GDC Online: Obsidian presentation on Fallout: New Vegas

Sam Ecorners

Sam Ecorners

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GDC Online opened today and Obsidian had a session named "Narrative Design Between the Lines" with John Gonzalez(F:NV Lead Creative Designer and Lead Writer) as a speaker. Couple of sites put up their impressions:

Gamespot<blockquote>Gonzalez said it's best not to settle on themes too early. While some are obvious (New Vegas would doubtlessly deal with greed), others may seem right but wind up not fitting on further reflection. For example, Gonzalez said he stayed away from the theme of luck.

"New Vegas isn't about luck," Gonzalez said. "It's about having a rigged game."</blockquote>Gamasutra<blockquote>At Obsidian, the first step was extensive research. Gonzalez played through the first two Fallout games, originally released on PC in the 1990s (he said the games still held up), and revisited Bethesda's 2008 game Fallout 3. The Obsidian team watched movies that captured the Fallout tone, like Dr. Stranglove, and also Vegas-themed films like Casino and 1960's original Ocean's 11.

Books like The Last Honest Place In America by Marc Cooper and The Green Felt Jungle by Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris also gave the team inspiration during the research process.

And even though Fallout: New Vegas is a fictional game, Gonzalez said that non-fiction books are particularly helpful when creating a new world. "You'll just uncover an incredible wealth of stories that will inspire content for the game," he said.</blockquote>
 
This reminds me of an interview with Page Hamilton of Helmet in RIP magazine which I read when I was a kid. He said something like (this is my memory going back 2 decades):

"I'd pick things up by listening to maybe the Jesus Lizard and say 'Wow, that's a really interesting use of a diminished 7th chord there!' This is NOT how Mick Mars learned how to play guitar."

I feel like this is NOT how Bethesda makes games.
 
Bethesda did research, Todd Howard said they played Halo to get the shooting mechanics as good as they are in the game.
...
:V
 
In all seriousness though. You know The Todd didn't include exploding cars because he researched the feasibility of such a regularly-occurring event...he did it because of this:

[Bethesda fanbase]you hey you ya you make teh cars asplode even tho no maek sense ok cool i like assplose! BIG ASSPLOSE FATMAAN ASPLOSE FUNNY ASSPLOSE![/Bethesda fanbase]
 
In all honesty the first time i accidentally shot one car in a five dozen car pileup i was quite surprised. Maybe exploding buildings this time?
 
TwinkieGorilla said:
In all seriousness though. You know The Todd didn't include exploding cars because he researched the feasibility of such a regularly-occurring event...he did it because of this:

[Bethesda fanbase]you hey you ya you make teh cars asplode even tho no maek sense ok cool i like assplose! BIG ASSPLOSE FATMAAN ASPLOSE FUNNY ASSPLOSE![/Bethesda fanbase]
Click to expand...

You're basing this on the Bethesda fanbase for... ?

Daggerfall?
Morrowind?
Oblivion?

Games riddled with explosions obviously.

If we really wanted to get into it, we could list any number of ridiculously unrealistic features from just about any video game.
 
Servus said:
Maybe exploding buildings this time?
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:rofl:

Elhoim said:
They did it because many FPS have some kind of exploding containers.
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Even so, it would've been nice to have something that wasn't so over-the-top. This isn't a required aspect in a FPS and especially not in a RPG. I dunno.. It all just really downplays the important role that nuclear weapons play in the story. You have a world that was virtually destroyed by nuclear warfare and these devices are being set off all willy nilly in illogical locations. For example, in a car that somehow hasn't been salvaged in the past 200+ years it's been sitting there rusting.
It's like what makes the difference between a good action scene and a bad scene in a movie. Explosions, while fun to look at, don't always blend into the fabric of the actions. They could've done without the ample nuclear explosions. Treat the nuclear devices with a little respect.

Games riddled with explosions obviously.
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:facepalm:

I don't think this is an Elder Scrolls fansite, dood.
 
Makagulfazel said:
Servus said:
Maybe exploding buildings this time?
Click to expand...

:rofl:

Elhoim said:
They did it because many FPS have some kind of exploding containers.
Click to expand...

