Interplay Website launched, hires Chris Taylor

I dunno about this guys. Don't get me wrong - I want to see a Fallout game being created by members of the old crew that helped break the fantasy RPG mold. But let's have a quick look at a little something here...

As a fledgling company getting back on its feet after crashing hard, are they going to have the backing finances to produce a squeaky clean, high quality MMO? Think about how much went into the creation of WoW and all those others out there. Would YOU trust Herve with your investment dough? We're talking about bankruptcy people. It's a corporate black mark, and you have to tread very, very lightly with small steps before you can win back investor trust.

I wouldn't mind betting that we're going to see a few different things coming out from Interplay that would cater to mainstream audiences and rake in a bit of money to show that they're on the up-and-up, and then start working on FOOL, which we're probably not going to hear much in the way of updates for ages. Here's thinking that we may hear a glimmer of development news around 2010 or so.

Seriously, this here's going to take some time...
 
taag said:
Buxbaum666 said:
The page looks like crap; Javascript-navigation, table-layout and 233 errors[1] doesn't look "professional" to me.
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The page looks great, I don't see what's your problem with it. It doesn't validate - big deal. :roll:
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The page looks mediocre at best, usability is naught (JS-Navigation is a big no-no) and 233 HTML-Errors isn't what you'd expect from a "professional" website.
 
Morbus said:
Not revolutionary at all. It has been done, to some extent, in multiple MMO worlds.
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Really? Which ones, all the MMOs I've ever heard about had a pretty static economy-political-clan system. For example, there is no way to be able to take over the Ork's territory in WOW, or to reform the horde, or to kill the king and take over, you can't even burn a little outpost to the ground.

If you know of a MMO where the player's actions have consequences to the game world, and shows how the world evolves as a result of player actions forcing players to create new characters as the game moves on from stages of evolution. Let me know I would LOVE to play it.
 
Wazza said:
As a fledgling company getting back on its feet after crashing hard, are they going to have the backing finances to produce a squeaky clean, high quality MMO? Think about how much went into the creation of WoW and all those others out there. Would YOU [trust Herve with your investment dough?
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The way it looks to me is that Interplay is letting it all ride on Fallout online. I think all the other noise they've made has just been to make it look like they have a lot of potential. As far as I know they've only hired staff for fallout online, and maybe one person to port their old games to Wii VC and what not. I think getting the funding won't be too difficult as they can ride the fallout 3 hype when it is released.

Also think of it this way, if Interplay goes from making essentially 0 dollars for half a decade, and then puts out an MMO with a 15 dollar a month subscription fee what would happen to their stock? Even if they only get 100,000 subscribers at launch interplay still goes from an income of nearly nothing to an income of 1.5 Mill a month, and anyone sitting on those 3 penny-a-share stock options that they've been giving to investors is going to be filthy rich.
 
Besides Fallout Online, I'm really interested if the current state of affairs would bring about a Planescape sequel.
 
Snackpack said:
Wazza said:
As a fledgling company getting back on its feet after crashing hard, are they going to have the backing finances to produce a squeaky clean, high quality MMO? Think about how much went into the creation of WoW and all those others out there. Would YOU [trust Herve with your investment dough?
Click to expand...

The way it looks to me is that Interplay is letting it all ride on Fallout online. I think all the other noise they've made has just been to make it look like they have a lot of potential. As far as I know they've only hired staff for fallout online, and maybe one person to port their old games to Wii VC and what not. I think getting the funding won't be too difficult as they can ride the fallout 3 hype when it is released.

Also think of it this way, if Interplay goes from making essentially 0 dollars for half a decade, and then puts out an MMO with a 15 dollar a month subscription fee what would happen to their stock? Even if they only get 100,000 subscribers at launch interplay still goes from an income of nearly nothing to an income of 1.5 Mill a month, and anyone sitting on those 3 penny-a-share stock options that they've been giving to investors is going to be filthy rich.
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That is effectively the risk for every penny stock. They are all high-risk, high reward propositions. The fact that Interplay is hanging on by a very thin thread, have ZERO credit backing and are developping a game with minimal resources isn't a very rosy outlook. In a more active and vibrant economy things might be more optimistic, but in the current market I think that the actual probability of making any profit off of this company hovers around the 2% range.

I would think that there is more of a chance of putting money in Bear Stearns at this point. At $0.23 per share with a much higher asset base there is a ghost of a chance for them to get out from bankruptcy especially if they are allowed bailout capital. But I only know a few people who are currently even betting on that, and they're doing so with "play money" at this point.
 
Dopemine Cleric said:
Besides Fallout Online, I'm really interested if the current state of affairs would bring about a Planescape sequel.
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No! Please no Planescape sequal!
Planescape:Torment is like Forest Gump- don't need a sequel.

But a game inspired, or based in the same univers as Planescape would be cool.
 
I am really looking forward to this. Sometimes, the best part is anticipation - it's always better to have a Fallout game in development that *may* straighten things up than no new Fallout game. Patience is a virtue.
 
Dopemine Cleric said:
Besides Fallout Online, I'm really interested if the current state of affairs would bring about a Planescape sequel.
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They don't have the rights.

But a game inspired, or based in the same univers as Planescape would be cool.
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They can't base it in the same universe, they lost the license.

And there's no point in making even a spiritual successor without Avellone.
 
Ausir said:
They don't have the rights.
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Not to D&D, indeed, and they probably lost the character and content rights to Atari as well no?

