Interview with J.E. Sawyer on Xbox Live

[Lexx]

Wasn't there some story about bottlecaps vs. gold in Broken Hills?

I guess they are back in Fallout 3, because they are cool. :>

 

[Brother None]

Don't know why they got dropped in Fallout 2 (though I guess since they were tied to the Hub it makes sense), but they were returned in Fallout 3 because Fallout 3 returned everything it could in a desperate bid for legitimacy.

Wasn't there some story about bottlecaps vs. gold in Broken Hills?

The "treasure" in the well turned out to be now-worthless caps.

 

[Wretched Flamingo]

Yeah and even if there is no real answer, bethesda would just say it's a west coast east coast difference. Like uh, Union and confederate money during the american civil war.

 

[archont]

Hardcore mode is good. It should NOT be the default game-mode. Why?

Let's assume the devs really decided on making the realistic mode default. In fact, the only mode.

The response of all the oblivion-playing, ADHD kids with a passion for OMG COOL SHIT AND EXPLASIANS would be a planet-wide bitchy whine that would increase global sound pollution levels by 30 decibels for 6 months. Foam would drop from their slack jaws as they'd rabidly and rapidly molest their keyboards, flooding the internet with poorly written and misspelled verbal diarrhea about how the "rtearded" developers ruined their favorite game.

This is as close to releasing two versions of the game as it can be. Yes, I want a hardcore mode. I want real difficulty. I like difficult games with hostile, challenging worlds. In this case, a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a sense of dread, uncertainty and the inevitable necessity to pay for your mistakes isn't only my personal wish, it's required to create any sort of suspension of disbelief and atmosphere. Fallout 3 failed miserably here, as while the world itself seemed pretty battered and hopeless (and in a lot of cases also who-thought-this-crap-up kind of batshit insane), the player was pretty much an invincible god excluded from the plights and dangers of the wasteland people. Not counting the cases of intentional suicide, I think I only died twice.

 

[OakTable]

Don't know why they got dropped in Fallout 2 (though I guess since they were tied to the Hub it makes sense), but they were returned in Fallout 3 because Fallout 3 returned everything it could in a desperate bid for legitimacy.

Wasn't there some story about bottlecaps vs. gold in Broken Hills?

The "treasure" in the well turned out to be now-worthless caps.

Yeah wasn't there a BB gun in the well as wel... *stares at BN's avatar*

Uhhh, anyway, it's probably Hardcore for me. I really want some difficulty out of this game.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

For example I like to play shooters realistic way, so when I have things like autosaves every ten meters, unkillable companions and regenerating health I would like to turn them off but I also know that some people cant play games without those features. I miss the days of old Rainbow Six, Delta Force and SWAT.

Gotta say that I'm a fan of level/mission based FPSes for that very reason, something consoles seem to do a hell of a lot more than PCs. That said, I wouldn't mind being able to quick save and have the run not count if I load it so that I could master individual parts of a level. Checkpoints are fine when they are properly distributed but I prefer to be able to resume from ANY checkpoint I've past (like Red Faction 2, which was something of a hybrid [PS2 version] or Half Life 2 [though it also had saving]).

Another thing is rpg's, real ones, have dice rolls. nothing more blatantly concrete than a number 6 = thirsty, a meter in and of itself.

Dice rolls do not work outside of combat in singleplayer RPGs, thresholds are the right way to go. People will save and load in order to abuse dice rolls for skill checks, they always have and they always will and ignoring that is bad design. Besides which, what do dice rolls add over thresholds? They make things more unpredictable but does it improve a game for one character with minimal investments in the skill to be able to pass the check and another with a large investment in the skill to be able to fail it? Isn't that simply reducing the importance of investing in the skill?

I consider fps'ing the whole fucking time im trying to play a game is rather annoying.
...
that's why consoles are retarded.

There are a lot of console games that aren't shooters; granted, western developers are enamored with the genre when it comes to making action games but it's not like all games on consoles are FPSes. Hell, FPSes are worse on console than PC anyway.

I like the sound of this and dehydration is long overdue.

Dehydration and hunger are great ways to make a game worse by adding meaningless micromanagement. We'll see how it turns out but I'm extremely skeptical that it will add to the enjoyment of the game.

On more serious note, they'd better resign from bottle caps and use regular money like in Fallout 2. It already didn't make much sense in Fo3 and it would be even more stupid to use them close to the West Coast if this currency has been dropped there.

I always liked caps better than currency and it's nonsensical but funny whereas printed currency is plain nonsensical (they bother to make paper money, really?). Bartering makes the most sense so completely eliminating currency would be fine by me.

