The Game

[Roshambo]

Thats a damn good point you have there.

I have thought about it as well and while I surely don't have your expierence on this subject I'm still allowed to make my own opinion on things and it's not less worth because you have more expirience. You are right about many things and I you can tell you are no idiot.

Therein lies the problem. Opinion is one thing, talking about fact is another.

I can believe you or the other dev and I tend to be optimistic so I tend to believe it can work. Is this so wrong?

Yes, since especially in the software industry, optomism is a bad thing. Having been in a real development schedule in both gaming and app development, I know there is a deadline crunch. You CANNOT be optomistic, whether as a fan or a developer. As a fan, you must come to terms that superfluous features outside of the core design might be axed, along with the fact that the developer is botching the work. It wasn't always like that, but shysters like Titus/Interplay have caused that to become a necessity or you become a VERY disappointed little monkey.

As a developer, you find that you run into the risk of a dropped contract if you are too optomistic and do not plan to drop some things from your dev schedule. It is a harsh reality of development. Therefore, it is foolish to try and do surpassing, extraordinarily innovative work when your development schedule is doubtful if it would ever happen in the first place. It is therefore quite asinine as a developer to try to get wisened fans to swallow this in turn.

You might be right on this or maybe wrong. Since it got cancled for and unknown reason (only speculations exist) it could've worked out good (not perfect!) or not.

Technically, they did not have enough time for Fo3, and Interplay obviously didn't want to shell out the money for continued development of Jefferson so it may meet the licensing requirements. I think that covers it neatly on both conditions, even moreso that the state of the TB/RT design is still quite essentially nonexistent. To further expect me to believe, in the software industry, that an unproven team can get together and do innovative work under the condition of the parent company* and get the merchandise out before the parent company dies or terminates them...well, that's just asinine. Really.

* - I say parent company merely for an illustrative example, while in fact BIS was a division within the scope of Interplay's bounds.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

-groan-

I think that the new worst part of FO3 being cancelled is all these idiots come out of the woodwork.

I swear to god, its like a hydra; cut off one head and two grow in its place!

Agreed. I told a few people it reminded me a lot of when TORN was cancelled, all the BIS fanboys crawling out of the woodwork saying what a cool game it would have been - even though the developers themselves didn't know where to go with it. The project just lost any sense of direction and there's no way in hell a directionless project would have been good.

Given all the things that were forced on this title by Interplay against the wishes of the developers, like the TB/RT dual mode and the multiplayer, it's really questionable how good this would have been.

We've done the whole problems with RT/TB duality to death with the balance, the AI, placement of creatures, what attack features won't work, and so on. Balancing all that out or scripting the game to act different for both would take much longer.

Multiplayer plays bloody hell with multifacetted quests where there's not only multiple methods you can do them but also moral ways to do them as well. Toss another player in to the mix, and you have all kinds of problems there. If Bob and Earl are trying to get Golden Blades Razor from the new leader of the Khans, and there's a sneaky way, a hostile way, and a talky way.. What happens when Earl blows the leader away while Bob is trying to sweet talk it out of him? Who gets more evil? Do they both get more evil? What if Bob was just doing it to distract the leader so Earl could shoot him? You've gone from a complex situation in just single player to a REALLY complex one with just one feature demand.

So, that's what was tossed on the developers. They had a short time table to do it all in as well. On top of that, Interplay decided to pull designers and artists off Fallout 3 to work on Fallout Enforcer.

This game really never had a chance.

 

[Hory]

It's not true. It would have been a coop game so players wouldn't have been trying to wreak each other's game. And i'm sure they would have made it so two people can't talk to the same character at the same time. Have you played BG2 in coop? I found no problems there. It was even possible to interdict other people from talking to NPCs (as an extreme measure probably). AND even if we assume MP is going to be bad.. that doesn't mean the SP has to be. I don't see how what you say would happen in MP would affect SP.