Ausir said:
And there's no point in making even a spiritual successor without Avellone.
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Or - to some extent - with:

RPGWatch: Do you feel it would be a good idea to make a sequel to PS:T? If so, how do you envision it? If not, how about another game in the Planescape setting?

Chris Avellone: A long time ago, I did kick around the idea of two sequels. One was "Lost Souls," an adventure that allowed the player to experience the events surrounding Torment (both past and future) but the Nameless One wouldn't be in it - it would, however, feature Deionarra, some of the members of the player's first party (Xachariah), Fall-From-Grace, Ravel, Trias, and other major characters and see the Planescape universe from a different perspective. This didn't go much beyond a one-page vision statement, though, and I never submitted it for serious consideration.

One I felt less strongly about (but still liked) was "Planescape: Pariah", which allowed the player to take on the role of Dak'kon and try to unify the githzerai and githyanki, but again, that never went past the vision doc stage.

The reason I never submitted either one was because a direct sequel somehow feels wrong (I feel the game stands on its own, and I don't want to drag a rake through the first game).

I'd be up for another game in the Planescape setting, though. Some of the Planescape mods I've seen for Neverwinter Nights 2 would probably put any ideas I had to shame, though - they're pretty amazing. I know there’s a few guys at work who would also like to do a Planescape game.
 
Brother None said:
Ausir said:
They don't have the rights.
Click to expand...

Not to D&D, indeed, and they probably lost the character and content rights to Atari as well no?

Ausir said:
And there's no point in making even a spiritual successor without Avellone.
Click to expand...

Or - to some extent - with:

RPGWatch: Do you feel it would be a good idea to make a sequel to PS:T? If so, how do you envision it? If not, how about another game in the Planescape setting?

Chris Avellone: A long time ago, I did kick around the idea of two sequels. One was "Lost Souls," an adventure that allowed the player to experience the events surrounding Torment (both past and future) but the Nameless One wouldn't be in it - it would, however, feature Deionarra, some of the members of the player's first party (Xachariah), Fall-From-Grace, Ravel, Trias, and other major characters and see the Planescape universe from a different perspective. This didn't go much beyond a one-page vision statement, though, and I never submitted it for serious consideration.

One I felt less strongly about (but still liked) was "Planescape: Pariah", which allowed the player to take on the role of Dak'kon and try to unify the githzerai and githyanki, but again, that never went past the vision doc stage.

The reason I never submitted either one was because a direct sequel somehow feels wrong (I feel the game stands on its own, and I don't want to drag a rake through the first game).

I'd be up for another game in the Planescape setting, though. Some of the Planescape mods I've seen for Neverwinter Nights 2 would probably put any ideas I had to shame, though - they're pretty amazing. I know there’s a few guys at work who would also like to do a Planescape game.
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FUCK!


Well, my dreams are torn apart once again. Hooray for corporate capitalism!
 
*player logs in*

Hello great adventurer. We have had some problems recently, have you come to aid us? We need you to kill ten rats and bring us some tails.

*enters sewers, runs into a rat the size of a bear. Lights goes out*
 
I wonder what mechanics will look like.
Chris Taylor called Fallout's combat system "Fragile Ninja-ish" and said that if he had a chance, he would "fix it".
 
Dopemine Cleric said:
(...)
FUCK!


Well, my dreams are torn apart once again. Hooray for corporate capitalism!
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Nope. Hooray for Avellone for making such good game that won't get a sequel that will rape the legend.

Sorrow said:
I wonder what mechanics will look like.
Chris Taylor called Fallout's combat system "Fragile Ninja-ish" and said that if he had a chance, he would "fix it".
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Good question as the mechanics will surely get redesigned for different environment of the MMO...
 
while the idea of a Fallout MMORPG sounds cool, I'm pretty sure this project is doomed to fail.

first of all, this game will be even further from the old Fallout games than Fallout 3 is. maybe not setting/lore wise, but definitely gameplay wise. the game is most likely going to be first/third person. for it to work fluently with thousands of players (especially all the casual players) there will be nothing in the way of turn-based combat, not even real-time with paus. the closest they can come is probably adopting the system WoW (and most other mmorpg's) use. but that would look really dumb in gunfights. so unless they come up with a totally revolutionary combat system, I'm pretty sure they're gonna go with straight shooter and maybe some kind of action points.

second, for an mmorpg to work and keep players interested you need one hell of a budgest and one hell of a reputation. the latest big mmorpg's have been hyped way beyond the hype we've seen around Fallout 3, and while it's too early to say how Warhammer Online will fare, Age of Conan looks like it's pretty much done for. and that game had an extreme amount of work and money put into it. you need to be on par with WoW if you want to get anywhere in the mmorpg market these days.

sure, you can use the argument that the game shouldn't be that big and we'd be better off with mostly older Fallout fans playing the game. but considering this project is what Interplay hope will bring them back on their feet, it's safe to say that that's not their intetion - they want to make a real big seller.
 
Could it not be similar in setup to Diablo 2? I know it wasn't a persistent online game, but a similar formula might work. That's the only way I can think of that would ease the fears of thousands of players running around in a wasteland. But then one would have to rework the game's economy among other things I can't think of.
 
aenemic said:
first of all, this game will be even further from the old Fallout games than Fallout 3 is.
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This sometimes happens when a game is a spin-off, not a direct continuation.
 
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