New Fallout 3 screenshot and Todd Howard speaks

[analord]

FPS = Good.

Actually, that's not true.
Good FPS = good
Bad FPS = bad

And btw, are you getting offended by games that have, let's say, AK-47 in it? Because generally AK killed more people than Fatman, yet nobody says that Counter-Strike is offensive (nobody who's sane).

OH DONT GET ME STARTED ON COUNTERSTRIKE

 

[UniversalWolf]

I can't remember who said it, but it struck me - Todd wants to be a movie director. Some kind of hot shot action movie director. I think that's what he sees himself is.

Michael Bay?

Pearl Harbor, Transformers, Fallout 3.

 

[DarkCorp]

Except graphics and shine are probably done by entirely different people from the ones who do the dialog and story. Especially for a company as big as Bethesda

It is no mystery that whenever one developes a shooter, company resources are primarily given to graphics with other departments lagging behind. This is plainly obvious in Bethesdas track history with shine games like Morrowind and Oblivion. Sure the world looks amazing and its huge but most dialogue choices are pretty much dumbed down to fetch/kill quests. Even the ending is a bit dissapointing compared to much earlier and more basic games such as Fallout.

The fact that having a higher shooty guns skill in Bloodlines makes you aim better isn't what makes it a fun RPG, the enjoyable dialog, story, and characters are what makes it RPG-like. The skills just make you focus your character more instead of being an across-the-board awesome-man. Sort of a recent example would be The Witcher. Basically all stat and skill advancement in that is just combat related, so in that respect it's theoretically less of an RPG than Bloodlines (Your character always has the same dialog choices and can't really change quests with skills or stats, whereas in Bloodlines there are multiple dialog skills, and some skills that you need to complete certain quests like hacking and lock picking), but it's the whole choices and consequences aspect that makes it good and worth playing/replaying, just to see how different things pan out

And how many choices and options really affected the gameplay or ending of bloodlines? You couldn't talk the prince into killing himself, screw over the asian vampires by pretending to work for them, or even side with Cain (whom I assume is an antiduluian). In fact, I don't really remember a time where dialogue options really significantly affected something important like combat (tzmisce boss). Most of the time it opens up like one quest or just allows you to get lower shop prices or hitting on the opposite sex (which there realy is no reason to do so). Also, no matter what ending you got, it was short/horribly underdeveloped.

Most rpgs are known for story/dialogue/game mechanics first, and graphics as a secondary priority. This is why they are so damn fun and complex. As you have brought up, "rpg like, action rpgs, etc, etc" games. In these scenarios, the rpg elements are placed secondary or third whereas graphics, the "selling point" of the game is alway placed in first priority. Hence we have silly things in the F3 demo like multiple viewpoints of an exploding head, bullet time, exploding cars, etc, etc pretty developed and focused on while dialogue options, believable character actions (opposite of such things as the infamous toilet drinking ideas, brotherhood of steel recruiting vulgar morons), (remember the vault dweller survived a suicide mission), etc, "weren't ready for the demo".

In the end, games like bloodlines, morrowind, oblivion, etc, etc, are in a sense, shooter first, with rpg elements added to it. Honestly, can one compare a game like bloodlines and say it is story/scope/and sheer epicness, comparable to Fallout. IMHO I don't think so.

Edit: Fixed

 

[Per]

DarkCorp, use quote tags, you can't wear them out.

 

[Capt Vee]

Except graphics and shine are probably done by entirely different people from the ones who do the dialog and story. Especially for a company as big as Bethesda.

That's not really the point. It's a resources issue. If you compare an arcade Baseball game like MVP and a simulator with little to no actual animated graphics like Diamond Mind, you'll find that each are putting a similar level of strain on your system. Diamond Mind just happens to be directing those resources in a direction other than graphics.

 

[Jiggly McNerdington]

It is no mystery that whenever one developes a shooter, company resources are primarily given to graphics with other departments lagging behind. This is plainly obvious in Bethesdas track history with shine games like Morrowind and Oblivion. Sure the world looks amazing and its huge but most dialogue choices are pretty much dumbed down to fetch/kill quests. Even the ending is a bit dissapointing compared to much earlier and more basic games such as Fallout.