And we're talking about Fallout... where the "fighting" is least important and doesn't have to bee 100% the same in RT as in TB. I don't care if it's a bit different, as long as I play the whole game in the same mode (not switching between them depending on the enemy, so I can have an advantage). Well... maybe just for killing wimpy enemies.

I don't know how much the developers didn't know what to do with TORN, but I didn't see them act confused regarding Van Buren. And even a bad FO3 (compared to FO2) would have probably been better than most new RPGs.

 

[Tagaziel]

Oh my Master. These screenshots roole!

As for the Iply... to Hell with them, along with Frank Horrigan and the President.

Gun, meet Iply. Iply, meet gun.

Iply has de bad spirits now.

Iply, it is fuckin idiotic.

Boss, the Iply is fucked up.

IPLY HAS 0.001% CHANCE OF SURVIVAL.

WOOf! WOOF! Grr! IPLY! GRR!

MASTER, SHALL WE DESTROY IPlY?

Heard the Iply is a big radioactive hole in the MidWest

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It's not true. It would have been a coop game so players wouldn't have been trying to wreak each other's game. And i'm sure they would have made it so two people can't talk to the same character at the same time. Have you played BG2 in coop? I found no problems there. It was even possible to interdict other people from talking to NPCs (as an extreme measure probably). AND even if we assume MP is going to be bad.. that doesn't mean the SP has to be. I don't see how what you say would happen in MP would affect SP.

Have you played BG2? You should notice there's a huge difference between the quests in BG2 versus the ones in Fallout and Fallout 2, in that there's more ways of doing them in terms of skill/character build methods as well as good and evil ways. This is because BG2 has coop, and frankly, that coop isn't that fun either.

Here's a better question, have you played Neverwinter Nights? It's much more focused on multiplayer than BG2 was, and notice it's campaign completely sucked. Meanwhile, they've just recently released an expansion pack that's single player only, it has to be hacked just to play it in multiplayer, and there's still issues where you'll botch the scripting if you do that. It's a hell of a lot better than the original NWN's campaign, and the proof that this is because you can script things for single player a lot better is in that you can break these scripts readily if you hack it to play multiplayer.

On that same note, you'll notice that BioWare's best singleplayer experience to date is KotOR, which doesn't have multiplayer at all.

And yeah, it's completely true. Even the guys at BIS recognized that adding co-op multiplayer would complicate and break many of the things they wanted to do in Fallout 3. They've even said this, openly, on the IPLY forum.

And we're talking about Fallout... where the "fighting" is least important and doesn't have to bee 100% the same in RT as in TB. I don't care if it's a bit different, as long as I play the whole game in the same mode (not switching between them depending on the enemy, so I can have an advantage). Well... maybe just for killing wimpy enemies.

This is something nice to say and perhaps take comfort in, but let's face it. The majority of people who played Fallout did kick ass through the game the first time. Maybe even did so the second and third time, before trying other ways.

The same thing could also be said about Arcanum, that it wasn't combat focused as most CRPGs, just like Fallout wasn't. However, you line up a hundred gamers and ask them if they could make one complaint about Arcanum's game mechanics, and I'd be willing to bet you'd get at least 85% of them saying the combat sucked.

 

[Ripper]

it looks good and still feel slick as the original......

but im still saddened on its loss.

 

[Hory]

I have played NWN on SP and did not like it (only finished 2 chapters I think). Is it any better in MP? Let's suppose that making a MP mode for FO3 would result in the removal of the most complex scripts from the game. That would mean the game would be worse but wouldn't playing it in coop compensate for that? It's much better when there's a human player apart from you. And I didn't expect FO3 to be better than FO2 in SP anyway so the MP could have been the thing that would increase it's "gameplay" close to FO2's.

Arcanum had a lousy multiplayer mode. But I don't think that affected SP mode. You'll say that it's cause they didn't make the SP "campaign" playable. But I don't think that's why they didn't do it, but because they rushed the game and didn't have enough time to adjust it (that doesn't mean anything should have been lost)... and that's why the MP was bad too. It had a bad combat system, and maybe I'm wrong, but it didn't look like it couldn't have been made better. There were a few annoying things that i think could have been solved easily. Like the bow shooting slower, a spell cooling time and the same for the thrown weapons that could have been launched again before returing.

