Zero Radius Games

Scott Everts/Wasteland BG

Many moons ago I’ve talked about Zero Radius Games, the board and card games venture of Fallout veterans Chris Taylor, Tom Decker and Scott Everts. Seems they are back, after some nasty problems with spam and malware:

We’re almost back up and running again on the main site, but we’ll continue to use this blog as a way of updating you with the latest news about ZRG.

Our first order of business is to re-enable the downloads of our free print-n-play games.

Our second order of business is to make more games!

Thanks… -ZRG

Chris Taylor asks for some help in figuring out something:

The old site was hacked and infested with malware. Google, rightly, marked the site has been naughty and made it much more difficult to reach. Which is a good thing.

However, we cleaned the old site (literally deleted everything) to start over from scratch. We’ve followed Google’s directions and we’re still waiting on them to review the site. However, their reviewing process is annoyingly obtuse. They say to check back later for results, but so far, there has been no feedback.

If anyone has gone through this process before and has some words of advice, please let us know. Thanks!

If anyone can help please say so, either in the comments here or on their blog.

Boston, Austin and Less Hair

After opening the Inside the Vault series, there’s now a second Inside the Vault with Emil Pagliarulo:

Lately, you’ve been a bit more active on our forums, relatively speaking. How do you filter through the signal to noise?
Right now, everyone is hungry for information. Whether it’s an Oblivion fan, or a fan of the old Fallout games, or just someone who’s new to the forums and wants to know what Fallout 3 is all about — everyone has a million questions, and wants a lot of detail.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of detail I’m at liberty to give right now. So what I generally look for are discussions about issues we have addressed publicly in some capacity. I like to make sure that information - the information we’ve already released - is getting disseminated accurately. Because, you know, with all the previews and forum posts, and can be like a big game of “telephone” — information gets modified in its retelling, until you occasionally (and unfortunately) arrive at a bit of complete misinformation.

That’s the kind of stuff I look for, and like to clear up. But I also like to generally check out all the cool conversations taking place, all the debates people are having. So even when I don’t respond, I’m always lurking. Always waaatttccchhiinngggg….

Like an evil genius!

Interview With Inon Zur

At the Bethblog:

Pete: You mentioned Fallout Tactics. I’m wondering if you could talk from your perspective about the difference in approaching those two projects. How are they similar? How are they different in terms of your approach and the music that you composed for each?

Inon: That’s a great question. Fallout Tactics that I did with Interplay was all about being very weird. We tried to find any aspect of music that wasn’t conventional. I had people screaming and shouting in the studio. I had people banging on some chairs, the floor, all kind of really weird things. Basically the outcome was a very interesting score which was not so friendly for listening to it by itself, but it worked pretty well with the game.

What we really tried to do here in the current Fallout is take it a little back to the center, but still maintain very mood driven music, and use some not so conventional aspects of scoring. However, we had battles which we didn’t have in the first Fallout. So when you are engaging into battle, you have battle music that is not like what you would hear in games like GOW but still its more sort of rhythmical energetic music, which is different. We have something which we call musical theme for the game, which we did not have in the previous game. So we have more of a musical signature in this game.[...]

Pete: One other question. How did the experience of writing and creating the music for Fallout 3 change from before you had a chance to see the game and after you had a chance to see the game?

Inon: You know, in fact I had lots of reservations and actually I visited Bethesda and it was very close to what I thought. The document that I got was very well written by Todd and Mark Lampert and Gavin. They did a great job of tapping me into the realm of Fallout and what they were doing. Fallout, yes it’s a lot about the visuals, but the story itself is so powerful. So just basically getting inspired by the actual story created a lot of emotional triggers that helped me to compose the music, rather that actually seeing the game and playing the game. The actual story of this twisted reality, there is like a [whole other] reality that happened and it’s really, really powerful. It helped me a lot.

A Chat With Ryan

Photo Enlarged-original from Ryan Sears/JagBytes

Ryan Sears discusses staying ahead of curve is a conversation with a young Bethsoft and Fallout 3 World Artist:

An artist’s job tasks vary depending on what stage of production a game is in and, yes, playing the game is part of the process.