Shooter development and RPG development are different beasts, so I won't touch that bit. But saying Morrowind and Oblivion quests and dialog are pretty dull (Which they are for the most part) because of the eyecandy is kind of silly. It's more a design choice, less about the eyecandy. A retarded but fairly workable example would be a small cake buried under frosting. The cake is way too small, but it's not the fault of the frosting, just a poor choice by the baker. They designed Morrowind and Oblivion to be more sandboxy and far less focused than other RPGs, so they fill their own niche quite well. They might not have good characters and dialog, but sometimes you just want to run around in a nice big world and crawl some dungeons.

A different way to look at it is NWN2. Obsidian tried their damnedest to make it look pretty (And failed in my opinion), but they still covered it with sparkling lights and bloom and what-have you. NWN2 was a pretty weak/crappy game by itself, but I've heard MotB is actually a really good RPG. It's still got eyecandy and sparklies, they just designed the actual game of it better.

And how many choices and options really affected the gameplay or ending of bloodlines? You couldn't talk the prince into killing himself, screw over the asian vampires by pretending to work for them, or even side with Cain (whom I assume is an antiduluian). In fact, I don't really remember a time where dialogue options really significantly affected something important like combat (tzmisce boss). Most of the time it opens up like one quest or just allows you to get lower shop prices or hitting on the opposite sex (which there realy is no reason to do so). Also, no matter what ending you got, it was short/horribly underdeveloped.

What endings are available to you is based almost entirely on who you worked for and how they felt about you after you did the quests. You can certainly play through the game and make basically everyone happy so you've got the widest range of choice at the end, but that's not always the case. There are also other choices and consequences like working for LaCroix, if you finish his quests but do them in a way that pisses him off (Like when he tells you to sneak on to the Elizabeth Dane and snoop around and don't get caught, and you decide to flip out and kill everyone) that can remove rewards you would get later in the game such as the fancy apartment in downtown. Also the fact that Bloodlines changes good amount of dialog and NPC reactions depending on your clan. The most obvious oddballs are malkavians (Who get entirely unique personal dialog, and probably the largest amount of new NPC dialog) and nosferatu (Who have to sneak everywhere to avoid humans seeing them and generally get negative reactions from people due to their appearance), but even playing the spellcaster-like toreador get some different options.

And for the ending being weak, I liked that they almost all were downers sort of like Fallout 1. Generally you have to eyeball some forums and replay the game to get a better take on the ending but SPOILER: The cabby/Cain wasn't actually an antediluvian or Cain, but a very powerful malkavian who thought he was Cain. He demented Jack into believing him, and they went around taking down members of the camarilla. While he isn't Cain, the vampire apocalypse actually does happen fairly shortly after Bloodlines though.

Most rpgs are known for story/dialogue/game mechanics first, and graphics as a secondary priority. This is why they are so damn fun and complex. As you have brought up, "rpg like, action rpgs, etc, etc" games. In these scenarios, the rpg elements are placed secondary or third whereas graphics, the "selling point" of the game is alway placed in first priority. Hence we have silly things in the F3 demo like multiple viewpoints of an exploding head, bullet time, exploding cars, etc, etc pretty developed and focused on while dialogue options, believable character actions (opposite of such things as the infamous toilet drinking ideas, brotherhood of steel recruiting vulgar morons), (remember the vault dweller survived a suicide mission), etc, "weren't ready for the demo".

Theoretically it could be true, but however, for a small preview a year before their first estimated release date for the game, they probably aren't going to sit people down and show them an hour of dialog, most of which probably hasn't even been voiced yet. Hell, look on Youtube for some old trailers of Baldur's Gate. They show spells flinging and fireballs exploding and monsters going blarg.

Hell, I just looked up Fallout trailers. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=2013542508 That admittedly is a really awesome trailer, but it shows hitting super mutants with rockets and people with flamethrowers. Dialog typically doesn't make for very entertaining demonstrations.

