OXM article excerpts

ronin84 said:
temple of trials, yeah... pretty much. i hate the damn temple of trials.
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When it's the temple of trials from the Megamod, it's worth it.
 
Why all the hate for the Temple of Trials? Too impatient to kill all the enemies and level up before you talk to the end guy? Don't know how to do the 'hit and run away' trick? It's not really that fun to do or that bad, more like forgettable.

Ooo, and I feel special. The banner at the top says I'm the 999,999 visitor and is flashing pretty colors. :o
 
The Temple of Trials was something the devs didn't want in. PR put it in as a tutorial area.

It's a stupid idea. It's pointless, makes no sense (people live in tents while using a paved cave with polished walls for a trial test?!), and it's basically one of those stupid dungeon crawls with traps that's never had a place in Fallout. The ratcave in Fallout 1 is about as bad, but at least it's short.
 
"I think it's more in the Tarantino fashion, which is to have some fun with it," says Howard. "It keeps it almost surreal. All these posters and the music are winking, but when the guys die, it's over-the-top. It's rendered really nicely, so on some level, it's believable - but it's ridiculous. That's the point."
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This is from the article, and apparently "Kill Bill" is the only Tarantino movie Bethsoft has seen.

Unless they are hinting that they are getting at the "black humor" of Pulp Fiction, and Reservoir Dogs. But there is no way that they can touch the level of dark humor that is the "ear scene" in Reservoir Dogs, or the "I accidentally shot Marvin in the face" of Pulp Fiction. Or "the gimp" or anything like that.

I think they are referring more to the Kill Bill style. Which I was never really a fan of.

Also, how can something be massively single player?
 
"The Future's So Bright, ... , - Have To Wear Shades&qu

"The Future's So Bright, ... , - Have To Wear Shades"



gc051360:
... Also, how can something be massively single player?
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Could just be a funny, (self) mocking emphasis on FO3 being a single player game.

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And we could stop right there, but the culture war beckons.

Perhaps, nothing was massive-ly ... until
... massively single player...
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sprung fully armed and armored from the brow of Bethesda's Dr. Zeus.

Flog it in the same cultural venue of nex gen "immersive" ,
until the -A-D- or ad(vertisement) in this 'ly' word, this adverb, shines or rather blooms.
and the game entertainment industrial complex has another happy-happy 'buzz word' in it's jargon tool set.

Has the 'groovy' potential, of instant coat tail riding. 'Groovy' with the groove in music records, the 45's and 33's.
'Massively' with the MMO marketing hysteria of this modern epic in waiting.


MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE

... massively single player...
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MMO and M-SP?

An actual link may be a similar grind gameplay for fat loot,
on line down loaded content, on line copy protection,
and the blessing of the hired scribblers that genuflect the 11 out of 10 game reviews.

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Perhaps this stance will never be necessary, perhaps
... massively single player...
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could be a rally reply, a saving throw, for single player games in the face of the marketing juggernaut of MMO's.




4too
 
An interesting parallel:

Fallout's vibe is heavily influenced by the irony that the "panacea" of the atomic age was the instrument of apocalypse.

We are currently witnessing the "panacea" of gaming (purty bloom, cross-platform development, "destruction is the new trees") become the instrument of apocalypse for PC gaming.

And the company that fails to grasp the irony in Fallout is executing the destruction of the PC RPG. When the primary development and only demo platform for FO3 is the X-Box, and when the big "scoops" are appearing in OXM, it is obvious exactly how much the PC gamer (that constitutes the FO fanbase) matters to Bethesda. "We don't give a rat's buttocks about you, but give us your money anyway."

It doesn't bother me if console gamers get games they enjoy. Great for them. What does piss me off is that I don't get games to enjoy on my PC. Even Halo was going to be a PC game (and X-Box) before Microsoft bought off Bungie to make it an X-Box exclusive (yes, I know that it was ported eventually, though poorly). Throw in the fact that nearly every developer thinks that, despite the long trail of failed MMORPGs, they can have the next cash cow World of Warcraft, and PC RPGs are repeatedly getting kicked in the nuts. If developers want to emulate Blizzard, they can start by cultivating the gamer-friendly attitude. "WE are going to make the game that WE want to make" doesn't cut it.

Our hope right now is the smaller developers. Thank God for CDProjekt and The Witcher. I can't wait to buy Age of Decadence.
 
