The Game

J.E. Sawyer said:
Maybe the game would have sucked. Our design ideas might have been crappy and the weapon balance might have been horrible and the story could have come across as lame...
Mayyyyybeee... :)
 
One thing you gotta respect is the attention so many of the (former) Black Isle crew have shown to the community. I think those screenshots show that, just as much as so many of them taking the time to post in this thread and around this board over the past week does. You are all good people in my book.

JE: Real-time, multiplayer, radioactive koala bears--it doesn't matter what would've been in the game. You and others have made it crystal clear that you got what most of us loved about the Fallout games and had the same kind of passion for them. Knowing that, I'm sure it would've been great.
 
Gwydion said:
*sigh* He wasn't quoting Drac, he was quoting Saint_Proverbius. And he did quote all of Proverbius' post.

You're right- my apologies to everyone involved in my disaster of my post :oops:

Hmm... they did look awful similar...
 
I see computer entertainment as one of the new areas in creative fields. However, of course, the old warm is still there: I saw intellectual property laws, which are supposed to be the bridge of economic structure and human intellectual creativity, sometimes or often worked for screwing creative members of our society (For example, a meaning of open-source movement would be creating new community of creative people free from these laws or nations). I think the worm got BIS, too.

J.E. Sawyer said:
In the past year, it has been made very clear to me that the amount of passion you devote towards something -- whether it is a person or a creation -- has very little bearing on whether or not that devotion will bear rewarding fruit. Because ultimately, some of the people who have control over your fate just don't give a damn.

Take out all of the questions of right and wrong. Remove concerns about who should be assigned blame, and how much. It is very hard to devote yourself to someone or something when you have good reason to believe that the object of your devotion is going to be taken away or is otherwise unattainable. It's happened enough to me recently that I lost faith. I couldn't devote any more of myself to something that I believed was doomed.

Someone told me that they never knew anyone who resigned from their job and regretted it. I regretted it the minute I walked out the door. Maybe the game would have sucked. Our design ideas might have been crappy and the weapon balance might have been horrible and the story could have come across as lame... but it really was the game that so many of us had wanted to make for so long.

I'm too sad to be angry. So many of my friends losing their jobs, and so much passion wasted. Some people never recover from disappointment like that. I don't care about whose fault it is anymore, or if it's anyone's fault. It may be a small, stupid, trivial, worthless tragedy, but it is mine to weigh and measure.

About ‘fruit,’ I’d rather say that my interpretation on the absolute knowledge in Hegel. It is not a reward promised but an attitude required to people who stay defiant. (German philosophy tends to be quite ‘over-decorated,’ though). I think you people in BIS fought well enough to gain some respect. Probably, I was a fan of BIS members rather than FO or other titles. You are losers (a word so hated in ‘business’ forks) but only in economic sense - in fact, many fail themselves even without noticing it.
 
Boo Radley said:
Mr. Teatime said:
To what, though? There are no decent RPGs in development, that I can see. The Fall looks interesting but I suspect it's going to be focusing heavily on combat. Apart from that, there is nothing that I can see. There is no PC only development house for RPGs now.There is nothing on the PC that I am looking forward to. The ex-BIS guys that have got jobs, are in console jobs (Obsidian doing KOTOR 2, inExile doing that poor Bards Tale thing, Troika doing a FPS with a bit of RPG thrown in). It's all so terribly depressing.

That's the nature of the industry. There was a period of several years where there were almost no decent CRPGs on the market. Then BIS came along and changed that. But the fact that they were losing money hand over fist shows the change in the market away from CRPGs. Despite a loyal fanbase, there are more people interested in FPS, MMORPGs and consol games than good ol' CRPGs. It's a d@mn shame for those of us who cant stand any of those, but we are a minority.

There's a simple solution that allow minority ideas to succeed every day in the government. Get some lawyers and some people lobbying in the Senate. Next, buy some tv and radio time to make it sound like your idea is more popular than it actually is. Finally, get some news shows to do some of their over-the-top segments on why your idea is the best thing since sliced bread, and how the opposition's idea is hurting every child on the planet.

Oh well, sorry about that rant...its just been bad luck everywhere I go since the bad news hit.

Interplay must crash and burn...aahhh :)
 
Executioner said:
There's a simple solution that allow minority ideas to succeed every day in the government. Get some lawyers and some people lobbying in the Senate. Next, buy some tv and radio time to make it sound like your idea is more popular than it actually is. Finally, get some news shows to do some of their over-the-top segments on why your idea is the best thing since sliced bread, and how the opposition's idea is hurting every child on the planet.

Oh well, sorry about that rant...its just been bad luck everywhere I go since the bad news hit.