In the end, games like bloodlines, morrowind, oblivion, etc, etc, are in a sense, shooter first, with rpg elements added to it. Honestly, can one compare a game like bloodlines and say it is story/scope/and sheer epicness, comparable to Fallout. IMHO I don't think so.

Actually Bloodlines is one of my favorite RPGs. Fallout 1's in first place, but I think I'd put Bloodlines ahead of Fallout 2, possibly in second place. And Morrowind and Oblivion I'd still call RPGs, but they're a different variety. Much like how I call Diablo 2 an RPG even though it has nothing but monster whacking, and I still enjoy it as it does monster whacking really well, but don't put it in the same box as other RPGs. If the mood strikes you to whack some monsters, D2's your game. If the mood strikes you to load a bunch of goofy mods and do silly crap like attack a city, Oblivion's a good choice.

That's not really the point. It's a resources issue. If you compare an arcade Baseball game like MVP and a simulator with little to no actual animated graphics like Diamond Mind, you'll find that each are putting a similar level of strain on your system. Diamond Mind just happens to be directing those resources in a direction other than graphics.

Except I don't think I've ever heard of an RPG that would need to crunch such numbers that it couldn't have eyecandy as well. Never mind the fact that a lot of the eyecandy number crunching would be going on in the video card, which theoretically a graphics-free game wouldn't be touching. I know what you're getting at though, the ASCII based game Dwarf Fortress completely crushes my CPU when a big fortress is rolling. Even though it's just shuffling little characters around a window, it's doing the pathfinding for 100+ dwarfs, +animals, +monsters, +weather, and so on. And while it could theoretically be neat to see a modern RPG made with a 2D engine like Infinity Engine or... Uh... Whatever engine Fallout uses and pushing around hundreds of NPCs in towns at once, even with the best AI they'd still end up with generic "I saw a mudcrab the other day, nasty creatures" dialog.

Er... What I'm trying to get at is there's basically free room to expand eyecandy in RPGs, because if they wanted to push around massive numbers of NPCs, they'd still end up as the generic "Peasant" and "Junkie" you see in eyecandy RPGs just because of the need for dialog writers. And even if they had an unreasonably massive dialog and questing team working on fleshing out the thousands of NPCs, they'd probably end up with a buggy mess due to trying to manage all of that, or take even longer making RPGs. I dunno, it could be cool but I certainly understand why companies don't do it.

 

[Mord_Sith]

Is anyone else feeling a longing for FF to go back to it's roots right about now? (pre FF7 and it's blooming and popularity)

Anyhow that piece of randomness out of the way I must point out two things, one in Oblivion it's system is pathetically designed so that the console kiddies don't feel like morons because they can't win without using their long forgotten brains. And two you have about as much dialog as I have with my TV when it's on the fritz, about two to three options, curse, hit, or power down and play some games.

When you break something down to 'beat them like a redheaded stepchild until they stop moving' it's no longer an RPG, it's an FPS and you're stuck with the alternate weapon rather than a gun.

I point to a nice old mod called PVK for Halflife, it had a wide array of medieval weaponry, but it was a fakking FPS and everyone agreed, the only difference between Oblivious and PVK is that it had stats that after you swing for so many times you got a power-up to your ability to hurt stuff with your alternate weapon.

That being said Oblivious is pretty, but that's all it is, it's got a bad case of Paris Hilton disease and sadly, it's terminal.

 

[alexweiln]

corrections

Freshly finished finished playing Fallout once more, I have to correct my last post.
Seems that the Ghouls development could be good for speculations, whereas the -ingame (F1)- facts tend to be FEV were involved somehow. At least backed up by Harold, because he mutated to a Ghoul real fast, after he crawled off the Base where he'd some accident in the vats.

Set, in fact does only tell you that the master's a threat to his 'rulership' over necro. But he mentions the location of the vats if you ask for the Lieu.
Zax gives very detailed info of known side effects, as well that FEV is only applicable via injection, immersion, but can't be inhaled. That is interesting, since it crosses out all enclave disks/speeches a bit (that 'jet-stream' thingy and the 'inoculation' of the non-vault mainland inhabitants).
Harold talks about grey and how he got dipped by accident on their search expedition of the 'mutant source'.
And in the vats is the diary of grey, how he first became a mutant and then improved his neural system, and even became the ability of assimilating electronical components into his system, by injecting himself with more FEV. Besides is stated there, that he recognized that the radiation count of individuals immersed into FEV is important for the outcome (the lower the better).