And the company that fails to grasp the irony in Fallout is executing the destruction of the PC RPG. When the primary development and only demo platform for FO3 is the X-Box, and when the big "scoops" are appearing in OXM, it is obvious exactly how much the PC gamer (that constitutes the FO fanbase) matters to Bethesda. "We don't give a rat's buttocks about you, but give us your money anyway."
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The previous exclusive preview was in PC Gamer.
 
jfreund said:
We are currently witnessing the "panacea" of gaming (purty bloom, cross-platform development, "destruction is the new trees") become the instrument of apocalypse for PC gaming.
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2 things:

1). Why is "purty bloom" inherently negative?
2). Doug Lombardi disagrees.


And the company that fails to grasp the irony in Fallout is executing the destruction of the PC RPG.
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There's a reasonable argument to be made that they're making as much of an effort as anyone else to save it, and that piracy is as responsible as any other reason for it needing to be saved. Maybe you disagree with this, but it's one of the main factors developers cite when hopping over to multiplatform or console exclusive projects.

When the primary development and only demo platform for FO3 is the X-Box, and when the big "scoops" are appearing in OXM, it is obvious exactly how much the PC gamer (that constitutes the FO fanbase) matters to Bethesda. "We don't give a rat's buttocks about you, but give us your money anyway."
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Xbox 360 has development tools that are the envy of PC devs, from what I understand. That's one reason for the 360 being the lead platform, which is means it's further along in development, which explains why OXM gets the first kiss and PCGamer, et al get sloppy seconds.

It doesn't bother me if console gamers get games they enjoy. Great for them. What does piss me off is that I don't get games to enjoy on my PC.
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I can sympathize here, the lack of good games lately persuaded me to get a 360 instead of upgrading for the winter 2007 cycle. What can I say, I'm a gamer.

cash cow World of Warcraft, and PC RPGs are repeatedly getting kicked in the nuts. If developers want to emulate Blizzard, they can start by cultivating the gamer-friendly attitude. "WE are going to make the game that WE want to make" doesn't cut it.
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I love Blizzard, and everything they make I want to play and keep playing, but it's a little too tempting to let recent SC2 developments erase some of the bad will they sow in the ranks of thier own hardcore fans. See, until SC2 was announced there was some Bethesda-level hate in the various battle.net forums over how WoW was robbing SC and Diablo fans of thier sequels, all Blizzard cares about is money hats, ect.

Blizzard is good people, don't get me wrong, but they're as guilty of milking the cow as anyone else, and while they polish games beyond the level of nearly any other PC developer (I think Valve comes close) they've also taken forever between projects historically, and that's only gotten worse since WoW. Blizzard is too huge a list of exceptions to be the rule.

Our hope right now is the smaller developers. Thank God for CDProjekt and The Witcher. I can't wait to buy Age of Decadence.
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Read that gamasutra article, Doug talks about this too.
 
Mikael Grizzly said:
His issue isn't the gun, it's that guy's inability to click on two links and see what kind of rifle it is.
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correct.
Brother None said:
Most (sane) Europeans don't have half a clue about guns, though.
Which is why I can never care about stuff like this. It doesn't bother the consumer, so eh.
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be that as it may, it is still a handy bit of info for some people. be they artists who want to make fanart, or modders that are already keeping an eye out for what kind of guns they'll be playing with for their mods.
Brother None said:
Gun nuts often don't get how little other people care :P
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and vice versa. :twisted:
NWatcher said:
Ok, then you click this link and see how many modifications FN FAL does have.
It's silly to put such unfamous rifle as CETME into Fallout.
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unfamous? haha, oho, wow.
either way, neither belong in Fallout.

it's still bloody obvious that it's a CETME/G3-clone to everyone except you. so maybe it's time for you got get a new pair of glasses.

and please don't try to school me on FAL/L1A1s, it's one of those guns i feel pretty damn strongly about. and since CETME/G3s were the direct competition, i know a fair bit about those as well.
Ausir said:
It's silly to put real world weapons there at all.
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agreed, i have always been a strong supporter of having only generic guns in FO, rather than real world weapons (even if they predate the branch in the timeline).
 
f3bscr2nz2.jpg

Here you are daddy!
 
