of the world. In Oblivion, the difference was that you could never fasttravel until you have been there, so even when you know where a place is you can't actually fasttravel to it or back from it until you've discovered it. I imagine that whatever we end up doing in Fallout 3 will be similar to that. We don't want you to skip the step of going out into the world and finding new things to do and to just be able to jump in. We like the fact that you have to get there first and have made your way to it, and then, if you're going back and forth between two places you've already discovered, there's no reason you can't just jump back and forth. But how exactly fasttravel will work in Fallout is still TBD.</blockquote>After this, he explains that creatures sometimes respawn (ant lair), sometimes don't (super-mutants), picking whichever makes sense. He notes that they're far enough that they can show the game and have it so that the demo is actually pretty representative of the finished game, bar some polish.
Pete also explains that Megaton is probably the most simplistic branching-quest, having just two basic options (blow up or don't). And as known before, it is repeated that skills influence dialogue. Furthermore, reactions to actions like murdering some guy in his house can be delayed because people will only discover it later, or potentially not discover it at all if you murder the dude in a hidden spot:<blockquote>If you take somebody out in a location where nobody else is aware of it, then your actions should be unknown to everybody else and therefor not affective in terms of how you deal with other people</blockquote>And karma reactiveness should make sense. And:<blockquote>We want each karma type to be specific unto itself. The example Todd named is that if you have evil karma, at some point in the game the good guys will actually send guys out to get you. If you have good karma the evil guys will send people out to get you. But if you're neutral, they both basically ignore you, neither side really cares about you one way or the other. (...) we want there to be three really distinct types in terms of your roleplaying character.</blockquote>They discuss weapons (100% repaired = maximum DPS for that weapon, duh) and the fact that the world is a struggle to survive so you'll likely have to drink water to heal. Pete Hines explains only a small chunk of the gameworld will be recognizably D.C. IGN asks what the 300 million cash injection to ZeniMax is for, and Pete answers that it's basically for expansion (for instance, expanding Bethesda's publishing role).
And on the end they tag on the standard "how's the fanbase been?"-question, which Pete Hines answers with "their role is to provide criticism, and we absorb that and figure out how to factor it in", but "you can't make someone else's game."
(Gee, maybe you shouldn't have bought someone else's game, then?)
The examples Pete Hines names of the fanbase interaction is the community question (from Bethesda's blog and forum) and perk contest (from Bethesda's official site).
Pete Hines: In Fallout they used this method of traveling across the world that was dissociated with actually having to walk across it. You were a little x moving across the map and you could actually explore unexplored parts of the world. In Oblivion, the difference was that you could never fasttravel until you have been there, so even when you know where a place is you can't actually fasttravel to it or back from it until you've discovered it. I imagine that whatever we end up doing in Fallout 3 will be similar to that. We don't want you to skip the step of going out into the world and finding new things to do and to just be able to jump in. We like the fact that you have to get there first and have made your way to it, and then, if you're going back and forth between two places you've already discovered, there's no reason you can't just jump back and forth. But how exactly fasttravel will work in Fallout is still TBD.</blockquote>After this, he explains that creatures sometimes respawn (ant lair), sometimes don't (super-mutants), picking whichever makes sense. He notes that they're far enough that they can show the game and have it so that the demo is actually pretty representative of the finished game, bar some polish.
Pete also explains that Megaton is probably the most simplistic branching-quest, having just two basic options (blow up or don't). And as known before, it is repeated that skills influence dialogue. Furthermore, reactions to actions like murdering some guy in his house can be delayed because people will only discover it later, or potentially not discover it at all if you murder the dude in a hidden spot:<blockquote>If you take somebody out in a location where nobody else is aware of it, then your actions should be unknown to everybody else and therefor not affective in terms of how you deal with other people</blockquote>And karma reactiveness should make sense. And:<blockquote>We want each karma type to be specific unto itself. The example Todd named is that if you have evil karma, at some point in the game the good guys will actually send guys out to get you. If you have good karma the evil guys will send people out to get you. But if you're neutral, they both basically ignore you, neither side really cares about you one way or the other. (...) we want there to be three really distinct types in terms of your roleplaying character.</blockquote>They discuss weapons (100% repaired = maximum DPS for that weapon, duh) and the fact that the world is a struggle to survive so you'll likely have to drink water to heal. Pete Hines explains only a small chunk of the gameworld will be recognizably D.C. IGN asks what the 300 million cash injection to ZeniMax is for, and Pete answers that it's basically for expansion (for instance, expanding Bethesda's publishing role).
And on the end they tag on the standard "how's the fanbase been?"-question, which Pete Hines answers with "their role is to provide criticism, and we absorb that and figure out how to factor it in", but "you can't make someone else's game."
(Gee, maybe you shouldn't have bought someone else's game, then?)
The examples Pete Hines names of the fanbase interaction is the community question (from Bethesda's blog and forum) and perk contest (from Bethesda's official site).
. I also liked the music the first Fallout had for it (and if I'm correct, it was later recycled into Klamath's theme in FO2).