Interplay must crash and burn...aahhh :)

If someone had the money and resources to do that for a CRPG, then just put them to use making the damn thing! :twisted:
 
madfury said:
I really really really really dont understand IPLY, every sane person comparing FO3 and FOBOS screenshots would say go with FO3.
:idea: I wonder are they even human @ IPLY.
Die IPLY, DIE! :x


Yes DIE, DIE you damn interplay Retards !!!!
 
That's all so devestating.

I feel like one of those girlys that wanted to jump out of windows when Take That splitted.
Never thought that a game could control my reallife in such a way, but I'm totally depressed now and the thought of never playing fallout 3 is unbearable.

I have no hope on silver stlye doing fo3 ether because I just don't think ANYONE can capture the Fallout feeling like BIS did.

Well I just want to tell every former bis member on this board that you guys have my respect for bringing us the best game(s) ever. And that you're keeping such a tight relationship to your fans is what makes you really stand up from the rest.

Cya everyone
 
Re: So....

Weenis said:
I hated stopping to shoot a rat with my turbo plasma rifle and power armor[in turn based]. BIG WASTE OF MY TIME!

Then don't put rats in the game in areas where you're likely to be after you have the turbo plasma rifle. Big duh, there.

This isn't a question of turn based or real time, it's a question of stupid design. If you have rats running around late in the game, it's going to suck no matter what. Even in real time, you're going to be dealing with sitting there, watching every round cycle run through until all the hapless rats are dead. The only difference is that you're just sitting there rather than clicking on each one. Still boring, still a waste of time.

Edit: And before you say, Well, maybe we want a late area that calls for rats! Huh? What about that, Mr. Saint Proverbius? Think about that one? Eh?, that rats don't have to initiate combat in that case. Make them hear the CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP of the power armor wielding plasma rifle dude and scatter. If they don't initiate combat, then it's the player's choice as to whether or not they want to waste their time with them or not.

Either way, both of those are design choices, not a problem with turn based combat at all.
 
danien1 said:
It is nice to see the FO3 team is somewhat vindicated by the screenshots, at least with some of the core FO fans. It is tragic that it had to happen under these circumstances.

For those who vehemently claimed (based on speculation and the oh so convenient, *empirical evidence*) that

- FO3 couldn't be done in 3D,
- Black Isle didn't have the know-how to make an engine, 3D or otherwise,
- Black Isle didn't have the resources to make their own engine,
- Black Isle would ruin FO by focusing on real-time,

Bad memory, bitch. I don't recall any janitors being fired, so you're still drawing a paycheck, right?

You might want to note it was said that BIS had no demonstrable proof that they had the talent to do the above, not that they didn't have the talent. BIG difference.

After all, BIS was the Infinity Engine's bitch (and by proxy, BioWare's) for nearly as long as the division has been around.

Does the number of successfully completed released games amount any that weren't based off the Infinity Engine or another engine that was already available? Sadly, no. So therefore you really can't say it was proven and the point still holds.

-Fact is, those screenshots do look quite unrefined and aside from resolution, do appear sub-par to those from the original games. I believe that could have been tweaked before release, but that never is a sure thing.

-It was said that BIS has no proven show of being able to make their own combat engine from scratch and expected the fans to swallow the "we can do it, you don't know!" bullshit. Which you solely propogated for the most part. It's common sense that if you don't have anything proven, that carries much more weight in software development considerations than "you just don't know if we could pull it off!" "Empirical evidence" carries more weight than something that doesn't exist in a finished state. Perhaps you're one that likes to take things on blind faith, so say hello to the rest of your Hubologist buddies for me.

- It looked like Black Isle wouldn't have the time required to make a new engine, as IPLY was in a doubtful position to support any long term development plans. While it looked doubtful, BIS could very well make their own engine. After all, there's plenty of half-built engines floating around.

-Focus on real time? Someone's been on Chuck's brand of stupid smoke again.

Better luck next time, Danien, but I'd suggest you favor the mop instead of a keyboard from now on. TORN having an "original game universe". That is so comical, to call something intended to be derivative to an extreme as "original". When will your mad merry-go-round stop?
 
Re: So....

Saint_Proverbius said:
Then don't put rats in the game in areas where you're likely to be after you have the turbo plasma rifle. Big duh, there.

This isn't a question of turn based or real time, it's a question of stupid design. If you have rats running around late in the game, it's going to suck no matter what. Even in real time, you're going to be dealing with sitting there, watching every round cycle run through until all the hapless rats are dead. The only difference is that you're just sitting there rather than clicking on each one. Still boring, still a waste of time.