I have played with a friend over two thirds of BG2 and have finished it on singeplayer. And you know that BG2 has the Good/Evil thing too. And even if all quests would be finishable in a good or evil way, it wouldn't matter too much on multiplayer beacuse it's not like a player will act evil and one act good. It's supposed to be a coop game. And, to be honest, I really don't see what would require so much sacrifice from the SP mode so that it can work on MP. The example with Bob and Earl could simply be fixed by disallowing 2 players to talk to the same NPC at the same time or (as in BG2) interdict them to do anything while someone is talking to a "quest NPC".

 

[Zoomode]

Just saw this item of note on IGN...it's probably best not to get any hopes up, but at least it's the only glimmer of hope we've seen in the last week that F3 may yet live. Strong emphasis on may. Here's a quote from the article, along with a link:

our new guest star, Interplay's investor relations department, with their official denial of the stories. "For the record," says Interplay, "Black Isle Studios remains open with projects pending, the status of Fallout 3 is under review, and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel will ship on January 13."

As far as this "under review" status for Fallout 3, Interplay had this to say: "Fallout lives...now that is not to say we have a new Fallout PC game coming in the next few months, but management will do what it can to maximize the intellectual property it owns and the fan base it has, within the financial parameters it must operate."

http://pc.ign.com/articles/446/446776p1.html?fromint=1

 

[Araanor]

Zoomode, that chance is practically nil. Black Isle is no more. IPLY is just attempting some spin control because they're getting so much bad rep.

 

[Elissar]

Zoo, the best move interplay could make would be to sell the PC licence for Fallout 3 to a company that would actually use them to make a great game instead of just using the name to ship another shitty product.

 

[r.daneel.o]

all this new hype around F3 reminded me how deeply the game inspired me. so i came here and registered.... <sigh>
its beyond words + all that melancholy

ive browsed topic to the point where Weenis recommends F3-like music samples. Im so thankful i think im kind of into ambient [not necessarily dark though] and i consider F1/2 tunes as pure brilliant, phenomenal creations, and im like sincere here... so if theres any hope of, erm, you know, having more inspiration.. ill be even more thankful

 

[Roshambo]

That would mean the game would be worse but wouldn't playing it in coop compensate for that?

Uh...no. See, there's plenty of shitty multiplayer "CRPG" games out there, and very few excellent single-player ones.

Now, think to yourself. Which would be better to have in that situation?

 

[Dove]

Definitely. Multiplayer games can be cool sometimes, but that's not what fallout is supposed to be. Playing singleplayer helps promote the feeling of loneliness that both of the first games were trying to emote. You're supposed to be alone in a dark dangerous world and survive, all the while trying to save your home. That just wouldn't work for me playing coop for me.

 

[Roshambo]

Well put.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I have played NWN on SP and did not like it (only finished 2 chapters I think). Is it any better in MP? Let's suppose that making a MP mode for FO3 would result in the removal of the most complex scripts from the game. That would mean the game would be worse but wouldn't playing it in coop compensate for that?

No. I don't buy CRPGs so I can wait around for a friend to play it with me, nor do I buy a CRPG to play it with complete strangers who may or may not use hacks, cheats, or just be generally lame.

Arcanum had a lousy multiplayer mode. But I don't think that affected SP mode. You'll say that it's cause they didn't make the SP "campaign" playable. But I don't think that's why they didn't do it, but because they rushed the game and didn't have enough time to adjust it (that doesn't mean anything should have been lost)... and that's why the MP was bad too.

No, that's EXACTLY why they didn't do it, because they wanted to have a really good single player with multiple avenues through the game - something you just can't do when you have coop.

There were a few annoying things that i think could have been solved easily. Like the bow shooting slower,

Bow shooting slower would have resulted in bows being useless for players. Enemies also close way too fast in real time anyway, so if that bow shot slower...

