IGN interviews Pete Hines

[welsh]

we felt strong enough about Fallout as a franchise and now that we own it our approach to Fallout 3 is as if we'd made Fallout 1 and 2, because that's the only thing we can do. We can't continue to walk around on eggshells and worry if it's going to be okay for us to do this or that - it has to be and we're great believers of reinvention in everything we do.

= Owning the license means you own posterity?

So if you bought, say, the Mona Lisa, you could make a new version- say with bare breasts and packing a Desert Eagle?

"Don't walk on eggshells"- means don't show constraint in your reinvention., "Reinvention" means destruction for the sake of construction.

There's nobody from the original team on the project. We have spoken to a few of the guys who worked on the original but it would be improper of me to talk any more about that. Those guys are all off doing something else.

Happily there is plenty out there to explain what the guys who made the game originally were trying to accomplish and how that shaped the game mechanics and play that made Fallout so great.

But Bethesda can happily ignore that.

Our basic philosophy, as silly as it may sound, is that we want to make games that we like to play...If you're trying to make a game that's just a feature set or a group of things that somebody else believes in but it's not what you believe in and it's just designed to make a target audience happy, then it's not something you're going to be passionate about. We've got to do what we feel most strongly about, about what we're really excited about doing and trying, and that will ultimately allow us to make the best game that we can make. Hopefully it will appeal to a lot of people -

= and fuck what the fans want.

Oblivion seems to have done pretty well, people seem to enjoy and like it, but you can't think about which group of people you're going to please - that hundred, those thousands.

= fuck prosterity or art- we want to know, "where's the money!"

Cormick McCarthy

Oh, couldn't you leave that poor old guy alone.

WHat's the difference betwen Fallout 1 and Fallout 3? It's really hard to say because those games are done and this one isn't.

After showing the demo so many times, he can't figure it out?

 

[Moving Target]

Here's the thing that REALLY got in my craw about this interview (and yes I know others have quoted it before...):

we felt strong enough about Fallout as a franchise and now that we own it our approach to Fallout 3 is as if we'd made Fallout 1 and 2

Yea.... because so far they've been doing SUCH a good job... I mean, from the patched together BoS armor, to the orcish supermutants, to the Fatman, to VATS, it all screams "Tim Cain woulda done it!"

GodDAMN what arrogance!!!!

Oh, wait, found another....not so much insulting as kinda "whaaa??"

IGN: How big is Fallout 3 in terms of scale?

Pete Hines: It's definitely smaller than Oblivion, but then Oblivion was so huge you can go smaller and still have a big game.

Has Petey actually played Oblivion? It was NOT big. And even Morrowind was pretty tiny compared to games that were released ten, fifteen years earlier. I mean, compare Oblivion's size to, say, Wiz Gold... where it's actually possible to get LOST, or stuck in a rut.... then Oblivion, where you're stuck in one geographical area and because of that 'insta-teleport' thing, it's pretty easy to find your way back to where you want to go.

 

[Kyuu]

Havoc: the physics engine that says a dead body hit by a door will jerk around incessantly and even even slide upwards on the door without any npc/player doing anything to door or body.

Hey now, don't bash the Havoc engine for that. Most any game released nowadays uses Havoc for their physics, and plenty don't have anything like the level of problems Oblivion did. Blame Bethesda's poor implementation and tweaking of Havoc.

 

[xdarkyrex]

IGN: How big is Fallout 3 in terms of scale?

Pete Hines: It's definitely smaller than Oblivion, but then Oblivion was so huge you can go smaller and still have a big game.

Has Petey actually played Oblivion? It was NOT big. And even Morrowind was pretty tiny compared to games that were released ten, fifteen years earlier. I mean, compare Oblivion's size to, say, Wiz Gold... where it's actually possible to get LOST, or stuck in a rut.... then Oblivion, where you're stuck in one geographical area and because of that 'insta-teleport' thing, it's pretty easy to find your way back to where you want to go.

Big != biggest game ever

 

[Kyuu]

Perhaps, but Oblivion didn't feel very big because it was largely empty (emptier than Morrowind, with a smaller map). While the filler leveled-loot dungeons worked okay in Morrowind, in Oblivion it was just totally dead. When I played, it didn't take long before I wouldn't even pay attention to ruins and forts and caves.