Edit: And before you say, Well, maybe we want a late area that calls for rats! Huh? What about that, Mr. Saint Proverbius? Think about that one? Eh?, that rats don't have to initiate combat in that case. Make them hear the CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP of the power armor wielding plasma rifle dude and scatter. If they don't initiate combat, then it's the player's choice as to whether or not they want to waste their time with them or not.

Either way, both of those are design choices, not a problem with turn based combat at all.

umn, i never had a problem with it in fallout myself but I fully understand the argument. killing a buch of rats in real time is much quicker than kill them in turn based where you might miss a shot or two and having those rats attack you one by one doing you NO harm and killing themselfs with critical misses.

saying that I always love those situations .. seeing those rats killing themselfes I mean :lol:

anyway the man has a valid point. no doubt about that ;)

[edit] Oh an btw. I don't like my title, I may be a freak of nature but I'm not THAT hideous.. at least my GF says so *lol*[/edit]
 
Re: So....

Legshot said:
umn, i never had a problem with it in fallout myself but I fully understand the argument. killing a buch of rats in real time is much quicker than kill them in turn based where you might miss a shot or two and having those rats attack you one by one doing you NO harm and killing themselfs with critical misses.

This isn't true at all. This depends on the attack animation speed, how many people are with the player, how fast they can fire per round, and so forth. If the rounds are six seconds, there's 15 rats, the player and two NPCs, and each person gets two attacks in that round time, we're talking about 18 seconds for combat resolution in your so called faster real time.

The nice thing about turn based is that because it's sequential, you can speed up the attack animations and it won't matter. You can easily resolve a situtation like that in turn based with the Combat Animation Speed Slider in much less time and you're not going to just be sitting there like a dry lump while it's going on. After all, how long was an attack animation in Fallout? One second? Maybe less? Movement with the combat speed cranked in Fallout was pretty damned fast, even if the enemy decided to spend his whole turn moving.
 
Re: So....

Saint_Proverbius said:
This isn't true at all. This depends on the attack animation speed, how many people are with the player, how fast they can fire per round, and so forth. If the rounds are six seconds, there's 15 rats, the player and two NPCs, and each person gets two attacks in that round time, we're talking about 18 seconds for combat resolution in your so called faster real time.

In my definition of real time there are no rounds what so ever.. everyone can shoot at THE SAME TIME and so there is no waiting what so ever.. you can even run past those rats in real time which you cant with turn based .. if you have to go past them even if you flee the rats will start attacking again.

Is there any sense in discussing real time versus SEQUENTIAL turn based stuff? Of course turn base is slower in ANY situation.
 
In the past year, it has been made very clear to me that the amount of passion you devote towards something -- whether it is a person or a creation -- has very little bearing on whether or not that devotion will bear rewarding fruit. Because ultimately, some of the people who have control over your fate just don't give a damn.

Take out all of the questions of right and wrong. Remove concerns about who should be assigned blame, and how much. It is very hard to devote yourself to someone or something when you have good reason to believe that the object of your devotion is going to be taken away or is otherwise unattainable. It's happened enough to me recently that I lost faith. I couldn't devote any more of myself to something that I believed was doomed.

Someone told me that they never knew anyone who resigned from their job and regretted it. I regretted it the minute I walked out the door. Maybe the game would have sucked. Our design ideas might have been crappy and the weapon balance might have been horrible and the story could have come across as lame... but it really was the game that so many of us had wanted to make for so long.

I'm too sad to be angry. So many of my friends losing their jobs, and so much passion wasted. Some people never recover from disappointment like that. I don't care about whose fault it is anymore, or if it's anyone's fault. It may be a small, stupid, trivial, worthless tragedy, but it is mine to weigh and measure.

On one hand I applaud the wording of this. It's basically my exact feelings, but expressed without my usual vulgarity and cheap humour. On the other hand, I feel even worse than usual knowing that this is not only a commonplace thing, but something that a dev that I actually harbour some admiration for has had to go through.

And I hope for Mr Sawyer's sake that this is where our experiences cease to bear similarities, because I haven't recovered from the disappointments I've suffered along the way. I'm now an unemployed depressive seeking work in anything _but_ games. I've had my own bad experiences with two titles I was very excited and passionate about, including something close to that illustrious "dream-title" that all game devs wish for. In one case, the canning was pretty unavoidable, the other case was just a series of complete and utter fuck ups.

On the side of that, I've got two classes of 25+ students, most of whom were passionate, talented and enthusiastic, but at the end of the day, are either going to be overlooked in an industry that has a glut of job applicants, or wind up on the train that is fueled by creative passion, but at some point runs out of track to run on. I'm still completely bummed by what the future holds for these talented kids.