“If we’re near the beginning of a project, I’ll spend more time creating new art,” Sears said. “At the end, I’ll spend most of my time fixing bugs or issues with already created art, and I’ll often spend some of my time play testing the game.”

Daniel Lee, 26, Sears’ co-worker and former college classmate, thinks one of the reasons Sears excels at design is because he has “a good eye for color and composition” and an ability to see the big picture.

“When working on a space or a model,” Lee said, “Ryan will also take the extra step and think about how it was used, and take that into account.”

At the rate technology advances, the games of tomorrow will be beyond anything we’ve seen thus far. According to Sears, games of the future will continue to look better, but studios will also craft more unique styles and storylines.

You can read the rest at JagBytes.

Fallout 3 Music Composer Is Inon Zur

Image Gamasutra

From the Bethblog:

We just sent out a release announcing Inon Zur as the composer for the Fallout 3 soundtrack. Here’s a quote from Inon from the release:

“Fallout 3 is one of the most engaging and demanding projects I’ve scored,” said Inon Zur. “It was very rewarding to put all my creative energy into supporting Bethesda’s vision for the game. I’m very proud of the outcome, and look forward to sharing the music with the players.“

Over on the official site in the Downloads section you’ll find a couple sample tracks from the game’s soundtrack. Head over and take a listen. If you want to read more about Inon Zur check out www.inonzur.com.

Fallout Tactics composer is the one making the music for Fallout 3. Thanks Lexx at NMA for spotting this, and thanks Brother None, spot on.

Emil Pagliarulo at the GameTheory Podcast and Next Gen

Lead designer on Fallout 3 Emil Pagliarulo talks a lot about the game and Bethsoft console centric approach to it on the Game Theory Podcast.

Next Gen has a small two pages interview based on the podcast, a few highlights:

NG: Is there any truth to some peoples’ opinion–and this is a lot of the hardcore Fallout fans that are saying this–that games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 that are targeted towards a very large console audience have been, put most cynically, “dumbed down,” or more positively, “made more accessible”? Is there any truth to that? Have you made concessions for the mass market?

Emil: It’s funny. I look at Fallout when I play it every day, and I sometimes think that there’s a lot of old-school hardcore PC stuff in there too, and part of me thinks, “God, is this too inaccessible for console players?” There’s a lot of dialogue to read, a lot of just hacking computers and looking through things like “VAT.” I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s just the opposite. So I don’t feel like we’re dumbing down the franchise.

…I think we’re starting to find that there is a market for [hardcore "PC RPGs" on consoles]. People like myself and some people that work here actually grew up as hardcore PC guys, and now we’re older, we have kids, we don’t have that much time, so we’ve transitioned. We’re console players now.

But we still have those PC game sensibilities. Those are the games we like. So I think BioShock has a little bit of that too. You can definitely feel the old System Shock roots in that game. So hopefully there’s a trend there.

NG: What do you think of the state of the relationship between PC gaming and console gaming? Is console gaming taking away the PC gamers? I hear a lot of developers say, like you just said, hey, we’re console gamers now.

Emil: I think that may be true to a certain point. I split my time between playing PC games and console games. There is something to be said about having a console and having it being able to play anything, and not having to screw around with video settings and stuff. So there’s definitely an ease-of-use [advantage] with consoles there. I think there’s still a lot of innovation on the PC side. You’re seeing a lot of the Eastern European developers with some really great games. Look at stuff like Stalker or The Witcher. There’s innovation there. I would like to see those games get their fair shot. I think there’s really great stuff there. So [PC gamers migrating to consoles] might be happening to a certain extent in this country, but certainly not in other countries.

Spotted at Kotaku.

Fallout 3 and Ubisoft

According to 4players.de Ubisoft sent out a press release announcing they will sell Fallout 3 in several European countries, including Germany, Switzerland and Austria (NMA has an a translation to English of the piece).

Bethsoft through Pete Hines clarified what that means:

Bethesda is still the worldwide publisher for Fallout 3 on all platforms, and will be marketing and distributing the title to retailers in North America, Europe, and Asia.