Then, of course, fast-travel largely negates the feeling of largeness. The striders and boats in Morrowind worked fine and didn't infringe so much on exploration and (though I hate to use the word) immersiveness. Dunno why they thought magic insta-travel was a great idea. They even put horses in, then largely negated their usefulness with fast-travel.

I doubt they'll reverse their trend of progressing steadily further into stupid design choices with FO3, but we'll see.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hello all,

Well yet another tale from the land of the clueless.

Yesterday while at a magazine store I read another preview of Fallout 3 in some Dutch gaming magazine I hadn't heard of before (on the moments magazines pop up and go here in the Netherlands).

Interesting enough us older fans were also mentioned, and not so much in a negative way.
It was mentioned that we had concerns about Bethesda's FO3, but rather than go into them it gave the basic explanation that we want a game that is EXACTLY like the old Fallouts.

Apparently the article writer wanted to take our concern away that we shouldn't worry "Because Bethesda's Fallout 3 really looks good!" or something like that.

* Sigh * It ain't exactly just the graphics we complain the most about though if I had to make a comment about these, they remind me of Gears of War and not Fallout.

 

[Morbus]

I take it you burnt the mag right away...

 

[Zaij]

You'd think at least one person would stand above the petty gaming journalism that goes on these days, but it never seems to happen.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I take it you burnt the mag right away...

Hi Morbus,

Well its not like that this gaming magazine has done the greatest of crimes and must be burned while its writers should be hunted down like dogs.
Just that I find it rather limited on the article writer's side that he or she thinks that our biggest concerns are the graphics though there was also some mentioning of perspective and gameplay.

Not really sure that they went on to defend Bethesda, just the ranting that they understood Roleplaying Games or something like that. (by that point the article had lost my attention)

As for the magazine itself, I did the next best thing; I didn't buy it

 

[Brother None]

Which magazine?

If it isn't PU, I don't really care. PU has an editor that's a pretty big fan of Fallout, I was made to understand. Not sure how he feels about Fallout 3.

EDIT: wait, guess they liked it, with some caveats.

 

[Morbus]

Well its not like that this gaming magazine has done the greatest of crimes and must be burned while its writers should be hunted down like dogs.

I didn't talk about hunting down the writers. First things first, I was talking about burning the thing to ashes...

Just that I find it rather limited on the article writer's side that he or she thinks that our biggest concerns are the graphics though there was also some mentioning of perspective and gameplay.

AND the strawman. That alone puts them beyond all hope.

As for the magazine itself, I did the next best thing; I didn't buy it

Not big enough... Still, it's ok... I usually go on and complain to the writers and stuff, boycott them and their products and all trademarks that sponsor them, and stuff... but it's ok to just not buy it, I guess...

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Which magazine?

If it isn't PU, I don't really care. PU has an editor that's a pretty big fan of Fallout, I was made to understand. Not sure how he feels about Fallout 3.

EDIT: wait, guess they liked it, with some caveats.

Hi Brother None,

I don't remember the name of the magazine anymore, its one of those magazines you see pop up in the stores from time to time only to end after so many numbers because it can't really compete with existing ones.
Plus most of the drivel in it is probably like most other magazines; hyping you to get this 'Great Title' as soon as it is released.

As for the PU Article, well I have never been a fan of Power Unlimited and I pretty much know it from the start.
Not really sure what to make of the magazine.

But as for this article, well

"Fallout 3 wordt een kraker, zoveel is nu al duidelijk. Bethesda heeft de sfeer van de twee originele RPG’s heel goed weten over te hevelen naar de 21e eeuw, en zoals het er nu naar uitziet is er aan spelmogelijkheden, vertakkende gameplay en diepgang geen gebrek. Zucht, wat lijkt 2008 opeens ver weg…"

Translated

Fallout 3 will be a smash hit, that so much is clear by now.
Bethesda has managed to translate the atmosphere of the two original titles well into the 21st Century, and by the way it look now regarding game options/possibilities, branching gameplay, the gameplay will be deep (or something like that).
* sigh * 2008 looks so far away.

Basically this guy is telling us what pretty much all the magazines have been telling us.

Oh yeah, and once again us old fans just want to keep everything exactly as it was.

 

[SuAside]

haha, so much for the respect Kharn had for PU!

afterall everyone knows isometric is so 1999... welcome to the new millenium!
not to mention him saying it'll be a game with depth, with having seen only the same demo as we have.