So, as a result of my musings over the last little while, I want to get the fuck away from the games industry, and even went through a period where I didn't even want to play games. I'm hoping that not only JE but everyone burned by this whole situation doesn't tread the same path and finds their way back into the saddle, because as much as the IE series didn't really float my boat, it's obvious that the talent and passion that's been fueling BIS shouldn't fall to waste, no matter how tragic the loss of countless gallons of blood, sweat and tears may be.

While the stooges at the top fight their losing battle to launch http://bizarreinsertions.interplay.com* I really hope you all wind up in greener pastures. Nobody deserves to be on the receiving end of the colossal business failure that Interplay has become in recent years. Chin up guys, there are dev houses out there that have the common courtesy of a reacharound, and you've all the credentials to find your way into one. It may be rough love, but it's lovin all the same.



*
"Gape (pun intended) at our massive collection of game devs being subjected to all manner of anal punishment! See entire console dev kits forced into the virgin holes of our creative minded team! Enjoy our latest addition: Black Isle staff being violently penetrated by the cumbersome servers containing the accumulated content of the ill-fated Fallout 3!"
 
Re: So....

Saint_Proverbius said:
Then don't put rats in the game in areas where you're likely to be after you have the turbo plasma rifle. Big duh, there.

This isn't a question of turn based or real time, it's a question of stupid design. If you have rats running around late in the game, it's going to suck no matter what. Even in real time, you're going to be dealing with sitting there, watching every round cycle run through until all the hapless rats are dead. The only difference is that you're just sitting there rather than clicking on each one. Still boring, still a waste of time.

Edit: And before you say, Well, maybe we want a late area that calls for rats! Huh? What about that, Mr. Saint Proverbius? Think about that one? Eh?, that rats don't have to initiate combat in that case. Make them hear the CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP of the power armor wielding plasma rifle dude and scatter. If they don't initiate combat, then it's the player's choice as to whether or not they want to waste their time with them or not.

Either way, both of those are design choices, not a problem with turn based combat at all.

The best part is you could have played your way and I could have played mine. You could have never even turned on real-time mode the entire game and been just as happy.

You're absolutely right, rats late in the game, bad. Fallout was open ended enough that you could go back and visit previously explored areas and finish stuff up. It's hard to balance for where the player is at exactly at that moment. About rats not attacking someone in power armor but walking around in normal clothes seems a bit strange as I don't think most rats know what power armor is or does. I personally think it would have just been awkward doing it that way. We did have plans for creatures to respond to certain types of things. Like dogs and flame throwers.

-T
 
HAHAHA @ dogs + flamethrowers.

thats awesome.

hahahahaha...

oh man fallout 3 was still going to be as clever as ever indeed... damnit.

btw... i don't think that its not that rats don't know what power armor is... i think that just by the sheer size of it, they would be intimidated and scared... would they attack a bulldozer? i would think they just stay neutral to things like that... but thats up to the dev's, i have no problem blowing everything to oblivion no matter how small and weak it is.

ps. I LOVE BLOODY MESS!!
 
Re: So....

Weenis said:
The best part is you could have played your way and I could have played mine. You could have never even turned on real-time mode the entire game and been just as happy.

That is still just a myth. Again, it goes back to TB and RT not being able to be implemented together even decently without a shitload of work and balancing, especially in terms of map design, enemy design, item design, combat engine design, etc. etc. Usually there's some part where it breaks and horribly so. Nobody has been able to do this successfully since it takes FAR more work for less returns or potential catastrophy.

Hell, if done right, a change between FP and isometric 35 view would be far less intrusive to the game mechanics than two combat systems.
 
Re: So....

Roshambo said:
Weenis said:
The best part is you could have played your way and I could have played mine. You could have never even turned on real-time mode the entire game and been just as happy.

That is still just a myth. Again, it goes back to TB and RT not being able to be implemented together even decently without a shitload of work and balancing, especially in terms of map design, enemy design, item design, combat engine design, etc. etc. Usually there's some part where it breaks and horribly so. Nobody has been able to do this successfully since it takes FAR more work for less returns or potential catastrophy.

Hell, if done right, a change between FP and isometric 35 view would be far less intrusive to the game mechanics than two combat systems.

Since they decided to give the priority to TB instead of trying to get everything right no matter what, i had no problem with it. And the pics have a lot of temp textures, unfinished scenery, no dinamic lights, the vault one didn`t even have shadows, but they really really look Falloutish, you got to give them that.

On the rest of the discussion it`s fun to see a good old discussion with these players, so go, i`m getting the popcorns :wink:
 
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