In some territories in Europe, Bethesda will use local companies to ship the title to retail outlets under limited distribution arrangements. This is what the Ubi announcement refers to.

Spotted at NMA, thanks Pete Hines.

GameSpot Video: Start/Select 02/05/08

from www.gamespot.com posted with vodpod

The interview with Pete Hines starts at minute 8:30, more or less. Spotted at NMA.

Canard PC Eight Pages Preview Yet Again

I still couldn’t get the CanardPc magazine but, with the reservations that I haven’t seen it by myself, others did and here are some impressions, starting with Seboss at RPGCodex:

Seboss:I have the preview right here. It’s 6 pages long so I won’t do a full transcript but I could give you guys some more excerpts if you’re interested.

[right after the ability points allocation] Daddy comes back in the room, is very pleased by your agility [...] and cites an excerpt of the Apocalypse (“I am the Alpha and the Omega”), a passage of the Bible your former Mom used to like a lot, an element not so insignificant that should play an important role in the main quest.

Fade to black and you’re now at your tenth birthday, ready to get your Pipboy3000, “the indispensable companion of the modern man”. This scene introduces your first social interactions.
You’ll go then from a little flirt with a girl your age through the confrontation with a little bully desiring to strip you from your birthday cake, to a surrealist discussion with a schizophrenic Mr Handy.
And there, I feel reassured. The dialogs and the argument with the dumbfuck in the making come right into the series spirit. During your conversation with the little scum, the game offers you ten different dialog options: immediate cowardly capitulation, insult leading to a brawl, lies, [...] spitting on the cake before offering it to him. The list is more than satisfying.

Seboss: The author states that many dialog options have tags like [Lie], [Charm], [Intimidation], [Science] and so one. Very Biowary.

A little later, you’ll eventually receive your first AirSoft Gun, the famous RedRyder that allows you to familiarize with the combat system, then you choose your skills on the benches of the Vault’s school.
Teenage hood will also be the occasion to solve a number of optional quests that influence the perception the other vault dwellers might have of you, as well as your karma and your personality. Undoubtedly, these first minutes make me comfortably euphoric.
[...]
While I was expecting an outright treason of the Fallout setting, more because of ineptitude than vice, I have the feeling the game is spot on. The ambiance, scenery and lighting of the Vault seem perfectly faithful to the series, with just the right dose of rust to enhance claustrophobia.
[...]
In opposition to Oblivion and Morrowind that just kicked you into the game without bonds of any sort, this time Bethesda clearly states its will to make you a part of a community, to create relationships right from the beginning. [...] What is the better way to make the player feel lost in the irradiated desert and make him realize the importance of his mission than create a genuine bond to his home just before kicking me out.

Seboss: Well, kicking him out right away worked pretty well in FO1 if you ask me.

About the SPECIAL system:

First satisfaction, the SPECIAL system have really been kept, no facade without substance. Every actions in the game, from the combat to bluff attempts through gambling are resolved by dice rolls against your skills and abilities. However, we can observe a whole lot of discrepancies, starting with this confession painfully extracted from the demonstrator: atypical character builds, like very low intelligence characters, won’t have as many options as in the previous games. Some dialogs are heavily influenced by your IQ, however you can forget about your project of roaming the wastelands with a complete moron barely able to string two syllables together . What’s more shocking for hardcore integrists like me, you can forget about beating the game as a cowardly pacifist weasel: most combats will be inevitable especially during travels and desert and ruins exploration.

Seboss: The wastelands are 65% the size of Cyrodiil, blah blah, the game is supposed to have a lot of landmarks like collapsed buildings, junkyards, diners, motels and baseball fields. These places are inhabited by people influenced by the nature of the location. Baseball fields should have descendants of the Baseball Furries from the movie Warriors, stuff like that.
The author hopes these places won’t feel as generic as the bandit/goblin/wraith tombs of Oblivion , but he seems confident about that.

The game will have a significant dose of level scaling for the main quest. There are three difficuly levels (as you already know), but that seems a bit cheap.

Stimpacks won’t have any side-effects anymore. There are just the regular “Cure Light” potions now.

