Trzynasty Schron interviews New Vegas leads

Per

Per

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Polish Fallout site Trzynasty Schron celebrates its 10th anniversary by squeezing some information from Obsidian personages Chris Avellone and Josh Saywer, concerning not the future but the past.<blockquote>Jim Cojones: Despite the short development time of Fallout 2, the game was huge, much bigger than the predecessor, but amount of cut-content was also quite big. Which one of elements that didn't appear in the game did You miss most?

Chris Avellone: The EPA. I posted the level specs in a Fallout Bible a while back, but I was looking forward to building out that location.

Oddly enough, the second thing I miss was the original cover that was planned for Fallout 2's box (not sure if Jason Anderson or Leonard Boyarsky did the art, but it looked great, and it mirrored the Fallout 1 cover and put a tribal twist on it that I thought was a nice connection).

Jim Cojones: There are also two MMO mods for Fallout 2 - FOnline: The Life After and slightly different FOnline: 2238 that are in open beta phase. Have You been following any news on them or seen them in action?

Josh Sawyer: The only one I have seen much of is FOnline: 2238. In a way, its Ultima Online-like griefer brutality seems to be pretty appropriate for the Fallout setting. At its core, Fallout is about humanity's limitless passion for snuffing the life out of people for any and every reason. Gangs of assholes stomping another player's brahmin for profit and amusement seems to be a lot more fitting than farming mobs of geckos.</blockquote>CA refers to Van Buren as "Fallout 3" and feels a tap on the shoulder.
 
Haha, this makes me wonder if J.E. secretly tried out FOnline: 2238... I bet he got pked straight away. :lol:
 
What's great news in this interview is this:

Chris Avellone: I'd been working on Van Buren for a few years on-and-off at Black Isle, but Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate III (canceled) drafted me at various points so I wasn't able to devote my time fully to F3. It didn't really expand the team beyond just myself until BG3 got canceled and we had an entire team to roll onto it. I got to work with Josh on it as Creative Lead, which was great (and now we get to do it again, except I work as a senior designer reporting to Josh)
...
Jim Cojones: Chris, are there any chances you will join the team responsible for New Vegas after finishing Your work on Alpha Protocol?

Chris Avellone: I'm all done with Alpha Protocol now, it's in good shape. While I work on almost all the projects at Obsidian in some capacity as a Creative Director, Fallout New Vegas is my current focus now. It's great to be working directly on one of my favorite franchises, and it's great to be working with Josh again - he's got great stuff planned, and I think players are going to have a lot of fun in New Vegas.
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Chris Avellone works as a senior designer for New Vegas.
 
Per said:
Polish Fallout site Trzynasty Schron celebrates its 10th anniversary by squeezing some information from Obsidian personages Chris Avellone and Josh Saywer, concerning not the future but the past.
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Heh, it'd be awesome to get some answers regarding NV but it's too early for the devs to talk about the game.
 
I do not understand this:

Of all the work You have done on Fallout games, which part are you especially proud of?

CA - I will say that Fallout 3's theme is probably what I miss most. I think it was strong, and it rang true for the title. I don't think I've felt as strongly about a theme and tying it into game mechanics until Torment.


What? did he mean Fallout 1? Or do I somehow misunderstand it?

Otherwise great interview and CA working as a designer on first person Fallout RPG game is a dream come true for me.Really amazing.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
A really good interviewer would make it clear that they shouldn't think they have a choice to begin with.
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A really, really good interviewer would send them a mail saying, "I was going to ask for an interview but there's no need as I already scanned any interesting stuff off your brains, WASN'T MUCH THOUGH"
 
Paul_cz said:
I do not understand this:

Of all the work You have done on Fallout games, which part are you especially proud of?

CA - I will say that Fallout 3's theme is probably what I miss most. I think it was strong, and it rang true for the title. I don't think I've felt as strongly about a theme and tying it into game mechanics until Torment.


What? did he mean Fallout 1? Or do I somehow misunderstand it?

Otherwise great interview and CA working as a designer on first person Fallout RPG game is a dream come true for me.Really amazing.
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He means Van Buren.
 
Reconite said:
Haha, this makes me wonder if J.E. secretly tried out FOnline: 2238... I bet he got pked straight away. :lol:
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I bet, just like Mark Morgan got pwnd in the first week. :)
 
Per said:
A really, really good interviewer would send them a mail saying, "I was going to ask for an interview but there's no need as I already scanned any interesting stuff off your brains, WASN'T MUCH THOUGH"
Click to expand...

Well I was more thinking of packing a piece.
You would be surprised how cooperative people suddenly become when they realize that they are going to die if they don't.

As for NV, I have a feeling that they might use some of their VB stuff for it.

Didn't Van Buren include some of the stuff the Obsidian guys made up when they were still at Black Isle and playing their custom Fallout P'n P RPG?
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
Per said:
As for NV, I have a feeling that they might use some of their VB stuff for it.

Didn't Van Buren include some of the stuff the Obsidian guys made up when they were still at Black Isle and playing their custom Fallout P'n P RPG?
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That's possible, they have waited the day so long.
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I'll only be looking forward to playing NV when I see that there are no 30's style Chicago mobsters roaming around for some unexplained reason.
 
that for sure, but I would not mind to see quests and stories similar to New Reno as it was without any doubt one of the more interesting locations in the Fallout world of course without that "30s gangster style" which was obviously over the top. But anything else was quite interesting.

I really would not mind a location similar to the TV show The Stand (TV miniseries) with a character similar to Randall Flagg
 
do you guys have any idea where the original fallout2 cover (the one Chris talk about) can be found?
 
nice memory

that must be the one on the upper left :
loadscreens.jpg
 
An enjoyable read.

Beelzebud said:
I'll only be looking forward to playing NV when I see that there are no 30's style Chicago mobsters roaming around for some unexplained reason.
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I doubt it given that Chris Avellone made basically the same comments that the fan community did about it (maybe because of the fan community?) which was that he liked everything about it but that it needs an aesthetic pass.

I'm curious whether or not Sawyer will bring back the SPECIAL system from Van Buren, given what he said about it. I generally agree with his logic but I'm not sure about the having melee and unarmed as seperate skills, nor where throwing went (I would have liked to see it become a useful skill, even if that meant combining it with melee).

Not so sure about removing DR and only leaving DT, I think it would be more interesting to look at simply reducing/eliminating the HP gain, but his logic does make sense for the system given the end of Fallout 2. The other thing would be to make armor have more trade offs and give power armor a weakness or even have a variety with different strengths and weaknesses.

I thought that what they said about Fallout 3 was interesting, especially the following from Sawyer, "I also think that making the main plot arc more personal was an interesting approach since F1 (especially) and F2 tended to make the main plot a little more "background"... I think it's always difficult to establish a meaningful relationship with a central character right "out of the box", especially in an RPG where the player has the freedom to openly hate the central character's guts." Reads to me like a very polite criticism but that very well could be my own bias seeping in there.

I also liked Avellone's final comments about the fan community, he seems to have a good grasp on how to deal with us. It's leaps and bounds better than Bethesda's approach. :falloutonline:
 
I think this is the best Christmas present I could ever get, gaming-wise.

Chris Avellone as the Senior Designer?

Awesome%5B1%5D.jpg
 
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