Todd Howard at QuakeCon: Half of Fallout 3 got cut

Dionysus said:
Right now, we know that Zenimax has a lot of money and access to a popular franchise with an established fanbase. Those are the only two notable factors that should impact the success of this new studio. It's actually similar to FFXI's situation, which turned out to be fairly successful.
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Yes but Squaresoft put out good games of their genre (speaking pre-FFXI), Bethesda doesn't, they pretty much are just the only ones making the type of games they make. I do think that you're right that Beth's fanbase will be their launching point but the real question is whether or not they can draw from outside that base.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
Yes but Squaresoft put out good games of their genre (speaking pre-FFXI), Bethesda doesn't, they pretty much are just the only ones making the type of games they make. I do think that you're right that Beth's fanbase will be their launching point but the real question is whether or not they can draw from outside that base.
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Theoretically, they don't have to. You can have a successful MMO with <500k subscribers. The expectations for initial sales are much lower than a single-player title, and a quarter-million people (including a decent number of TES fans) might be enough to get it off the ground.

If it's an awful game, then it will flop, but there's no reason to assume that it will be awful. I know that FFXI was considered to be a pretty generic MMO, but license was enough to set it apart from the competition.
 
just that the question is how much of the TES fans really would want a "online RPG".

From what I can get in the official forum when I was still posting there it are not all TES people that feel a need for a online RPG. I guess most people came to Oblivion or TES as well for the Singleplayer part of the game. It seems that quite a lot of people which played Oblivion love the "Munchkin" part about the game (In gaming, a Munchkin is a player who plays what is intended to be a non-competitive game (usually a role-playing game) in an aggressively competitive manner. ). Its questionable in my eyes if they will get that much acceptance from the fanbase.

As like mentioned now quite a lot of times, Fans, Publicity and the "base" alone make NOT a succesfull oline RPG. See The Matrix Online (it closed), Star Wars Galaxies which was expected to be the game to hit the millions after the MMORG Lineage (which was achieved by WoW then). And again those games had a Fanbase a lot larger then Zenimax could ever dream about Star Wars alone is the sources of countless more or less succesfull games and from what I heard Bioware are trying to do another MMORG with Star Wars in mind - Star Wars The Old Republic.
 
Crni Vuk said:
just that the question is how much of the TES fans really would want a "online RPG".

From what I can get in the official forum when I was still posting there it are not all TES people that feel a need for a online RPG. I guess most people came to Oblivion or TES as well for the Singleplayer part of the game. It seems that quite a lot of people which played Oblivion love the "Munchkin" part about the game (In gaming, a Munchkin is a player who plays what is intended to be a non-competitive game (usually a role-playing game) in an aggressively competitive manner. ). Its questionable in my eyes if they will get that much acceptance from the fanbase.
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Well, they only need a fraction of the audience to get a good start. And successful MMOs definitely tap into players' competitive tendencies, certainly more than single-player RPGs. It's one of the things that keeps people coming back.

They've got an audience that is already willing to spend hours and hours in front of the console/PC playing TES games. The only real question is what percentage will pay a monthly fee to play with real people. And remember that a small fraction of the audience is sufficient to start an MMO.

Crni Vuk said:
As like mentioned now quite a lot of times, Fans, Publicity and the "base" alone make NOT a succesfull oline RPG. See The Matrix Online (it closed), Star Wars Galaxies which was expected to be the game to hit the millions after the MMORG Lineage (which was achieved by WoW then). And again those games had a Fanbase a lot larger then Zenimax could ever dream about Star Wars alone is the sources of countless more or less succesfull games and from what I heard Bioware are trying to do another MMORG with Star Wars in mind - Star Wars The Old Republic.
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The Matrix and Galaxies are primarily movie-based properties. Warcraft and Final Fantasy are videogame franchises. They both started with a bunch of people that already spend hours playing games from that dev bearing that brand. I think ToR and any TES MMO will have that advantage. I understand that they could fail. It's a competitive marketplace. I'm just saying that they are starting from a better than neutral position because they are coming from well-funded publishers and associated with successful franchises from popular devs. You are wrong to think that Zenimax is an albatross.
 