To this point, the author was pretty confident about the quality of the game. Now there’s the negative part:

Now here’s the point where things get messy. We’re going to get onto the thorny problem of the combat. [...] We’ll note that the developers repeated ad nauseam that the efficiency of your shots depend on your statistics and that the FPS skills of the player don’t have any importance, and that all shots fired in real-time mode will be automatically aimed to the torso. [Here goes a lengthy description of the VATS system]
The idea seems to stand theoretically, but in facts I’m far from convinced. Firstly, during the presentation, either he was wearing a Power Armor and holding a Gatling gun and fighting hordes of super mutants armed with heavy machine guns, bakookas and supersledges or fighting ghouls with a 9mm and wearing just a leather armor, the demonstrator was just standing there, shooting long bursts without using any kind of tactics.
Besides, aimed shots, possible even with a minigun, looked far less effective to me than just “run right next to the baddy and empty my magazine in one burst”.

Seboss: Ouch. He also says that “bullet time” death animations are just as pleasant as stuffing rusty nails in your urethra after the third one. Or something like this.

Fallout 3 at E3, Again

Image Saharamet

A message from Pete Hines on the Bethblog:

Yes, Bethesda Softworks will be at this year’s E3 in LA.

Yes, we will have Fallout 3 there.

No, I don’t know why the ESA sent out a list that did not include us, just like they did last year. Maybe it’s because they had to go to print at a certain point and we hadn’t picked our space yet. No idea.

But we’ll be there and so will Fallout 3.

It will be in hands on playabale form too.

Canard PC Eight Pages Preview and Follow Up

French magazine CanardPC number 170 has an eight pages Fallout 3 preview that contains some interesting info, for a change, here on a summary by Mr.Bumble:

¤ Teen age gives you access to a few quests which will have an impact on how you are perceived within the Vault

¤ While travelling across the Wasteland, you can come across a few caravans, each heading to precise locations.

¤ There are three difficulty levels, as well as an “autolevelling difficulty” mode.

¤ A few new weapons : Cryolator allows you to freeze ennemies while you can hypnotize them with your Mesmetron.

¤ Also a new perk, Daddy’s Little Girl, which gives a Science bonus to female characters.

Later the author of the article went to the Canardplus forum and added his impressions about the music on the Fallout 3 demo, saying it’s “a f#&#=*&% catastrophe”, with all the “Call of Duty and Wagner” style music replacing Mark Morgan’s atmospheric tracks. He also says he is going to “piss on the composers mouth” after hearing that nonsense. Ouch.

Thank you Mr.Bumble at NMA.fr and NukaCola.

360Zine Preview And Interview

If you download 360Zine you can read a Fallout 3 preview and an interview with Pete Hines:

War. War never changes.” growls the voiceover. The Ink Spots croon I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire through a crackly wireless in a battered, ruined tram, as the camera rises to reveal a devastated Washington DC. Zooming further out, we see a gas mask-wearing brute toting a gigantic gun. Cue titles.

Opening with the series’ most iconic catchphrase, it’s clear that Bethesda have gone to some lengths to ensure that Fallout 3, while very different from its predecessors, is still very recognisably Fallout. The two PC games from the late Nineties attracted a substantial, fanatical cult following, and it’s this bunch that have been watching the game’s development as closely as they possibly can. Suffice to say that Bethesda are under pressure to appeal both to franchise veterans and create an inclusive experience for everyone.

Hines Does Gamasutra

Image by Jörg Spielt

New interview with Pete Hines at Gamasutra:

Where are you guys now, and how much do you have left?

PH: Where are we… We are still in alpha, so right now we are in the part of the process where we are ripping things out, putting things in, fixing stuff that’s in and making it better, or fixing stuff that’s in and making it work better, with the goal that within the next couple of months, we’re going to get the content complete where we stop adding or changing content, and just focus on fixing the game problems, the balance in the game, the relationships.[...]

Are there any major - other than improving things in an organic way - are there any major new things in your tech since Oblivion? Or is it just refining what you guys established?

PH: Yeah, a lot of it’s just refining things. The Radiant AI is something we came up with on our own, and the closer we got to being done on Oblivion, we had to dial that back more than we had anticipated, just because it was causing problems.