To get back on track, I must admit my doubts, that something great and fascinating over *years* now, like Fallout is even possible to implement into a FPS. Even if that what we're talking about is called to be none (interview).

 

[Bernard Bumner]

Most rpgs are known for story/dialogue/game mechanics first, and graphics as a secondary priority. This is why they are so damn fun and complex. As you have brought up, "rpg like, action rpgs, etc, etc" games. In these scenarios, the rpg elements are placed secondary or third whereas graphics, the "selling point" of the game is alway placed in first priority. Hence we have silly things in the F3 demo like multiple viewpoints of an exploding head, bullet time, exploding cars, etc, etc pretty developed and focused on while dialogue options, believable character actions (opposite of such things as the infamous toilet drinking ideas, brotherhood of steel recruiting vulgar morons), (remember the vault dweller survived a suicide mission), etc, "weren't ready for the demo".

I think it is unfair to suggest that graphics necessarily come at the expense of gameplay. Do you really believe that the Fallout decided to make the graphics just a little bit crappier so that they could achieve better gameplay, that they were calculating that 10% worse sprites would allow them 12.7% more depth? Of course not. People are proposing a false dichotomy; that rpgs have to look bad to be good. It isn't the case. There seems to be inverse snobbery at work here, and I think that it utterly misses the point.

Where Bethesda have gone wrong is not in wanting to create a universe that is beautiful as possible, but in changing the game mechanics in a manner that will necessarily dilute roleplaying. There is no reason at all why a game cannot be both visually stunning and deeply involved and rewarding.

Fallout looked good, and the art direction and engine design were intimately linked to the roleplaying. The visuals were as well made as possible, as far as I can tell. Part of the problem may be that it has been such a long time since a great rpg was made, that people have started to associate those graphics with greatness. Don't forget that Fallout was shiny and new, once upon a time.

Consider what PCZone thought of Fallout (I think this review was actually written for the budget release);

...Indeed, Fallout is very pretty - assuming you find the sight of bloodied chunks of human flesh arching through the air pleasing, that is...

 

[Morbus]

Someone here doesn't really understand the process of making a game...

 

[Bernard Bumner]

Someone here doesn't really understand the process of making a game...

Me?

Well, I'm just not sure what the argument is. If we're talking about system resources being hoovered up by graphically intensive engines, to the detriment of gameplay then that is one thing. (But not what I was responding to.) If we're talking about the well-resourced development process for a big-budget property like Fallout 3, then there is no reason why a game shouldn't be both shiny and good.

Does somebody want to try to convince me that the Fallout 3 gameplay is likely to be underdeveloped simply because Bethesda is concentrating too many resources on engine development and graphics, and not because they have fundamentally neglected the core elements of roleplaying, which they don't consider to be important in their quest for immersion?

That isn't to do with graphics vs. gameplay, that arises from a design philosophy that gameplay should be as instinctual as making a cup of tea or looking out of your window, a fundamental misunderstanding of why people play rpgs. Their ideal of immersion, the gameworld as a seamless extension of reality, is what reduces it to just a pretty spectacle; they are reducing the world to a thing that is experienced via simulations of our own mudane senses, rather than the extraordinary and fantastic skills and insights available to us in real rpgs.

Tell me why we can't have a game that is excellent both graphically, and in terms of gameplay?

(Like, er, Fallout...)

 

[Morbus]

Ahem... AFAIK, Blizzard is the only studio able to do what you're saying, and they have Gold of Whorecraft to finance them... There's a reason why full voiced dialogs are bad in RPGs, from the developers standpoint. Why's that? Can you figure it out? The same happens with pretty graphics. The prettier the graphics, the more you incur on having your game look stupid. For example, imagine Fallout, a very good game, but with pretty graphics. The sole point of having pretty graphics has to be compensated with gameplay mechanics. When a glass of water dropped upon an old ghoul in Set's HQ when clumsy Ian passed by, the ghoul should become upset. The thing is, Fallout doesn't have any glasses full of water. But with pretty graphics, it'd probably have.