TheWesDude said:
yes, but could they do a MMO playable on both the PC and consoles...
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Thats a good point considering how many of the "new" TES fans seem to play the games mainly on the console (well with Oblivin afterall anyway).

Dionysus said:
It's a competitive marketplace. I'm just saying that they are starting from a better than neutral position because they are coming from well-funded publishers and associated with successful franchises from popular devs.
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And I just tend to believe that this means almost nothing considering how many companies with better then neutral positions had to abandon their "MMORG" projects.


Zenimax Online better comes up with a reall killer design that rocks the whole franchise or I doubt they will have any kind of success.
 
TheWesDude said:
yes, but could they do a MMO playable on both the PC and consoles...
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That would be their best hope for surviving purely off of their fan base but the question is, what is the increase in the number of subscribers needed to cover the multiplatform release and what is the potential for subscribers outside of their fan base on consoles? I'm guessing that a console release would be good for them at the start as it would get a greater number of their fans but would have a much lower potential for new players while PC would be lower at the start but have a higher potential for new players.

I wonder if they are going to basically make it a standard TES affair with FPP being the primary viewpoint of play and skills developed through use.
 
Quaid said:
I think they bought the Starcraft license and are going to make Starcraft 3 an FPS/Strategy game hybrid. Not like the cancelled 'Ghost' game, more like a bastardized version of the classic original. Only you'll need to manage your units from a first person perspective. Should be fun because everything is better teh frist persun emmersive view...
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One of my favorite RTSs of all time was Battlezone II... so that does not sound "humongously bad" the way you are trying to make it, at least not to me :lol:
 
Well, in hindsight, that one thing Ashley Cheng said about being disappointed that Blizzard followed such a "conservationist" route with StarCraft 2 was completely moronic! I mean, wtf did he want them to do? Change the genre of the game?! WTF?!
 
Morbus, you made the mistake to completely missunderstand Mrs Chengs point! Its not so much about to "shift" a genre but to "bring forward" the game. You know some seriously have the idea first person would be some kind of ... evolution or progress in gaming. Which I realy dont understand though how some could really get that idea.



doomestic said:
Quaid said:
I think they bought the Starcraft license and are going to make Starcraft 3 an FPS/Strategy game hybrid. Not like the cancelled 'Ghost' game, more like a bastardized version of the classic original. Only you'll need to manage your units from a first person perspective. Should be fun because everything is better teh frist persun emmersive view...
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One of my favorite RTSs of all time was Battlezone II... so that does not sound "humongously bad" the way you are trying to make it, at least not to me :lol:
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You will reconsider that statement when you see that its using Oblivions mechanics and quest system for the story telling in the game as core concept. Well inovashun for the President!

MrBumble said:
Well, it sure does to Starcraft fans...
Spin-offs are fine. Just don't try to pretend they are real sequels.
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The're just old fashioned unprogressive fans! That is :mrgreen:

Dissplasing fans is the only way to go in a development! Even George Lucas recognized that!
 
Crni Vuk said:
Morbus, you made the mistake to completely missunderstand Mrs Chengs point! Its not so much about to "shift" a genre but to "bring forward" the game. You know some seriously have the idea first person would be some kind of ... evolution or progress in gaming. Which I realy dont understand though how some could really get that idea.
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Saying he would like a Star Craft MMO instead of a Star Craft 2 is pretty clear, and I did not misunderstand him.

As for what people think progress is, I don't really care. Things are what they are, and, sure, maybe it can be considered progress to pick a side scroller and "evolutionate" it into an adventure game. Genre change and can easily be considered evolution by many standards. But that doesn't mean it's not a genre change.

And what Cheng wanted was a genre change, as simple as that.

You know, it's the old issue of being a fan or not. Bethesda said they were all huge super extreme epic fans of Fallout, but what they did was rape it, and that's a fact. No way around it. They proved, once and for all, that, while they might HAVE BEEN fans of fallout back then, they were not fans of Fallout NOW. It's a big difference.
 