As for hardcore mode, I see no reason to complain that it's an option and not the default. Options are a good thing, they allow the end user to have greater control of the content and tweak it to their personal preferences. Granted, this can also be a problem when players don't play with the tweaking to find out what they like best but for those that do, it's only beneficial.

 

[IMissLark]

Hardcore mode is good. It should NOT be the default game-mode. Why?

Let's assume the devs really decided on making the realistic mode default. In fact, the only mode.

The response of all the oblivion-playing, ADHD kids with a passion for OMG COOL SHIT AND EXPLASIANS would be a planet-wide bitchy whine that would increase global sound pollution levels by 30 decibels for 6 months. Foam would drop from their slack jaws as they'd rabidly and rapidly molest their keyboards, flooding the internet with poorly written and misspelled verbal diarrhea about how the "rtearded" developers ruined their favorite game.

For once, Oblivion/Bethesda fansites would be full of mods to slant the game balance towards the easy, simplistic, unrealistic side, as opposed to how they operate at present. I'm pretty sure that is a sign of the apocolypse though.

 

[34thcell]

I think dehydration would've made more sense in the older games. The need to pack supplies that would diminish the longer you travel (relative to your Outdoorsman skill) would have been nice. Pretty pointless and possibly annoying in a FPS with real time travel though.

 

[SharkClub]

I'm pretty sure there was some sort of Dehydration system in Fallout and Fallout 2. It depended on your Outdoorsman skill and even the Vault 13 water flasks came into it, didn't they? Like the "You get dehydrated and spend 3 hours trying to find water" encounter in Fallout 1 if your Outdoorsman skill is low.

 

[34thcell]

Fairly insignifcant though, considering how much game time you spend travelling. It doesn't really make sense that someone with very little survival experience can survive so long in the desert. I'm talking about an integral gameplay change, that would have added much needed depth to travel.

Edit: and I don't think Fallout 2 had any Outdoorsman failures

 

[Crni Vuk]

I had quite low outdoorsman in Fallout 2 cant remembet that it had anything to do with dehydration. From what I know it only is meant to be a skill for encounters. If the skill was high enough someome told me that you not only can simply avoid the combat but also decide where you want to start on the map if you choose to fight. Never played with high outdoorsman so I cant say if its true.

 

[Brother None]

Yeah, only Fallout 1 had the dehydration "encounter" and it was pretty much irrelevant except to slow you down a tad.

 

[Lexx]

But it was good for the atmosphere in Fallout 1. Also it didn't happened often, so it wasn't like you see this every two zones. Imo, they could have added this to Fallout 2 too.

 

[OakTable]

I consider fps'ing the whole fucking time im trying to play a game is rather annoying. I hate the genre with a passion. Bioshock and Stalker, if it was non fps but the same environment they would be awesome. I dont want to have to shoot as the main objective to everything. F1 and F2 was turn based and rpg based and we all love them so that's a hint that everyone feels this way actually they are just conditioned to think fps is the only way to exist.

that's why consoles are retarded.

The FPS got it's start on the PC. Just saying. No need to throw idiotic console wars logic around. If you don't like FPS's, thats fine, but don't blame consoles for them.

 

[Ravager69]

Fallout 2 (or even Fallout 1, also) had a semi-finished hunger\thirst system. I encountered it while checking this webiste:

http://blacksteel.nma-fallout.com/koxbox.html

Here's a bit of the designed code:

/******************************************************************
General commands STOMACH(ha stomach, ha ha ha) info
******************************************************************/

// these are the different amounts food fills the stomach
#define starting_stomach_full     (75)
#define drink_meal     (5)
#define snack_meal     (10)
#define light_meal     (25)
#define medium_meal     (50)
#define large_meal     (75)
#define huge_meal     (90)

// these are macros for dealing with the stomach
#define max_stomach_size     (100 + (2 * (dude_endurance - 10)))
#define dude_stomach_amt     (global_var(GVAR_DUDE_STOMACH))
#define dude_can_eat_food(amt)     ((dude_stomach_amt + amt) <= max_stomach_size)
#define dude_eat_food(amt)        inc_global_var(GVAR_DUDE_STOMACH, amt); \
           if (global_var(GVAR_DUDE_STOMACH) <0> max_stomach_size) then \
set_global_var(GVAR_DUDE_STOMACH,max_stomach_size)
#define dude_stomach_percent_full    ((100 * dude_stomach_amt) / max_stomach_size)
#define dude_stomach_full    (dude_stomach_percent_full >= 95)
#define dude_stomach_hungry     (dude_stomach_percent_full <= 5)
#define dude_can_eat(x)     ((dude_stomach_amt + x) <= max_stomach_size)

