Inside the Vault - Emil Pagliarulo

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
Orderite
The Bethesda blog has a special-format inside the vault with lead designer Emil Pagliarulo.<blockquote>The NPD data for March reported that the video game industry in North America sold $1.7 billion in hardware and software, that’s a 51% increase from a year ago. Do you think it would be fair to say the industry is “recession” proof? Or is it more that we’re heading into an upswing and it’s just part of the cycles our industry goes through?

Because of the growing popularity of video games, I do indeed think the industry as a whole is recession proof, but that’s more of a high level financial statement. It doesn’t mean a hell of a lot for the people who work for companies that suddenly go under. That seems to have been happening a lot lately, and my heart really goes out to those guys.

I think we sometimes forget how young this industry really is. We’re experiencing the kind of exponential growth the film industry experienced in its early days, and with that comes a lot of growing pains — cancelled projects, studio closures, what have you.

So for the end user, it’s great. All video games, all the time. Steady releases at Christmas, sequels to your favorite games pretty regularly, even revivals of old licenses like what we’re doing with Fallout 3. I don’t see that ever ending. But I think for the people working in the industry, there will continue to be trials and tribulations for quite some time.</blockquote>Seriously? Honestly, you don't think it could be kind of exactly the same thing as this, maybe? This "recession proof" thing is wearing me the hell out, since this is all old-hat news for entertainment industries. Anyway...<blockquote>Lately, you’ve been a bit more active on our forums, relatively speaking. How do you filter through the signal to noise?

Right now, everyone is hungry for information. Whether it’s an Oblivion fan, or a fan of the old Fallout games, or just someone who’s new to the forums and wants to know what Fallout 3 is all about — everyone has a million questions, and wants a lot of detail.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of detail I’m at liberty to give right now. So what I generally look for are discussions about issues we have addressed publicly in some capacity. I like to make sure that information - the information we’ve already released - is getting disseminated accurately. Because, you know, with all the previews and forum posts, and can be like a big game of “telephone” — information gets modified in its retelling, until you occasionally (and unfortunately) arrive at a bit of complete misinformation.

That’s the kind of stuff I look for, and like to clear up. But I also like to generally check out all the cool conversations taking place, all the debates people are having. So even when I don’t respond, I’m always lurking. Always waaatttccchhiinngggg…</blockquote>Link: Inside the Vault - Emil Pagliarulo.
 
Brother None said:
Because, you know, with all the previews and forum posts, and can be like a big game of “telephone” — information gets modified in its retelling, until you occasionally (and unfortunately) arrive at a bit of complete misinformation.

That’s the kind of stuff I look for, and like to clear up
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I thought that was Grandstaff's job.

And Emil, hate to tell you this and all, but nobody is worse at giving out clear information than Bethesda. 'fraid neither you nor Matt are doing a good job at clearing anything up, either.
 
I love the "we're not at liberty to divulge" type stuff.

Why not just be honest? They withhold info, to build hype. Let people's imaginations fill in the particulars, and they will build something up in their mind, that is better than your product.

That way they can say things like...."skills have impact on the way your character fights" and then you ask...how?, and they can say "we can't get into the particulars"
 
Shouldn't Emil be, you know, working on the game? and not wasting all kinds of time refuting forum posts?





And really, I don't see how anyone at Beth can "feel bad" about smaller companies going out of business, when they are one of the main companies pushing the mainstream garbage that sells well enough to make it impossible for deeper games to be released.

Blech.
 
gc051360 said:
I love the "we're not at liberty to divulge" type stuff.

Why not just be honest? They withhold info, to build hype.
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I completely agree.

Sometimes it seems like games have way too much pre-release publicity. It gets tiring to hear endless praise of setting or features or gameplay when there is absolutely no critical analysis of its worth. That's why sometimes games get worse reviews when they overpromise for so long and then underdeliver. It just fatigues. Sometimes I wish game companies would keep projects under wraps (or relegate it to a single sneak peak). The movie industry doesn't have near as much publicity for projects way down the pipeline.

Of course the counterargument is that that is just how video games sales work - because a PC upgrade or console purchase is such an large investment, 400+ USD along with the 60USD for the game, customers need to be told well in advance what they will want to buy for Christmas or even Christmas of next year. But regardless the way Bethesda does it is just stupid. They tell us it will be everything but tell us nothing of the details. They do a bajillion "hands off" previews.

I say that if you are going to publicize your game so far in advance then they should follow the Age of Decadence model. Answer tons of questions by anyone that wants to ask them. Even give a forum-guided playthrough (which is fine for turned-based). The only thing under wraps are the plot details.
 
gc051360 said:
I love the "we're not at liberty to divulge" type stuff.

Why not just be honest? They withhold info, to build hype. Let people's imaginations fill in the particulars, and they will build something up in their mind, that is better than your product.

That way they can say things like...."skills have impact on the way your character fights" and then you ask...how?, and they can say "we can't get into the particulars"
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Yeah, I agree with that. I understand that one reason they might hold back on information is that they're still likely messing with things. Like recently in some preview or another it was mentioned power armor helmets reduce perception, and they said that they were still working on it, so it might not be that way in the final game.

But still, you'd think they'd have something solid they could talk about, like an example of a firefight (This character has 8 perception so he notices the raider hiding in the building! Unfortunately he only has 4 strength, and can't pull himself through a window instead of going through the front door) or an example of a non-story dialog or SOMETHING that's relatively set in concrete and not likely to change.
 
If they wanted to release info, they would.
Starcraft 2 began development at around the same time and will be released around the same time.
How many fan Q&A's have blizzard had so far? 37.
And they're active on their forums.
Bethesda? Barely 2.
'Nuff said.
 
Simeon said:
If they wanted to release info, they would.
Starcraft 2 began development at around the same time and will be released around the same time.
How many fan Q&A's have blizzard had so far? 37.
And they're active on their forums.
Bethesda? Barely 2.
'Nuff said.
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I think you just compared someone who's deaf and blind, to somebody who has perfect vision and can hear miles away.

Bethesda is just another company like EA. Blizzard is one of the last good computer game companies we have. There are some others but Blizzard's torch has been lit for a long time.
 
goffy59 said:
I think you just compared someone who's deaf and blind, to somebody who has perfect vision and can hear miles away.

Bethesda is just another company like EA. Blizzard is one of the last good computer game companies we have. There are some others but Blizzard's torch has been lit for a long time.
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All too true. It's really a shame how few computer game companies there are left who care about quality and players as much as Blizzard :(
 
He feels so bad about all those smaller companies that went under. So bad in fact, that his company bought the creation of one of those smaller companies right out from under them, refused to hire any of them, and then completely raped everything those people had invented.
 
Beelzebud said:
He feels so bad about all those smaller companies that went under. So bad in fact, that his company bought the creation of one of those smaller companies right out from under them, refused to hire any of them, and then completely raped everything those people had invented.
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They are heroes!

no..wait..
 
Beelzebud said:
He feels so bad about all those smaller companies that went under. So bad in fact, that his company bought the creation of one of those smaller companies right out from under them, refused to hire any of them, and then completely raped everything those people had invented.
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0254F-TOR800.jpg


These are the boots Emil wears when he's stomping on our dreams!
 
DREAM SPIKEDLATEXFOOTRAPE!

...

You know, at this point, I wouldn't be really surprised to see those boots in-game.
 
+1 to kick damage? If kicks are available in unarmed combat of course.
 
I've heard some of the Beth guys like LARPing, so thought that maybe one of them was "in character" and eyeing off the boots to complete the outfit. Now we just need to find out if they're role playing Oblivion, FO3, or something a bit naughtier! :)

Mick
 
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