Even so, it would've been nice to have something that wasn't so over-the-top. This isn't a required aspect in a FPS and especially not in a RPG. I dunno.. It all just really downplays the important role that nuclear weapons play in the story. You have a world that was virtually destroyed by nuclear warfare and these devices are being set off all willy nilly in illogical locations. For example, in a car that somehow hasn't been salvaged in the past 200+ years it's been sitting there rusting.
It's like what makes the difference between a good action scene and a bad scene in a movie. Explosions, while fun to look at, don't always blend into the fabric of the actions. They could've done without the ample nuclear explosions. Treat the nuclear devices with a little respect.
Click to expand...

The way I look at it is this:
Was it fun, or did it detract from the gameplay experience?

When I blew up a car I wasn't thinking, "WOOOOAAAH DUUUDE IT EXPLODED!" but I also wasn't thinking, "Well, that's stupid... why would all these cars explode 200 years after the war?". I was thinking, "This makes the environment a little more interesting".

I honestly didn't see a lot of cars explode or endeavour to explode them, so it wasn't highly distracting for me. If they weren't capable of exploding, would I have wished that they were? It may have been interesting if at least a few here and there were capable of doing so.

Makagulfazel said:
Games riddled with explosions obviously.
Click to expand...

:facepalm:

I don't think this is an Elder Scrolls fansite, dood.
Click to expand...

No but someone was implying that Bethesda fans were some how enamoured by the prospect of something exploding. Bethesda isn't really an FPS company. A lot of their titles aren't what I would call, "explode-y".
 
just you wait. I heard Oblivion 2 will have magical horses roaming the land that explode magicaly when you hit them with arrows.

Without the intention to bash Bethesdas fanbase. But really there is in Fallouts setting no reason to defend exploding cars as it simply makes no sense either from gameplay (in which way does it make the game more interesting ?) and worst the settting. The Fallout world was always a world where resources matter a lot. People would have looted those cars already a long time ago if they had anything inside it that can go "boom headshot!"

Typical Fallout 3 fan ?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypduDH-Y3qM[/youtube]

Alphadrop said:
Bethesda did research, Todd Howard said they played Halo to get the shooting mechanics as good as they are in the game.
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YOu know what I always found interesting how many times people in magazines and as well Fallout 3 devs mentioned that F3 is NOT a shooter ... but at the same time Todd agreed that if you wanted you could play it like one ... eh ...
 
All these arguments make my head spin, I say we forget about all these fps fallouts, and move on to something the people really care about, let's go back to fallout roots with that classic (I can't believe I'm calling it classic, video-games as a whole aren't that old at all, why not to long ago pong was new, and people loved it.) camera angle, there are ways to improve the series immensely without turning it into a run and gun. Let's here it for fallout four going back to the tabletop style, with better graphics!
 
Only the unicorns will explode and it's a burst of sunshine and rainbows.
 
korindabar said:
When I blew up a car I wasn't thinking, "WOOOOAAAH DUUUDE IT EXPLODED!" but I also wasn't thinking, "Well, that's stupid... why would all these cars explode 200 years after the war?". I was thinking, "This makes the environment a little more interesting".
Click to expand...

You may not have seen the cars as anti-immersive, but there are many who did. There are probably a couple hundred cars in FO3 that can cause nuclear explosions. Some complain about why they still have juice, I don't care so much about that - some sort of super long lasting nuclear reactor/battery thing. But why are they lying about?

Shouldn't the Brotherhood/Enclave/everyone else drag them over to handy locals and run their lights off the car's juice? Or if they can't use them for power, then strategically position them around your community then detonate them with a trigger or gun shot when deathclaws/supermutants/enemies move in.

Whatever the case, nuclear exploding cars are to valuable/dangerous to just leave lying about where you don't benefit while your enemies could be collecting them and use against you.
 
korindabar said:
You're basing this on... ?
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Knowing the rules of this site, I can't answer you in public. If you do, however, happen to be:

A) serious and actually care what I think or am "basing this on"

or

B) willing to defend a shitty company with a lowest-common-denominator fanbase

Then by all means send me a PM and I'll send you links which will make you weep for justice and humanity and I guarantee this will have been the last time you question where I am coming from.

...

and P.S. I'm not even a hardcore gamer and even I know that the Bethesda of Daggerfall and Morrowind have fuckall to do with the Bethesda of today, so don't pull that strawman here, please.
 
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