My whole point is, the better the graphics, the better gameplay mechanics HAVE to be. If you increase graphics, you'll have to increase everything. That's the reason why Gears of War is such a stupid game... And others.

I'm sure I got my point through, though...

 

[DarkCorp]

I think it is unfair to suggest that graphics necessarily come at the expense of gameplay. Do you really believe that the Fallout decided to make the graphics just a little bit crappier so that they could achieve better gameplay, that they were calculating that 10% worse sprites would allow them 12.7% more depth? Of course not. People are proposing a false dichotomy; that rpgs have to look bad to be good. It isn't the case. There seems to be inverse snobbery at work here, and I think that it utterly misses the point.

Honestly with todays technology, yes, a game can look good and have good story. In fact I have said it in posts before that could happen. What your missing is the point that game companies have deadlines, a set limit of monetary resources for a game, profit versus cost ratios. You can't do everything otherwise it would take way too much resources (not game resources) but manpower and money (not to mention wreck havoc on any type of set deadline).

The choice to adopt first-person necessarily dictates and restricts many other design directions

Contradiction?

A different way to look at it is NWN2. Obsidian tried their damnedest to make it look pretty (And failed in my opinion), but they still covered it with sparkling lights and bloom and what-have you. NWN2 was a pretty weak/crappy game by itself, but I've heard MotB is actually a really good RPG. It's still got eyecandy and sparklies, they just designed the actual game of it better.

There is a clear difference in graphics when you compare NVW to a game like oh lets say Crysis. NVW looks good but to say the graphics are equally on par with your average shooter today doesn't fly.

And even if they had an unreasonably massive dialog and questing team working on fleshing out the thousands of NPCs, they'd probably end up with a buggy mess due to trying to manage all of that, or take even longer making RPGs. I dunno, it could be cool but I certainly understand why companies don't do it.

Wow. So in depth story telling and dialogue takes too much "resources".

It's more a design choice, less about the eyecandy. A retarded but fairly workable example would be a small cake buried under frosting. The cake is way too small, but it's not the fault of the frosting, just a poor choice by the baker. They designed Morrowind and Oblivion to be more sandboxy and far less focused than other RPGs, so they fill their own niche quite well. They might not have good characters and dialog, but sometimes you just want to run around in a nice big world and crawl some dungeons.

Uh, slight problem. We are not talking about some diablo clone or sandboxing. Beth is calling their game Fallout 3. That means they have to stay true to how the original Fallouts were done, not to name whore and then say they do what they do best. Otherwise they could have did something like "Oblivion 2007, the nuclear apocalypse has come and you must survive".

 

[Mord_Sith]

Hey that's an idea, instead of calling it Fallout 3, they can call it 'Elder Scrolls: End of Days'

That way they don't have to whore out their PoS game by taking a legitimate and loved game and bastardizing it.

But that would make too much damn sense wouldn't it.

I love Fallout, but I hate what Beth is doing to it, promised it wonders then gave it Paris Hilton Disease, I can only pray it's not terminal.

 

[Bernard Bumner]

The prettier the graphics, the more you incur on having your game look stupid. For example, imagine Fallout, a very good game, but with pretty graphics.

Fallout did/does have pretty graphics.

I understand where people are coming from on this, I really do, but in my opinion the games aren't bad because graphics become the focus. Rather, the graphics become the focus because of a deep misunderstanding of what rpgs should be. I don't think it is as simple as a question of resource management.

Bethesda have become obsessed with presentation because they consider that to be immersive means creating a game world which looks like the real world. They are trying to roleplay via some idea of virtual reality; if they can make the world look more realistic, then people can become more absorbed in the role. That is almost exactly the opposite of roleplaying, as anybody who has done PnP knows. Roleplaying should be about understanding the mechanics and stats underlying game, and it should be about having overviews and insights which are necessarily unavailable to us mere mortals, or else we are simply playing the role of ourselves.

