PCGZine’s Fallout 3 Interview

[Morbus]

The latest issue of the free online magazine PCGZine has a two pages interview with Pete Hines. You can download the issue here. The interview is on pages 15 and 16.<blockquote>Oblivion and Fallout have enormous reputations and a vociferous following. Surely you’re going to really annoy some of the fans... Does that make free-thinking development virtually impossible?
If you were to spend a lot of time worrying about who you’re going to please, and how much, absolutely. But one think we’ve learned over the years is if we work really hard on pleasing ourselves and making a game that we really enjoy playing, we can find some other folks who will enjoy playing it too. (...)

Players can expect different outcomes if they thread a neutral path in Fallout 3. Will you be tripping conservative players up with disproportionately good/evil outcomes if they try to mind their own business?
Yes, whether your karma is good, evil, or neutral, you’ll experience different things. At one point in the game, if you’re evil, the good guys try to kill you, or if you’re good the evil guys try to kill you. If you’re neutral, everybody leaves you alone. So there are drawbacks and advantages for neutral just as there are for good and evil players, and we’ve spend a lot of time working on the gameplay options and outcomes for that “grey” area in between as sometimes the most interesting choices can be found there.</blockquote>That’s a good thing. I always loved how, in Fallout 2, none of the big cities (New Reno, NCR and Vault City) was clearly good or clearly evil…<blockquote>Are you getting the community involved in the development?
We continue to interact a lot with the fan community at large (...)

Describe moments when you just thought - "this is really cool”…
(...) the first time I shot a Fat Man…

Finally, I don’t want to leave The Vault - it looks scary out there... Have you put some mah-jong mini games in Fallout 3 for people like me who are too terrified to step outside?
You can definitely avoid combat in many situations depending on the character you’re playing. But, it’s definitely a dangerous world out there and, unfortunately, you’re going out there whether you like it or not.</blockquote>All in all, the mag asks some interesting questions, though it doesn’t really get interesting answers. There are some witty notes around the screenshots, though.

Link: PCGZine
Download: PCGZine Issue 13

 

[Brother None]

I don't think "good-neutral-evil" compares well as a model to the various shades of grey Fallout consisted of.

 

[Serbaside]

I do not think the interviewer sees it as a role playing game either.

Is this a action or strategy game

 

[Bernard Bumner]

I don't think "good-neutral-evil" compares well as a model to the various shades of grey Fallout consisted of.

It depends what he really means, doesn't it?

If he means that there are essentially only two factions in the game - good and evil - and that you can ally yourself with either or neither of them, then it is going to make for a very simplistic code of morality in the game.

On the other hand, many of the individual choices presented in Fallout are fairly obviously good, evil, or neutral (probably better described as unconcerned and self-interested). It is possible to play the game as good, bad, or neutral, but very importantly, it is difficult to do so the first time you play. The whole point is that good choices might have bad consequences, and an act of evil doesn't necessarily preclude one from also doing good things. The only way to really be good, evil, or neutral, is to understand how each quest interacts with the others, and their impact upon the ending of the game.

If they can't replicate that, then it represents a(nother) severe diminution of the scope, ambition, and intelligence of the series.

 

[Morbus]

I don't think "good-neutral-evil" compares well as a model to the various shades of grey Fallout consisted of.

Agreed, but seeing it as he said the neutral part is the most interesting, maybe he just can't find a better way of describing what they're doing. Maybe... Although there's also the strong possibility they are too attached to the old stupid medieval idea that there's a complete evil and a complete good... In medieval times, for the first time in history, people thought they were completely right, and others were completely wrong. There was no notion of the "inbetween" state, where whether you were good or you were evil. That's the reason why medieval fantasy is so good/evil black and white bloomed...

 

[Serbaside]

In medieval times, for the first time in history, people thought they were completely right, and others were completely wrong. There was no notion of the "inbetween" state, where whether you were good or you were evil.

I'm confused, are you saying that this is how Bethesda approaches the genre or how it actually was?

 

[Morbus]

I'm confused, are you saying that this is how Bethesda approaches the genre or how it actually was?

In medieval times, yes, of course. Not only bethesda but pretty much all medieval fantasy out there. Medieval fantasies that are not black and white morally are just modern bastardizations of what really was. Not that I don't like it, but it doesn't change that fact. Myths and stuff like that arise from medieval times as black/white myths, great evils and great goodness, because that's how people actually thought. Tolkien did that good/evil dichotomy, as far as I know, not because he didn't knew better, but because he knew enough to know it was like that.

 

[Serbaside]

I'm confused, are you saying that this is how Bethesda approaches the genre or how it actually was?

Medieval fantasies that are not black and white morally are just modern bastardizations of what really was. Not that I don't like it, but it doesn't change that fact.

O come on, to say that the medieval time period is the first time in history that there was defined good and evil - self-righteousness and so on - is just naive. And even to say that much just seems to be a generalization, during the crusades the works of Aristotle were discovered, which flourished in Europe, and that type of philosophy certainly in not defined.

 

[Serge 13]

But one think we’ve learned over the years is if we work really hard on pleasing ourselves and making a game that we really enjoy playing, we can find some other folks who will enjoy playing it too.

It would be also nice to work really hard on staying true to the original games ,but i guess you guys have other opinions .

Describe moments when you just thought - "this is really cool”…
(...) the first time I shot a Fat Man…

i don't want to spam , but seriously...I think these guys are doing this with intention.