Morbus said:
And what Cheng wanted was a genre change, as simple as that.
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I think Miss Cheng only wants to legitimise the neutering of Fallout by smearing Blizzard for not being "progressive" enough to do the same.

When other developers don't follow suit, and actually show fidelity to the series' established gameplay, it makes Bethesda look like trend chasing, marketing driven developers that they are.
 
Morbus said:
...
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I guess I have to work on my irony skills. I am sorry morbus :(

Cimmerian Nights said:
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When other developers don't follow suit, and actually show fidelity to the series' established gameplay, it makes Bethesda look like trend chasing, marketing driven developers that they are.
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Well I think what is clear is that people like Todd (and probably Pete) have been fans of the "setting" from Fallout only not its mechanics or gameplay. Post apocalypse, survival (in some form) and the "vibe" around it beeing the lone ranger or something like that. They are like many that "just" feelt a love for the post apocalytpic setting but seen no use for the tourn based combat.

If I rememer correctly (dont know where I have read it) Todd explained one of his "Fallout 1" experience that the first time he didnt knew where to go and ended "accidently" somewhere near the cathidral with the result that he got his ass handed on a plate. Obviously as in the begining of the game wthout much knowledge there is really not much you can do in such a situation. He literaly cut him self out from a few parts.

What he and pete explained I think, was that they dont want the player to feel like "he cut himself off from a part of the game" which happens in Fallout 1/2 rather fast when you dont have the right skills in diplomacy or just flat out give a stupid/wrong answer to a NPC and naturaly you might get a different ending in the quest/game. Its obvious that Todd doesnt like that (see what you can do in Oblivion, all characters can do equaly without any penality story and quest wise). And Todd explained more then once that Oblivion is a kind of game he loves.

Interesting part in relation with this is a short example of Vince's Oblivin review which fitts :

From the role-playing point of view, Oblivion combat sucks. You always hit to please the action crowd and your skill determines damage to please the smaller RPG camp. Needless to say, 15 points of damage are more then 8 points of damage but when you always hit, it's only a matter of time (and health potions). At some point I ran into a bunch of Faded Wrath thingies that were immune to my glass sword of prettiness, I reached for my trusty staff of pretty, but deadly lightnings, and discovered that I forgot to recharge, thus establishing the parallel between me and my fictional character (I usually forget to charge my cell phone). I went through my entire, inconvenient as the back of a Volkswagen (that's a Mallrats reference), inventory and found a mace of magical awesomeness. My Sword skill was about 80, my Blunt skill was about 20. I prepared to die bravely, but since the developers knew that that would have made me upset and lowered my self-esteem, they made sure that even with no skill I'm still a formidable opponent. The Wrath thingies had to face my, well, wrath and were wiped out without any damage to my precious self-esteem. Yay!

I think it somewhat makes obviousy why FINO 3 is how it is today ...

Someone in the forum said once that Bethesda is making RPGs for people that dont like RPGs. Which fitts perfectly. Sometimes I get the feeling that people play games they dont like cause of what ever reason (maybe a friend told them to do? Or they thought its a awesome settting?) and naturaly feel unsatisfied and not rewarded in the end (like with Fallout for example) cause they cut them self of from a quest or situation and do not have the intention to start eventualy again and make something different or seek another experience in the game. I mean its like a person with love for real time strategy games playing a straight forward shooter and feeling not well with it now want it to be a "strategy game" cause he loved the story. Would that be fair? Obviously not. Its not the fault of the gameplay (when its not flawed) that you dont like it. You cant blame swiss cheese for tasting like well ... cheese
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
Morbus said:
And what Cheng wanted was a genre change, as simple as that.
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I think Miss Cheng only wants to legitimise the neutering of Fallout by smearing Blizzard for not being "progressive" enough to do the same.

When other developers don't follow suit, and actually show fidelity to the series' established gameplay, it makes Bethesda look like trend chasing, marketing driven developers that they are.
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I think it's more like some kind of misguided elitism. I've met some people who honestly believed that FPP is a peak of cRPGs and couldn't get the idea of separate genres.

Personally, I dislike Starcraft and similar RTS, but I'm not running around telling people that Starcraft should be an ultra-realistic RTW.
 
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