GamersGlobal interviews Pete Hines

[Brother None]

GamersGlobal interviews Pete Hines. There's some interesting questions in there, definitely worth a read.<blockquote>GamersGlobal: Is it right that some locations are the equivalent of the “random dungeons” of Oblivion?

Pete Hines: Sure. First, there’s just random encounters that you find in the world. You’re walking along and there’s an elementary school that’s been taken over by raiders and that’s kind of a “random dungeon” type thing, although of course it’s not a dungeon. There’s a building and it’s occupied by someone, some creatures or NPCs or whatever it is, you discover what’s it about, and sometimes there’s a little sidestory to it, like in the Elementary School. In that instance, you find out that there’s more behind it than just some raiders. And it is stuff like that you can find in the world, that adds to the overall flavor. It’s off the beaten path and you might never find it, but when you’ve done it you have done something unique and cool.

GamersGlobal: So if I empty that Elementary School of raiders, and if I come back later: Will they have respawned?

Pete Hines: I’m not sure about that particular location. But there are some places in the world where creatures will respawn, and some where they don’t. It’s a matter of balance. We definitely do not want you go through an area and when you come back, it’s completely devoid of life. But we don’t want to have the opposite either, so the respawning is definitely not a 10-minute-cycle. If a place respawns, you would not find it repopulated before some time has passed.</blockquote>

 

[Tornadium]

By some time i hope they mean a month or more...

 

[HoKa]

If I kill the living shit out of somewhere, I want it to stay that way. If the place respawns after a while, it destroys any sense of development or consequence.

"Hmm, I wonder if I kill these raiders some shit will stir up?"
[2 hours later.]
"They're all gone."
[1 month later after traveling.]
"They're back again? Didn't I kill all of these assholes a couple of we- Oh, it's one of those respawn locations I read about in the Game Guide."

And there goes the immersion.

 

[Voice Of Reason]

wouldn't it be nice if a place where everything was killed would be repopulated with the enemies of the fraction that lived there before? empty a raider base -> lawful people settle there. empty a town -> bad guys appear there. empty an insect dungeon -> mammals or whatever appear there. wouldn't that make more sense?

 

[Lexx]

Of course, you’ll never finish the main quest that way, but we’re not gonna tell you have to find your dad.

In the Tenpenny Tower, after the nucular explosion, I saw a message pop up on the top left corner that said "Find your dad" or something similar.

 

[Beelzebud]

Pete "The Genius" Hines obviously doesn't know what random is. They ask him about random encounters and he mentions the Springvale Elementary School AGAIN.

I'm really starting to wonder how small this game is. When the character leaves Vault 101 you can see the Washington Monument on the horizon. That doesn't seem like it's very big.

Hopefully there is more to it than Megaton, Paradise Falls, the School, and the Grocery Store...

 

[bonustime]

If I kill the living shit out of somewhere, I want it to stay that way. If the place respawns after a while, it destroys any sense of development or consequence.

"Hmm, I wonder if I kill these raiders some shit will stir up?"
[2 hours later.]
"They're all gone."
[1 month later after traveling.]
"They're back again? Didn't I kill all of these assholes a couple of we- Oh, it's one of those respawn locations I read about in the Game Guide."

And there goes the immersion.

It's ridiculous to think though that shelter in the wasteland will go unused just because some other people died there. The repopulation is just something like another group of raiders, creatures, etc coming across and occupying the location for the same reasons the first did. That said they probably will repopulate things far too fast but what are you gonna do?

 

[TehPwntif]

It's ridiculous to think though that shelter in the wasteland will go unused just because some other people died there. The repopulation is just something like another group of raiders, creatures, etc coming across and occupying the location for the same reasons the first did. That said they probably will repopulate things far too fast but what are you gonna do?

I agree bonustime, if they do it right, it could be good. They need to make it gradual. The raiders can't just pop up there at once. After a week you could have a small scouting party of raiders. After a month, an entire clan. Something of that sort.

 

[Zeld]

It's ridiculous to think though that shelter in the wasteland will go unused just because some other people died there. The repopulation is just something like another group of raiders, creatures, etc coming across and occupying the location for the same reasons the first did. That said they probably will repopulate things far too fast but what are you gonna do?

