Inside the Vault - Brendan Anthony

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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This issue of Inside the Vault brings us Brendan Anthony, Bethesda's handyman-type fix-all programmer:<blockquote>Ever play the Fallout games?

I knew this day would come! No, the truth is I haven’t played them. It’s not quite as important that programmers play the previous games as it is that artists and designers do so, but I’ll tell you what, I hereby resolve to play Fallout 1. And I won’t even cheat on this resolution like I did with my New Year’s promise to stop killing hobos.

What is your favorite type of game to play?

Thief, Deus Ex, and System Shock 2- the so called “immersive -sim” canon. For my money, these games do so many things right where so many others go wrong that it’s hard for me to play games these days without making negative comparisons to this lineage.

There are a lot of factors that make a game fun for me: Player freedom and agency, mature writing and art design, and clean integrated design patterns are all personal touchstones. But one factor that can differentiate the great from the merely good is a clear vision backed up by strong direction. I’d much rather play a focused, polished game that sticks to a small number of ideas than a game that has features thrown in seemingly just because other games have them, or (God forbid) as filler material. Shadow of The Colossus rocked!

I was always a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls series, clearly, but my favorite game of all time would have to be The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I have a Hyrule/Trifoce tattoo on my arm to commemorate the way the first Zelda consumed my childhood imagination. Plus, Link to the Past: so much better than Ocarina of Time! Yeah, I went there!</blockquote>Link: Inside the Vault - Brendan Anthony
 
When I hear the word immersion, I reach for my Browning!

Damn, I just finished a mission in X-Com: UFO Defence. There are a few games as "immersive" as two first parts of X-Com. Also, Mexican Motor Mafia is pretty "immersive" too.
 
It’s not quite as important that programmers play the previous games as it is that artists and designers do so
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No doubt

And we have an artist working on the game who professes to have hardly played, if ever
 
It didn't. Talking about how everything except FPP doesn't get people sucked into an engaging environment in a game is a simple lie.
 
Sorrow said:
Also, Mexican Motor Mafia is pretty "immersive" too.
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You kidding? MMM rocks! :notworthy:

NukaColaClassic said:
When did getting sucked into an engaging environment in a game become a bad thing?
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Hey NCC! How're you doing? It's probably just me, but I'm getting a bit tired of this kind of "because I want" demi-accusations... :roll:

MrBumble said:
Can we blacklist, forbid, or ban, or whatever the word "immersion" from this board by any means ?
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And references to next-generation gamming too, btw.
 
MrBumble said:
Can we blacklist, forbid, or ban, or whatever the word "the act of wetting something by submerging it" from this board by any means ?
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Let me try a word filter. (It'll probably be removed pretty soon for messing up newsposts.)
 
Per said:
MrBumble said:
Can we blacklist, forbid, or ban, or whatever the word "the act of wetting something by submerging it" from this board by any means ?
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Let me try a word filter. (It'll probably be removed pretty soon for messing up newsposts.)
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Ahah, priceless :mrgreen:

Anyway, isn't it possible to create exception rules for certain users, so that none of their posts are censored or altered by those filters?
 
Snes-Shadowrun beat the crap out of Snes-Zelda.





btw. I'm alright with them making Fallout a 3d game, but reading his list of games, and reading other interviews and such, seriously it seems like they are trying to be sneaky and use the power of suggestion to feed it to us. Like instead of being honest and saying "This is the kind of game we are making. Deal with it."
They are saying "you want us to make it this way." like they are jedii or something.
 
greene said:
*snip* it seems like they are trying to be sneaky and use the power of suggestion to feed it to us.
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Only now? I've seen that a long time ago already. They are liars and that's it. Remember what they said about oblivion being this and that and whatnot? They're not being as plain liars as they were back then, because what they are saying now are half-truths (or half-lies) rather then plain lies... Hypocritical bastards. Surely not all of them, just the big ones and some dumb lesser bethlings...
 
What have you drawn on for inspiration in developing Fallout 3?

Grant Struthers:
If I had to pick a single tangible resource that I have used I think it would be the film Trinity and Beyond: the Atomic Bomb Movie.
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Alan Nanes:
I decided to draw my inspiration from the original source: the old Fallout games themselves (specifically Fallout 1 & 2). I wanted to make sure I replayed them and understood what the original developers were trying to bring to the table. I hadn’t actually fired the games up in years, so it was great to rediscover them all over again.
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Brian Robb:
For my own work, I’ve played back through my game library looking at combat to see what worked well for them and what didn’t. I think the most recent game I have that offered some pretty impressive combat AI was F.E.A.R.
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Nathan McDyer:
Obviously Fallout 1 and 2 are the main sources of inspiration. Since I’m more involved in the visual look of the game, I look at movies and comics like The Iron Giant, Mad Max, Children of Men, The Hills Have Eyes, Sky Captain, Metropolis, and Tank Girl (the Jamie Hewlett comic not the terrible movie).
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Emil Pagliarulo:
When we first started working on Fallout 3, I completely overloaded my system with post-apocalyptic films. I’m not just talking “Mad Max” and “A Boy and His Dog” here - I’m referring to some of the most depressing movies I’ve even seen in my life. “The Day After,” “Testament,” “When the Wind Blows.” Stuff like that. Fun! I was pulled back from the brink of suicide with a lot of great 50’s sci-fi flicks, like “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” and “Forbidden Planet.”

I tend to draw inspiration from a variety of sources, though. The amazing characters from a TV show like “Deadwood,” the strong themes of great classic literature like “A Tale of Two Cities,” maybe the subtle irony in an old Billie Holiday song. It goes beyond just playing the old Fallout games - it’s whatever moves me on a personal level.
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So, 1.75 out of 5 developers are using Fallout 1 and/or 2 as inspiration for Fallout 3.

When I went back to look those up I noticed something a bit funny about their dream games.

What’s Your Perfect Game?

Emil Pagliarulo:
I’m Batman in a massive, open-ended Gotham, and when I’m not cruising the streets in my custom Batmobile or interrogating the inmates at Arkham Asylum, I’m back at the Batcave using my skills as the “World’s Greatest Detective” to solve the game’s great mystery. Okay, why in God’s name HASN’T this game been made?
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Nathan McDyer:
Take 28 Days Later, put it on an island city, give it fully destructable environments (Zombies breaking through sheet rock), whatever I can hold can be a weapon, and make me try to survive and escape. My love of Zombies outweighs my love of RTS games.
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Brian Robb:
Take System Shock and set it in an open-ended city. The player finds themselves walking desolate streets, devoid of life or death, looking for clues as to what has happened to the residents of the city. As time passes, the mutated former residents spread dynamically through the buildings and streets, forcing the player to cut them off and seal key accessways in order to gain enough time in order to figure out either how to put an end to the menace or simply how to escape.
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Alan Nanes:
My dream game would be a serious Star Trek RPG complete with an entire universe to explore. Ask questions first and shoot later style!
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Christopher Krietz:
GTA meets Crackdown meets City of Heroes — I want to be a free-form superhero in a living, breathing, over-the-top comic-book world.
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Open-ended, leveraging existing franchises or zombies.
 
mactbone said:
So, 1.75 out of 5 developers are using Fallout 1 and/or 2 as inspiration for Fallout 3.
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Don't forget that all these people are long-term fans of Fallout. So we've been told! They don't need to go to Fallout for inspiration because Fallout permeates their marrow.
 
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