It’s sort of like… We’d tell stories about wacky things we saw the AI doing, and it’s funny until it interrupts your game. Where, like, you’re out in the middle of a forest, and some key character went off and got himself killed, because he saw somebody stealing food and tried to stop them, and then got himself killed. That’s cool, but that’s not fun, when you have to restart your game because now this guy is dead.

So we had to scale that back, at the time, and I think we’ve been able to take that now and move it forward to doing more of the kinds of things that we want. So it’s not a big leap, necessarily, but we certainly made big improvements to what that does, and how that translates to the player.

Like having somebody go off and get themselves killed while you’re in the middle of a forest isn’t fun, but it is fun if you walk into a town and everybody is acting in a believable fashion. And when you overhear conversations, they’re referring to each other by their first name. Like, it just adds another level to the realism.

So I think we’ve tried to focus on putting more of that stuff in front of the player, and less stuff like, “Oh, this happened two towns away from you!” Just, hey, by the way. That doesn’t mean anything.[...]

In regards to the Fallout license: What has that been like for you guys? It’s not as common for a license to be acquired that way in this industry - a license that was created in the games industry, but you didn’t actually acquire that developer or get it as part of a publishing deal. It was just, wholesale, now the license belongs entirely to you. What was that like? What was involved with that, and what are your plans going forward with the license?

PH: It’s not the most common thing, although I think we’ve seen some examples of some other folks that have done stuff like this recently - that they’ve seen something that they’ve loved, or that they’ve liked, and it was sitting there unused, and so they wanted to pick it up and make something out of it.

You know, truth be told, there was no developer to acquire, so that wasn’t even an option. And as we joke, sometimes, internally, we’re very much in keeping with the history of the franchise, because every game in the series has been made by a different developer, in terms of the people. Even when it was Black Isle on 1 and 2, the people were almost entirely different.

So, you know, it ended up being something, Chris, where we said, “We want to do another kind of game, and here’s the kind of game that we want - and if you really want to know the truth, if we could make any game, here’s the game we’d want to make.” And they went out and got it.

And so I think our intention is to continue to work on it, and bring it forward, and have it be another franchise like The Elder Scrolls, that is something that we are really well known for, and that hopefully is a really great game, and a gameplay experience, and something people really look forward to. “When’s the next one of that coming out?”

Interesting interview this time, but nothing new about the game.

Inside Simonet

New Inside the Vault at the BethBlog:

Bonjour! Today’s Inside the Vault is with Jean-Sylvere Simonet, our resident French programmer.[...]

What’s your job at Bethesda?
I am one of the AI Programmers and I am responsible for Pathfinding, that is, figuring out how NPCs navigate around the world. Considering how organic our environments are and the huge variance in scales of our NPCs, pathfinding has turned out to be quite a challenge. Add to that huge explosions that move/destroy everything around, and you get the idea of how complicated it becomes. As a consequence, my work involves a lot of 2d/3d math, writing search algorithms and dealing with multithreaded optimizations.

You can find his very old works here.

New Fallout 3 Fan Interview

From the Bethblog:

Last year, once all the dust cleared from our initial unveiling of Fallout 3, we provided you guys with a chance to ask some burning questions about the game. Given we’ve just had another blitz of previews come out, we figured now was as good of a time as any to give you another opportunity.

Starting today in the Fallout 3 Discussion thread of the BGS forums, you can start suggesting questions you’d like to see answered. You can also share your questions in the comments section of this blog post, or simply by emailing us. To help make sure we’re answering the questions you guys want to know, I’ve entrusted three of our community members to help out with the process — Alexander, Briosafreak, Gizmo. If you’ve got suggestions, or think you might be able to help them out, drop them a line.

If you want your question considered, you have between now and Sunday, May 18th to post your questions through the channels listed above. Once we’ve got the final questions, we’ll work on getting answers back to you guys.

Leave your questions on the blogpost, or in this topic on the Bethsoft Fallout 3Forum, or just send them to me or the other guys.

Here’s the result of the first Fan Interview.