I agree bonustime, if they do it right, it could be good. They need to make it gradual. The raiders can't just pop up there at once. After a week you could have a small scouting party of raiders. After a month, an entire clan. Something of that sort.

Im fairly sure (although i could be wrong) that Todd or Hines said that it was done that way.

 

[thefalloutfan]

Pete "The Genius" Hines obviously doesn't know what random is. They ask him about random encounters and he mentions the Springvale Elementary School AGAIN.

I'm really starting to wonder how small this game is. When the character leaves Vault 101 you can see the Washington Monument on the horizon. That doesn't seem like it's very big.

Hopefully there is more to it than Megaton, Paradise Falls, the School, and the Grocery Store...

It's a bit smaller than Oblivion so yes it's quite big. And as one of the previewers said, he gets blocked when going to the monument and had to take another route, and in his one hour preview he never got there in time.

 

[Anani Masu]

Pete "The Genius" Hines obviously doesn't know what random is. They ask him about random encounters and he mentions the Springvale Elementary School AGAIN.

Actually, he was asked about "random dungeons" in the non quest related place to explore sense. Perhaps you might want to work on your reading comprehension before you insult people.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Pete "The Genius" Hines obviously doesn't know what random is. They ask him about random encounters and he mentions the Springvale Elementary School AGAIN.

Actually, he was asked about "random dungeons" in the non quest related place to explore sense. Perhaps you might want to work on your reading comprehension before you insult people.

And in the sense that the whole point of them was to level grind and had nothing of real substance to offer. Springvale Elementary and Dogmeat have been their only examples of random encounters and that's the point, these are all preset scenarios that are about as random as a can of tuna (which wouldn't be a bad thing if we heard about a variety of them). The type of dungeon that he was asking about was something along the lines of a cave in Oblivion. You'll notice that he says yes and then moves on to an example that is not what he's confirming, he's being honest but doing so in a very misleading manner (yes but oh look at the little birdie!).

What we have to be careful about: We can’t tell people they can go wherever they want and then make areas that are just impossible to survive in for more than a minute. That would be like having signposts in the game, “Only for levels 12 to 14”.

Why not and why would said areas be so restrictive? Why not make an area that would require a high level combat character to fight through but only a low-mid level stealth, science, or charismatic character to get through on whichever means it may be. Besides which, I thought your new level scaling was supposed to do just that...

GamersGlobal: But when the player can go everywhere, of course there should be areas that he will be killed in within seconds. That’s a good post-apocalyptic tradition since Wasteland...
Pete Hines: Here’s the other thing: When you create a world that you want players to explore on their own, you have to have a good flow to it. So you explore a thing and it’s too tough and you back out again and go somewhere else. That’s fine. But you don’t want a world where there’s one quadrant that’s too hard and another is kind of hard and a third one is rather easy. We want the player to feel that he can explore around, versus the typical MMO feeling. World of WarCraft is set up in a way where you know exactly where you should and should not be. We don’t want Fallout 3 to ever be this obvious. We don’t want big icons saying “Come back in 10 levels”, we want the world to be discovered in a more natural way: You go somewhere new, you try, you kill some opponents, but you think: “Well, I’ve used up all my ammo and all my stimpacks in one encounter. Maybe I should go somewhere else.” I think we’ve found a good balance.

So you want to divide the game up into harder areas but have no encounter that's impossible to defeat at level two? I smell sewage that's amazingly similar to Oblivion's level scaling... Also I'm missing how tapping the player out is any better or more natural a deterrent that just killing them. Anyway, the gist of the answer was "We don't like that tradition because dying sucks!"

What was most disappointing for me was how I got the impression that they intentionally made the game fairly easy, that kills the only reason left to me to play this game. Maybe someone should ask how many difficulty levels they have and what they are (assume easy, normal, hard) to see if they do what many good action games do which is have levels harder than hard.

 

[Beelzebud]

Pete "The Genius" Hines obviously doesn't know what random is. They ask him about random encounters and he mentions the Springvale Elementary School AGAIN.

Actually, he was asked about "random dungeons" in the non quest related place to explore sense. Perhaps you might want to work on your reading comprehension before you insult people.

My reading comprehension is just fine. He was asked about random dungeons and used a location on the map that they've talked about since day 1, as his example. Perhaps you should take your own advice.