I really don't see what would require so much sacrifice from the SP mode so that it can work on MP.

Well, since you can't see it, then trust that people smarter than you have.

The example with Bob and Earl could simply be fixed by disallowing 2 players to talk to the same NPC at the same time or (as in BG2) interdict them to do anything while someone is talking to a "quest NPC".

Okay, consider how much talking there is in Fallout versus BG/BG2. In fact, BG/BG2, the vast majority of talking can be summed up with:

• [NPC Fred]: Hey, go kill those kobolds eating my crops!
  [Player A]: Okay, Fred! I'll go kill them right away!
  [NPC Fred]: When you return, I'll give you some ph4t l3wt!

That's pretty much it. Now, if something along the lines of Arcanum forced you to NOT be able to do something every time this happened, you're talking about a seriously BORING ass time. It was bad enough in the IE games when someone did this, let alone in something like Arcanum and Fallout where there was a hell of a lot more interaction with NPCs including skills and stats which could further the complexity of that interaction.

 

[ColJack]

you lot do realise that all of this might just be a ploy from IPLY to get us off their backs with the incessant questions and everything so they can finish it in secret.. . and then port it to console only... ....

..
..

What?... I can dream can't I?... leave me alone....

 

[Hory]

Well, since you can't see it, then trust that people smarter than you have.

OK, if you are that smarter person, please give me such an examples (remembering that only one conversation at a time could have place and that the players wouldn't be trying to do the opposite of each other's intentions).

Don't think that I'm saying FO3 should be a good MP game. But there were times when I wished I could play it in coop with someone (and so did my friends) and couldn't. Yes, there are "plenty of shitty CRPGs out there" but none of them are even half of what the "desired" FO3 would have been, even if adapted for MP.

Dove, supposing you "immerse yourself" in the FO game you're playing, would you feel alone, having all those NPCs with you? Wouldn't the human player be like a NPC to which you can talk in a reallistic way? You have that loneliness feeling because of the overall universe, not just because you can talk to a human player while with the NPCs you couldn't. The kind of loneliness you are talking about is present because you simply play it in SP. It's the same for any SP game. But that doesn't make you automatically feel alone in the game's world. Just compare GTA3 to System Shock 2 . The point is you still would have felt alone from the game world point of view.

Regarding Arcanum, of course that with the speed decrease, a higher damage would have been set for those weapons.

I wonder how it would be if Interplay would buy an ad from TeleFragged, so all the Fallout fans would see an ad for FBOS when visiting NMA.

 

[Raymondo2000]

I'll put it as simply as I can:

CRPG + MP = Doesn't work well/Shitty/Hard to work around

 

[Montez]

I wonder how it would be if Interplay would buy an ad from TeleFragged, so all the Fallout fans would see an ad for FBOS when visiting NMA.

Hopefully everyone would switch their browsers to "text-only" .

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

OK, if you are that smarter person, please give me such an examples (remembering that only one conversation at a time could have place and that the players wouldn't be trying to do the opposite of each other's intentions).

Okay, this should be obvious, but any situations that require a skill to be used other than combat to accomplish a goal, perhaps? Something like using sneak to get through an area without killing anyone as an objective would easily be blown if one person had sneak raised nd the other didn't, but this can apply to any skill. There are examples of this in Fallout.

Don't think that I'm saying FO3 should be a good MP game. But there were times when I wished I could play it in coop with someone (and so did my friends) and couldn't. Yes, there are "plenty of shitty CRPGs out there" but none of them are even half of what the "desired" FO3 would have been, even if adapted for MP.

Which wouldn't work well because as stated above, you'd have one player tripping over the other player through quests. The only way to really prevent that is to make one player be the main character and the others just stand around waiting for the combat to begin, which is the case with NPCs. Even then, you're talking about some serious balance issues because the NPCs in Fallout and Fallout 2 were designed to be much less powerful than the player.

Regarding Arcanum, of course that with the speed decrease, a higher damage would have been set for those weapons.

WHOOPS! There goes the balance of the agility stat determining how many actions per round a player can do.