Paste Magazine interviews Todd Howard

[Artisticspaz]

P: Was there a fundamental question or filter that you used to determine whether or not a gameplay feature or story element belonged in Fallout 3?

TH: Art-wise, design-wise, we typically have a design aesthetic for why would they build this and how would they build it. And then when it comes to story stuff and the people, our big themes were sacrifice and survival. What are these people sacrificing to survive? How are they surviving in a unique way so that each town or settlement has their own kind of belief system? Each one has to be bent in some way, they need to be sacrificing something to survive at the level they are and we hope that the player feels the need to make similar choices in what they're going to do to survive.

Uhuh, cause exploding cars are totally believable...
How the **** that gameplay feature passed the believability check is beyond me.
Then again, maybe I'm the one missing the point here...

Good questions though...

well considering it talks about settlement belief systems, and not believable gameplay features in real life...yeah

This is one of the things I dislike the most about how the story is driven. So, the motivational tool the PC must rely of is emotions? I don't like that design, where my character must have a determined behavior because the devs wants that. If it is truly a cRPG wouldn't be me the one who decide what is the behavior of my PC? What if I want to play a cynic bastard which only care about him/herself? That cynic don't care a shit about the father!

Maybe the main story of the fallouts is not a brilliant piece of literary art but the way it was made it's perfect for me. You start from a social quest (not a personal, not saving the world ones) and then you see yourself in the wasted desert, lonely and without a clue. But you feel you have to survive and achieve your goal because your people depends on you. Not because a silly spoiled brat cannot stand the disapearence of his/her dad.

you did start with a saving the world quest, saving the only world you ever knew....in each of the original fallouts, and because each of them is saving your home it is personal, quite personal...

and according to wazza, your char.s thrown leaves out of fear of death....you can decide whether you care about ur father or would rather kill him or even forget about him

 

[Seelix]

TH: That's the hope, yeah. Because the game is so wide open, we wanted to try to do something that is personal to you and not just deliver this or go here. We wanted to make it, you know, a really kind of driving curiosity. Like ‘why would he leave me? Why would he do that to me?’ The player can have different emotions about that. You know, curiosity, anger or wanting to help their father, assuming there was a very good reason he left.

What about PC who always wanted to join vault gang, was kinda difficult kid who rather doesn't give a damn about Overseer, his daughter or PC's daddy? I failed to see room for such emotions and attitude.

When PC gets quest to find waterchip, he/she doesn't have to have any emotions about that particular thing. Emotions are connected to leaving vault for the first time and to exploring unknown and usually unfriendly world. It is not important whether one likes or dislike Overseer, other vault dwellers.
I remember that most of the time I thought that I will come back to vault to live there so finding chip was important for my survival too; I was looking for it not for overseer, not for others, not for some damn glory of the vault but for myself. And there wasn't any emotions of attachment forced upon my PC. It was my choice to feel like part of the community who wants to return, like some old loner tired of crowd who just leaves some confined spaces and has a chance to breather real air, like some young person who is simply curious, or even as some aggressive bastard who finally got chance to feel free from vault's rules... etc. It seemed to be all about finding place in some reality. And finding chip was some kind of compass, but definitely not moral one. It helped a bit to plan what to do next like given tasks usually do. That's all.
FO2 wasn't very different from that. All this 'being Chosen One' could be taken seriously but could be also considered some old woman's rambling. PC could be rude towards Elder and take quest from her just because it was some chance of going out of this boring little tribal community. No deeper feeling had to be involved, no expectations other that what the world is like.
What's more important nobody forced anyone to feel anything. Sometimes simple “go-and-fetch” task can trigger feelings [like FO1's Waterpump's case in Necropolis] and that's really nice when it happens spontaneously.
When emotions and reactions are planned and what's worse it's announced from the very beginning as one of game's features one can feel choice-less and forced to feel something; it's like: here PC must be sad and miss his daddy... here PC must be curious where daddy went... he/she is not? why?! he/she must be!

FO3 seems to be in some way similar to Oblivion in the matter of emotions. PC is in jail. Not very bad way of starting one's adventure [it worked nice in Gothic I]. But PC can be there for many reasons. PC could be member of some xenophobic race, like for instance Dunmers and his/her crime could be murdering some imperial scum, right? PC could hate emperor and utterly wish him to die. But suddenly PC is forced into helping emperor, into accepting him and his offer. Just like that. Without any plausible explanation and without giving player's much of a choice. Damn, one even couldn't be rude towards Emperor... Why? Because. Because fate, because emperor has dreams, blah, blah, blah. And he tells it all to some anonymous prisoner and suddenly everything changes, is so clear and all. Oh please. Beginning of Gothic 1 seems so very clever comparing to that.