 

[Leonius]

If you were to spend a lot of time worrying about who you’re going to please, and how much, absolutely. But one think we’ve learned over the years is if we work really hard on pleasing ourselves and making a game that we really enjoy playing, we can find some other folks who will enjoy playing it too. (...)

What pleases him and the other developers may not be what others want. He may want to re-think this and get some feedback from the fans themselves.

 

[whirlingdervish]

If we extrapolate further using that comment as the first stepping stone, and look at how Bethesda was pleased by Oblivion, and how the only other people who tend to think oblivion was good enough to be likeable were idiots with consolitis, we can pretty much prove conclusively that Bethesda is a group of complete retards who delight in staring at shiny shit because it is about the most complex thing that they can wrap their little minds around.

"oooohhh shiny!" gives way to:

"ooh fire magic!" which, in turn, has led us to where we are today:

"oooooohhhh nukular bombz!"


on a side note, considering what a buggy piece of feces oblivion was, we can tell EXACTLY what they meant by "work really hard".

What Petey meant to say was: "Pay lots of dough for hype, and do shoddy work without actually testing our products before we screw people out of their hard earned dollars by lying to them about it's content and selling them the rest of the game that should have shipped with the original disc had we not been such incompetent tools to start with."

 

[Morbus]

O come on, to say that the medieval time period is the first time in history that there was defined good and evil - self-righteousness and so on - is just naive.

I know a bit of what I'm talking about. History is not that long, you know? Medieval era is just the second/third era of human history and romans and greeks didn't think that way at all. AT ALL.

 

[SuAside]

Oblivion and Fallout have enormous reputations and a vociferous following. Surely you’re going to really annoy some of the fans... Does that make free-thinking development virtually impossible?

would that question imply that Beth has to keep the Oblivion fans in mind while developing a Fallout game?

i surely hope not... (though i'm sure they will)

 

[Makagulfazel]

Describe moments when you just thought - "this is really cool”…
(...) the first time I shot a Fat Man…

i don't want to spam , but seriously...I think these guys are doing this with intention.

Haha, I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Big T]

I don't think "good-neutral-evil" compares well as a model to the various shades of grey Fallout consisted of.

Good-Neutral-Evil
............/\...........
............||...........

There! That's a shade! White, Grey, Black.


Still, it's one more than I was expecting. Well, am expecting.

we work really hard on pleasing ourselves

Obviously, I'm pleased that the boys at Bethesda are devoting such time to self-pleasure, it's not like they have anything to do, expectations to live up to, etc.

 

[shihonage]

This is from the original, unedited interview:

Oblivion and Fallout have enormous reputations and a vociferous following. Surely you’re going to really annoy some of the fans... Does that make free-thinking development virtually impossible?

If you were to spend a lot of time worrying about who you’re going to please, and how much, absolutely. But one thing we’ve learned over the years is if we work really hard on pleasing ourselves - nothing wrong with a man taking pleasure in his work. I won't deny my own personal desire to turn each sin against the sinner.

Players can expect different outcomes if they thread a neutral path in Fallout 3. Will you be tripping conservative players up with disproportionately good/evil outcomes if they try to mind their own business?

Yes, whether your karma is good, evil, or neutral, you’ll experience different things. A woman... so ugly on the inside she couldn't bear to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let's not forget the disease-spreading whore!

Are you getting the community involved in the development?

We continue to interact a lot with the fan community at large. Wanting people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you'll notice you've got their strict attention.

Describe moments when you just thought - "this is really cool”…

(...) the first time I shot a Fat Man… An obese man... a disgusting man who could barely stand up; a man who if you saw him on the street, you'd point him out to your friends so that they could join you in mocking him; a man, who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn't be able to finish your meal. After him, I picked the lawyer and I know you must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!

Finally, I don’t want to leave The Vault - it looks scary out there... Have you put some mah-jong mini games in Fallout 3 for people like me who are too terrified to step outside?

What sick ridiculous puppets we are, and what gross little stage we dance on. What fun we have dancing and fucking. Not a care in the world. Not knowing that we are nothing. We are not what was intended.

Pete ? Pete... what are you doing... oh god please, no !

(...)

I'm mean.

 

[13pm]

Describe moments when you just thought - "this is really cool”…
(...) the first time I shot a Fat Man…

that says everything about their understanding of Fallout universe... holy shit... if that is what excites them most, I'm afraid to imagine what the game will look like.

 

[JR Jansen]

<blockquote>Are you getting the community involved in the development?
We continue to interact a lot with the fan community at large (...)

This is either a sick joke or a blatant lie. Are we doing it again Petey ? Can't stop, hu ? I guess it must be hard to go cold turkey and tell the truth for once. Of course that would come back to bite you in the ass.

 

[fallout ranger]

By "community", he probably means fans of Oblivion that post in the Fallout section of the Bethesda boards.

 

[Morbus]

Then let's compare the amount of people posting on the forums and how many copies each game is going to sell...

Sure!

IronTowerStudio's forum has more people posting than Fallout 3's has. If Age of Decadence sells 100000 it's a HUGE success, if Fallout 3 sells that number, it's a HUGE failure.

Of course, from this perspective, when can't take conclusions, but I'd say AoD's going to be a much better game than Fallout 3... I don't know, gotta play them and see.