// these are so that a pid can be compared to see which food class it is
#define pid_is_drink_pid(x)     ((x==PID_NUKA_COLA) or (x==PID_BEER) or (x==PID_BOOZE) or (x==PID_WATER_FLASK))
#define pid_is_snack_pid(x)     ((x==PID_IGUANA_ON_A_STICK) or (x==PID_MEAT_ON_A_STICK))
#define pid_is_light_meal_pid(x)    ((x==PID_BOX_OF_NOODLES) or (x==PID_FROZEN_DINNER))
#define pid_is_medium_meal(x)     false // this is because we don't have any generic items that qualify
#define pid_is_large_meal(x)     false // this is because we don't have any generic items that qualify
#define pid_is_huge_meal(x)     false // this is because we don't have any generic items that qualify
#define dude_has_fast_metabolism     (has_trait(TRAIT_OBJECT,dude_obj,TRAIT_fast_metabolism))
#define amt_food_digested_in_time(x)    (((1 + dude_has_fast_metabolism) * (game_time - x)) / (ONE_GAME_MINUTE * 3))

/******************************************************************

It's just that they didn't bother to implement it. Check the Command.h file if you're interested. I was wondering about finishing\modifing this, but oh well we'll see. I guess it'd make the game more interesting, something new after all these playthroughs.

 

[Brother None]

But it was good for the atmosphere in Fallout 1. Also it didn't happened often, so it wasn't like you see this every two zones. Imo, they could have added this to Fallout 2 too.

I think they made the right call removing it, because it was too peripheral to be meaningful. If you're going to include a mechanic like that, either do it right or don't do it at all.

Sure, atmosphere is important, but game designers sometimes tend to forget atmosphere still has to be reflected in gameplay. I long since stopped falling for those "omfg hurry up!"-scenes with exciting music bashing over the speakers, water leaking everywhere and someone screaming at you to run, like they do in BioShock 2, because I could guess at first go that the sequence had no timer.

That's lame. That's stupid. Either do a real mechanic or don't. Don't do a non-mechanic and then pretend you're doing it.

 

[Lexx]

Fallout 2 (or even Fallout 1, also) had a semi-finished hunger\thirst system. I encountered it while checking this webiste:

One from our users at FalloutNow made a (german) mod for this. As far as I know, it works pretty well, but I don't know what the overal status is. I think, from here it starts. If you can read or google-translate german...

It is possible to make fire, harvest plants, etc. the full program.

 

[Ravager69]

I knew a bit of german, but I forgot most of it, so I'll pass. Anyways, I just wanted to show that there were plans for food system in previous games.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Sure, atmosphere is important, but game designers sometimes tend to forget atmosphere still has to be reflected in gameplay. I long since stopped falling for those "omfg hurry up!"-scenes with exciting music bashing over the speakers, water leaking everywhere and someone screaming at you to run, like they do in BioShock 2, because I could guess at first go that the sequence had no timer.

That's lame. That's stupid. Either do a real mechanic or don't. Don't do a non-mechanic and then pretend you're doing it.

REminds one to that Dragon age quest with those child and the mages guild huh ... take your time ... no one will worry about it anyway

 

[Tel Prydain]

I imagine how console kiddies dread this new "hardcore" option.....

Yes. We shudder at optional game modes. The mare fact that it's an option is keeping me awake at night. Obviously.

Fallout: New Vegas really does sound good.
Though i find it bit depressing that they had to make a separate mode called Hardcore, for what should be normal mode.
Oh well.

Agreed to a point. I'd rather have it be a default, with an optional 'casual' mode for those unwilling/unable to cope with managing their hydration levels and ammo weight.

I consider fps'ing the whole fucking time im trying to play a game is rather annoying. I hate the genre with a passion. Bioshock and Stalker, if it was non fps but the same environment they would be awesome. I dont want to have to shoot as the main objective to everything. F1 and F2 was turn based and rpg based and we all love them so that's a hint that everyone feels this way actually they are just conditioned to think fps is the only way to exist.

that's why consoles are retarded.

That's clearly the reason. After all, no one ever mixed RPG and FPS games before the consoles came along. Nope, it's clearly that the "consoles are retarded". Also, Stalker is totally a console game.
And we all know that consoles only ever have FPS games - they never have isometric games like Sacred 2 or 3rd person games like Dragon Age.