I probably agree with you all more than I've managed to convey, I do accept that graphics become a priority for developers. However, I think that roleplaying becomes compromised because they see technical roleplaying as counterintuitive (which it is) and demanding (which it is), whereas organic and instinctive interfaces and game mechanics have become de rigeur.

What your missing is the point that game companies have deadlines, a set limit of monetary resources for a game, profit versus cost ratios. You can't do everything otherwise it would take way too much resources (not game resources) but manpower and money (not to mention wreck havoc on any type of set deadline).

I accept that, but Bethesda should be financially very sound, they have proven technologies for delivering graphics, and are supposed to have expertise in roleplaying. So many of the poor elements we've seen so far are to do with design direction, and have very little to do with money or time, because these are fundamental design directions which were taken in preproduction.

I think it excuses them too much to allow that underdevelopment of the roleplaying core of the game is an indirect consequence of development schedules or finances, rather than a very deliberate act on their part to somehow redefine the genre.

Contradiction?

I don't think so.

First person perspective is much more than a simple graphical choice.

 

[DarkCorp]

I probably agree with you all more than I've managed to convey, I do accept that graphics become a priority for developers. However, I think that roleplaying becomes compromised because they see technical roleplaying as counterintuitive (which it is) and demanding (which it is), whereas organic and instinctive interfaces and game mechanics have become de rigeur.

See the thing is Fallout was never meant to be a mainstream game for everyone. Thats why it is a cult classic similar to a very creepy movie like Rocky Horror Picture Show.

That isn't to do with graphics vs. gameplay, that arises from a design philosophy that gameplay should be as instinctual as making a cup of tea or looking out of your window, a fundamental misunderstanding of why people play rpgs. Their ideal of immersion, the gameworld as a seamless extension of reality, is what reduces it to just a pretty spectacle; they are reducing the world to a thing that is experienced via simulations of our own mudane senses, rather than the extraordinary and fantastic skills and insights available to us in real rpgs.

So pretty much they want to make a game that sells to everyone. If it somehow has a larger learning curve, then the masses won't buy. Well the problem with that is the fact that 90% of the other game makers have the exact same idea. When gameplay is "simplified" to cater to everyone, the only way to make it stand out from the other simple games out there is to focus on the shine. I think this is a clear example of graphics vs gameplay. Look at Hollywood. There are hardly any "original story" movies left. So the selling point then moves to how much one can flash and dazzle the audience.

I think it excuses them too much to allow that underdevelopment of the roleplaying core of the game is an indirect consequence of development schedules or finances, rather than a very deliberate act on their part to somehow redefine the genre.

On the contrary, what I stated above is a clear example of games being produced for the sake of financing. Throw out a game that will sell to all and reap the quick rewards on the ground that the brand name will do all the work.

Tell me why we can't have a game that is excellent both graphically, and in terms of gameplay?

The choice to adopt first-person necessarily dictates and restricts many other design directions

This is what the contradiction comment was about.

 

[Disconnected]

Fallout did/does have pretty graphics.

It had, it doesn't look good by today's standards. You missed his point though.

FPP does come at a cost. In the originals, it didn't seem odd that you couldn't rummage through every desk, tip over every chair, pick up every blade of grass and so on. In Morrowind, for example, it would have seemed odd that when you got up close and personal with a bit of shelf-space, you lack the ability to interact with any of it.

So you didn't. Pretty much every last bit of knick knack in TES games can be fiddled with. But that also means that instead of even 1 single sorry line of unique dialogue, virtually every conversation you can have in those games, is randomly generated and about as thrilling as viagra spam mail in your inbox.

 

[Bernard Bumner]

See the thing is Fallout was never meant to be a mainstream game for everyone.

Absolutely, but it almost certainly wasn't designed to exclude people who were green to the genre, rather it was simply designed as a very pure piece of roleplaying.