C'mon guys, can't you see the reason? The devs are too lazy to figure it out: Fallout characters aren't supposed to look realistic, but rather charismatic. Look at gizmo, or Set or the master or anybody, do they look realistic? Do they look like someone you could ever find in the street? (except for the obvious reasons :P ) Bethesda went for the realism, because, well, their heads can't begin to understand how a game COULDN'T strive for realism, so Fallout 3 has to have realistic characters.

Realistic forgettable faces: they all look alike... Specially when the job is not that well done...
 
Anyway, Bethesda's dark humour so far is pretty far removed from Fallout's dark humour, which was: FEV - designed to be the saviour of humanity - becomes its biggest threat, against this thread only an atomic bomb - that almost destroyed humanity - can be used for a final solution. That's dark irony, dark humour. Not decapitating old ladies.
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fucking word up. wonderful example.

Decapitating old ladies? WTF? That is not dark humor. That's just crude, senseless violence.
 
I'm still trying to figure out how cutting off a nice old woman's head, setting it on a table and talking to it, is "dark humor"
 
Morbus said:
C'mon guys, can't you see the reason? The devs are too lazy to figure it out: Fallout characters aren't supposed to look realistic, but rather charismatic. Look at gizmo, or Set or the master or anybody, do they look realistic? Do they look like someone you could ever find in the street? (except for the obvious reasons :P ) Bethesda went for the realism, because, well, their heads can't begin to understand how a game COULDN'T strive for realism, so Fallout 3 has to have realistic characters.

Realistic forgettable faces: they all look alike... Specially when the job is not that well done...
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That certainly sums up the big problem with Oblivion - too EFFIN realistic. :wink:

You know, every time someone dares suggest that the limits of 1996 technology may have shaped the development of Fallout in any form or fraction there's a shitstorm of righteous indignation (because Fallout was a pure 1:1 scale model of Tim Cain's imagination, MOTHERFUCKER), but hear me out:

I believe the decision to go with the scanned clay heads could be the result of such limitations. The expenses to do 3D renderings of the talking heads back then would be extravagant for a PC game, epecially to get them to a similar quality of what could simply be done using cheaper, real world objects. This much the devs would tell you themsleves, and have:

Our artists are using a wide-range of tools to create the unique look and feel of Fallout. Detailed animations, numerous scenary objects and different wall styles, and a rather neat looking interface are all just a small part of the total art requirements we're beating out of our artists. While the majority of art is being rendered using different 3D packages, we are also using 2D and clay models to round out the art -- using the best tool for the particular job. Fallout should be the most graphic intensive 3rd-person perspective RPG to date.
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Best = best looking for the money, in case you were wondering just what they're saying. Also - isn't it interesting how important a role good graphics seemed to play in Fallout's design? I mean, it shouldn't be a surprise, since it's a video game, but I think sometimes it's important to remember that it was one of the shiniest RPGs of its day (by design).

What I'm getting at is if the same designers back in 1996 had access to and backgrounds in the CGI field of today the look of Fallout's characters probably have been dramatically different. Perhaps still stylized and charismatic, as you point out, but also perhaps with a far greater subtlely afforded by current tech. Part of the reason you go with clay heads is because it's nigh impossible to simulate emotion and personality with 1996 wireframes, unless you're Pixar. At least at a level they were comfortable with, anyways.

Now, how this all matters, since regardless of how it got there, Fallout was what it ended up being and that's pretty much that:

Bethesda isn't constrained by 1996 tech, and even if thet put all their resources into purposely emulating that, do you think the end result would be something you'd approve of? The faces in the screenshots look pretty OK to me, but I'd have to reserve judgement untill I've seen them engaged in animated speech. VtM:B (which Emil has alluded to as an inspiration) shows us that even average looking character graphics are capable of emoting tons of personality with the right animation.

But when Bethesda says they're designing the game to their strengths, for better or worse, they're telling the truth. For whatever reason no one else could, would, or did make Fallout 3, so now we're stuck with them and how they do things. No TB combat is better than shitty implementation of it, right? Most people seem to agree that the general look of the landscape has survived the translation to 3D and remained Falloutish, but I think trying to shoehorn in the specific character detail from the F1 talking heads would be a jarring clash, and I don't think anyone here really wants to see Bethesda try and force some middle ground.

I guess that's just one way of saying I think it looks pretty good, all things considered.
 
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