Josh Sawyer talks New Vegas on IGN unfiltered

I really do loathe that term, "intended audience". Not because I think it shouldn't exist, because I don't, but because it's used as a lazy copout.

"intended audience was FO3 fans" - that sure didn't go as they planned, did it?

 

The design of New Vegas sure as hell doesn't feel like it was made for the casual Bethesda audience. And it's a good thing that it doesn't feel like it.

 

It does enough. The game is similiar enough in all ways that matter, while the obvious Obsidian touch is there (for better or worse for the Bethesda audience).

 

New Vegas certainly didn't feel like it was aimed at us - though it did manage to be the best game since Troika died despite that.

If Sawyer's comments are accurate, and New Vegas really is what they make when they're aiming for the Bethesda crowd - they can dumb it down, but not by enough, even when they try - that's got to be a good omen for the Cainarsky game which is (allegedly) aimed at us.

I know I have too much optimism about the Cainarsky game, but let me dream for a while, it's not hurting anyone.

 

Let's see:

- You can make allies and enemies with several factions, cutting you off from content depending on choices. This would never happen with Bethesda making the game. And it's not exclusive to factions, you can do a sidequest and suddenly you can't do another (showing a failed status).

- The world is not a theme park where you find something unique in every location. Some locations literally have nothing in terms of loot or quests, some of them just tell a little story based on what's there to give context to what happened there.

- The game doesn't hold your hand in a 30 minutes long intro and through the rest of the game.

- There's several other minor things that were clearly not made for the Bethesda audience.


There's a reason why a lot of Bethesda fans complained about New Vegas: It's a stark contrast to Fallout 3. So this "we made New Vegas with the Bethesda audience in mind" just seems silly to me when Obsidian did major things that were already taboo for Bethesda in 2010.

 

No need to list me the differences. I know what they are. I’m just saying that the claim is perfectly reasonable when you look at the game as a whole (an easy sandbox shooter with some story and choice), even if it is not a wholesale copypaste job.

Part of the Beth audience (as well as part of the original fanbase) also complained that the game is not different enough (from 3), that it’s just a glorified expansion pack. There’s a reason for that too.

 

That you don't "feel" like it isn't doesn't mean that it's not the intention and to whom the marketing was directed at. And figures, they make for a way, way bigger sales cut than "us". It's just that competent game designers can appeal to more than a single specific sensibility and taste at once, and that, believe it or not, Bethesda would let them do pretty much whatever content wise for as long as it shared their true and tested design ethos, to which they couldn't really deviate from anyway considering the avaleible resources. And that's pretty much it.

 

Wait what?! Look I respect him but saying this shit is not accurate to say the least lol

 

Yeah I am also calling Sawyer a hypocrite on that one because if the FNV team really set out to do that they should have looked more at how Fallout 3 handled elements such as gameplay and the campaign instead of bringing back discarded material from Fallout 1, 2 and the canceled Van Buren.

 

I'm probably the only person on these boards who think FNV was obviously inspired by F3 and very much for the fans of F3 as well as the originals.

 

In a way.....

NV was the second Fallout I played. FO3 the first.

In NV we have the NCR and who the fuck are these guys? You only complete the arc of this faction after playing the first two, otherwise they are just some guys who fell from a parachute. As they are in every corner of the map and you will interact with them ALL TIME, it would be easier for a fan who started with FO3 if they used a new faction and not one full of references to the old games (there's even an hour you have to know about Shadi Sands and Tandi, for a quest)

there´s also the whole thing of not be able to "HHHHURRRRR DUURRRR EXPLORE, EXPLOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, GO EVERYWHERE, DUUUUHHHHHH BETHESDA GAMES GIVE SO MUCH FREEDOM, CLIMB EVERY MONTAIN "

Neither with the equipment of courier stash and playing in the very easy it is possible to enter Quarry Junction, for example. Not at the initial levels.

I would say that the target audience would be the balance between old and new fans.

 

I watched it yesterday and I didn't think he meant that NV was intended only for betesda larger audience, rather than the gameplay style had to be based on the other game when it come to shooting stuffs or exploring.

Well I am ill placed to really say, I have barely found out that Fallout New Vegas is finally on GOG, I honnestly had given up on hoping it would happen and that I would ever be able to taste this game.

I didn't buy the other game though, the one with '3' in it, my guts have rarely been wrong on what I would like or waste my money/time on, so I prefer to stick with NV. Strange, after giving up on trying it one day, I am almost afraid to launch the installer.

 

Well it is understandable that FNV would not be a radical departure from what Fallout 3 did. (it would not suddenly be like Fallout 1 and 2 again but now in a full 3D engine)

Why the reluctance?

Fallout 3. You would probably not notice it in the first couple of hours, but then the discrepancies start to crawl in and it becomes harder to take this all serious.

 

FNV has all the elements that come with Fo3, it's only executing them in a mostly different way.

Just because Sawyer said FNV is inspired by Fo3 doesn't mean Obsidian wanted to make a dumb game (and failed at doing so, coz FNV ain't dumb, hurr durr).

 

Do you think is dumb?

 

Not relunctant, just the emotion of launching a new fallout game, I thought before that steam would never let New Vegas be sold on GOG and I can't stand steam for forcing people to use a online client, without any real offline installers like GOG provide. (The day I register on steam will mean I died and that someone usurped my idendity)

Other than that I started a game, the engine seem ok, kind of remind me a little of mascarade bloodlines troika game in the shooting part, and I got to use a speech skill already. I just hope the game don't expect me to run around in the wasterland for the sole purpose of exploring if there is no worldmap like in the original games. The only modern game of this open type I played is the witcher 3, and I explored almost nothing, even ignored or sent to hell a good chunck of quests for roleplay and realism purposes. Fortunatly the interface seem fluid enough and there are quests markers so far in New Vegas, it's not a bad idea with a engine like this.

For the pure 'betesda' 3, I actually read on the game, I don't think it would make the cut for what I expect from a game. Modern open worlds in general, there are just not my thing. I made a exception for the witcher 3 as a fan of the books, and to know the end of CDPR fan fiction continuation of the wild hunt story arc. I disgress here, sorry, it's just that I truly believe that the witcher 3 is a good example of why open worlds actually eat too much on the story telling of a game. But I don't wish to debate it, too long and unproductive, as it already were when the game was annonced as a open world and that the crowds were already drawling at the idea of a 'witcher simulator', while it made and still make no sense to play 'Geralt' that way. (Or rather the CDPR version of 'Geralt', sometimes turned into a horrid cliche for the same reason that the third game was a open world, attract the unfamous large audience, but I better not get started on that)

Sorry about the disgress. I am making a other exception for a new Fallout game, and since we speak of a generic character to play like in the originals, there is fortunatly no risk for me to wonder if the main character is really cured from amnesia or why I wonder if he is not a pale imitation of who he is supposed to be.

 

I don't think it's quite that black and white. It's "enough" of a copy/paste job to pass. Introducing few new (old) things and fitting them in doesn't really make Sawyer a hypocrite in this regard.

 

Well if I understand correctly Obsidian intended FNV to appeal to the FO3 crowd, then why bring back elements that people who played FO1 and FO2 fans are the most familiar with?
If he had said "We intended FNV to be both for the new fans of Fallout 3 as well as try to appeal to the older fandom." then he would have been a lot more accurate.