So pretty much they want to make a game that sells to everyone. If it somehow has a larger learning curve, then the masses won't buy. Well the problem with that is the fact that 90% of the other game makers have the exact same idea. When gameplay is "simplified" to cater to everyone, the only way to make it stand out from the other simple games out there is to focus on the shine. I think this is a clear example of graphics vs gameplay. Look at Hollywood. There are hardly any "original story" movies left. So the selling point then moves to how much one can flash and dazzle the audience.

I think we agree with the ultimate consequences of their approach, it is just that I see them as arising from a much more sinister philosophy. I don't think the simplified gameplay is just to do with mass appeal, but also due to this concept of immersion they've developed; they are trying to hide as much of the mechanics of roleplaying as possible, because apparently it spoils the illusion. It misses the point of roleplaying (which, of course, has never really required anything other a pen, paper, dice, and an imagination).

Throw out a game that will sell to all and reap the quick rewards on the ground that the brand name will do all the work.

Well, I may be wrong - it happens sometimes - but their focus on immersion has always been at the fore in interviews. If this was a purely financial decision, then one might have imagined them taking the supposedly cheaper route of emulating the first game, and thereby cashing in on a pre-existing fanbase; I can see little added value in alienating the fans and moving into a cluttered market sector.

This is what the contradiction comment was about.

Ah, I see. Well, I'm not sure it is a contradiction. Firstly, I don't agree that first person is the only way to produce stunning visuals. Secondly, I think that making the switch to first person doesn't necessarily have to utterly destroy the game; it limits many aspects, especially to the detriment of tactical combat, but doesn't preclude great writing, the development of deep mythology, and so on.

Just to be clear, though; I always wanted a third person, turn-based, proper sequel.

FPP does come at a cost.

Yes, but so does any aspect of a game; good third-person graphics come at a cost. (I presume you don't mean processing cost?) A first-person roleplaying game doesn't need to compete with first-person shooters, and it isn't as if Bethesda are creating Fallout from scratch.

In the originals, it didn't seem odd that you couldn't rummage through every desk, tip over every chair, pick up every blade of grass and so on. In Morrowind, for example, it would have seemed odd that when you got up close and personal with a bit of shelf-space, you lack the ability to interact with any of it.

I'm not sure it would have seemed any odder than those same constraints within any other perspective. Games are full of arbitrary restraints, and it is simply a matter of dealing with them; sometimes doors are locked, shelves can be empty, desks can lack drawers, and this is certainy the case in a post-appocalyptic setting, where scavenging will have been rife. More to the point, there is no reason at all why one couldn't have search dialogues, as per the original games, in a first-person perspective. The only reason not to, is because of an obsession with immersion and creating a virtual reality.

How would Van Buren have dealt with those problems, or is it okay to have a richly detailed world without proper physics in third-person, but not in first-person? Does first person have to be substantially voiced, but third person can rely on greater segments of dialogue?

If this is simply a matter of dealing with people's expectations, then fuck them; make a great game, and if joe-public is too stupid to get it, then they don't deserve it. More to the point, given the recent trend towards mediocrity and banality, I suspect that joe would be very, very interested.

 

[Briosafreak]

I don't think the simplified gameplay is just to do with mass appeal, but also due to this concept of immersion they've developed; they are trying to hide as much of the mechanics of roleplaying as possible, because apparently it spoils the illusion. It misses the point of roleplaying (which, of course, has never really required anything other a pen, paper, dice, and an imagination).

Indeed they do, with the support of many in the industry, particularly on the gaming media outlets.

More than financial I suspect it's a cultural thing, coming from what I call "the Zelda generation".

How this will clash or somehow mingle with the classic Fallouts design choices, in the practical sense of a final result, is something that I'm quite curious to watch.

One note though, in Oblivion people disappearing in doors, that bizarre speech minigame or some occasional glitches with the AI were awful to achieve any suspension of disbelief, so that philosophy still needs some work in order to achieve a better immersion in absolute terms.

In relative terms they got it from many people, which means their consumers don't have such high standards regarding visual immersion as one might expect.

 

[Morbus]

I so gonna hide the mechanics of Magic the gathering next time I play it. Immershun FTW!