“The player can have different emotions about that. You know, curiosity, anger or wanting to help their father, assuming there was a very good reason he left.” Right. First of all those emotions aren't very different from each other, they all are connected to anxiety, concern and care.

The second thing is that in fact whatever emotions player have, it all comes to: “why would he leave me? Why would he do that to me?” So there is no variety of emotions to feel. Something specific is forced upon player.

and according to wazza, your char.s thrown leaves out of fear of death....you can decide whether you care about {I'm trying to say your, you are, or you're, but I'm likely too stupid to know which to use.} father or would rather kill him or even forget about him

PC can kill daddy? I do not read carefully any plot summaries written by those who played game, but... PC can actually KILL daddy? Just like that? [“I am tired of missing you and wondering why you left me, and I hate you, die old man, die!”] I will not believe until I'll kill him.

The other thing is this 'forget-about-him' part. Well, one can also forget about Main Quest in Oblivion but it makes gameworld much less plausible. There is some 'hurry-hurry-there's-no-time' illusion but those are just empty words and when PC just stop doing MQ just after game begins gameworld become still: months, years can pass and everyone still act like emperor was killed just yesterday. And there is no evil invasion. It's even more funny to stop doing MQ just in the middle... Everything waits until PC go back to MQ.
I am aware of the fact that it's typical for many games that world doesn't change until PC does certain thing but in Oblivion it is very poorly designed - there is illusion of freedom but player has to take certain path because gameworld become unbelievable otherwise. And since MQ's plot doesn't contain twists and mysteries it doesn't encourage much to continue.
It is not very wrong to assume that MQ in FO3 will be similarly constructed.

 

[Fade]

It seems to me that Bethsoft is trying to tell this great story they thought up and doing it in a Freeroaming game. Now you can disagree on whether it is a great story or not til the cows come home... different tastes. It is the Freeroaming part that I have a problem with.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Freeroaming about creating your own story and so having any other storyline imposed upon you a problem? Would it not be better to a main quest that almost isn't there so as to not cause a conflict with any ideas that the player comes up with?

 

[sonicblastoise]

So, the motivational tool the PC must rely of is emotions? I don't like that design, where my character must have a determined behavior because the devs wants that. If it is truly a cRPG wouldn't be me the one who decide what is the behavior of my PC? What if I want to play a cynic bastard which only care about him/herself? That cynic don't care a shit about the father!

...

I hope you get what I mean.

this is kind of what i was referring to in my original post. but i understand what arcticspaz is saying as well. it just seems the bethesda is unclear as to what motivations can be considered truly "coercive" such as group survival (or personal survival for that matter), and which are merely subjective.

i was simply saying that the scenario they've gone with is much more subjective. and that's a bad design choice for a world in which really isn't supposed to have a sense of good/bad morality in it as a result of a serious and significant atrocity.

and Wazza, even if it the scenario you describe IS the case, it's hardly a matter of survival to be interrogated. in fact, it would be even MORE interesting to have that scenario play out, there being a choice where you could submit to the questioning, be questioned/detained/expelled, OR to rebel, and then have to fight your way out of the vault because of your action.

choice and consequence, ta-dah!

 

[Matt K]

It seems to me that Bethsoft is trying to tell this great story they thought up and doing it in a Freeroaming game. Now you can disagree on whether it is a great story or not til the cows come home... different tastes. It is the Freeroaming part that I have a problem with.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Freeroaming about creating your own story and so having any other storyline imposed upon you a problem? Would it not be better to a main quest that almost isn't there so as to not cause a conflict with any ideas that the player comes up with?

I agree for the most part. If this was a JRPG then you can't really argue about the motivations of the character. But here, since they seem to be going gaga about doing anything you want such a limiting main quest makes little sense. But then again, BS seems to just throw things together with little worry about how they fit. For instance, perhaps there is a good reason Fallout had a map for traveling and didn't allow you to just walk everywhere. For a game like Fallout, one should get a feeling of loneliness which is difficult to replicate without being boring BS's way.

 

[Pope Viper]

I like a lot of that has to do with the fact that they don't appear to spend a lot of time in the design stage.

From what I see, they brainstorm what would "be cool", and then implement that, without thought given to how it would tie into the canon of Fallout, let alone considering how it would motivate the PC in what they do.