Surviving The Fallout at GI

Interview with Pete Hines at GamesIndustry.biz:

Q: GamesIndustry.biz: The tree-branch dialogue looks to be pretty in-depth - does it become a major task keeping track of all that?

Pete Hines: It does, but we try and make sure that we’re not giving you responses just to give you responses. There’s an example early on with regard to the level of granularity, with exactly the kind of responses you would come up with based on how you want to play the game. Not everybody you talk to is going to have that many choices, but it is a snapshot of how you want to play the game.

Don’t try and figure out how we want you to finish a quest - you play it how you want to play it. Do you want to be good? Do you want to be bad? Do you want to be neutral? Do you want to double-cross this guy? Do you want to save the people? Do you want to blow the people up? It’s up to you to figure out how you want to handle the situation, and then hopefully, whatever wacky thing you come up with to try and respond to it, we’ve thought of that so that you think, “Awesome, I did that, and that’s what happened in the end, that’s really cool.”

And now it feels a lot more powerful for the player, and what you find is that whenever you make a game like this, people really push those edges. If you tell them they can do what they want, they’ll say “Oh really? What would happen if I set off a nuke inside the bar?”

And what happens? Well, exactly what you’d think, everybody dies, and so do you…they’ll test the edges of whether they can really do anything they want.[...]

Q: GamesIndustry.biz: You’re still on track for the Autumn release?

Pete Hines: Yes, we’re in alpha now, very pleased with how the development is going, where we’re at on all three platforms, and probably this summer we’ll put out a date that we have in mind.[...]

Q: GamesIndustry.biz: If Bethesda decided to remake Pac-Man, there would be a huge amount of attention, because of your track record, so with something like Fallout, with an existing fan base, was there a lot of additional pressure there to keep them happy?

Pete Hines: Well, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We don’t take on something like Fallout 3, and everything that it means – I don’t have to explain to most folks what Fallout is, it’s beloved and revered by a lot of people, and it’s a pretty big undertaking.

So we have a lot of pressure on ourselves not only doing the next Fallout game, but also we did pretty well on Oblivion, so the next follow-up to that, [ie Fallout 3], is always going to be under a pretty big microscope and have a lot to live up to.

So I don’t think that the size or fanaticism of the fanbase is a problem, I’d rather have that than have a bunch of people not care about what it is we’re doing. We’d much rather see the passion, it means a lot to us.

Driven By Love

Image by Love Us Not Eat Us

Kieron Gillen interviews Pete Hines for Eurogamer:

Eurogamer: What I’ve never quite understood about Fallout 3 is why would Bethesda buy the licence? Arguably “Bethesda does post-apocalyptic game” is a bigger story than “Bethesda makes Fallout 3″. Fallout is a relic to modern gamers. If you’d made your own world, you’d have sidestepped all the stress of dealing with over-protective fans.

Pete Hines: It’s like, if George Lucas died tomorrow - God willing, he doesn’t - and you’re a film director. And you’ve grown up making big epic films - maybe you’re Peter Jackson. And he finishes whatever his big next film is. And someone asks him, “what do you want to do next?” And he says, “I always wanted to make a big space movie. A big epic movie full of action.” And they ask, “do you want to do generic space movie that you make up yourself, or do you want to do Star Wars.” And he says, “I could do whatever, but I grew up as a kid and Star Wars made me want to get into making movies. It had such a profound impact on me, I would love to pick up this thing I loved and cared so much about and make the next one. And I’m not the guy who did the originals, but it means so much to me, and would mean much more to me to work in this world. It would be easier, perhaps less controversial and less pressure to do my own, but I’d rather do this thing that someone else did so much more.”

That’s the best analogy I can use. We could have made anything and people would have been interested in it, probably, but Fallout meant a ton to us, and we love the tone and flavour of that world, and how meaningful it was for its time, how different it was from other stuff that was out there. We said, “we could do anything, but what we’d really love to do is Fallout”. Use that character system and that world that’s so unique from anything else that we might come up with. We’d rather do that than come up with our own thing. Bring that to life - and bring it not to just people who played the it before, but people who’ve never got to play or experience it. There’s this great game and world which somebody came up that we really think you’ll want to play.

Eurogamer: You’re driven by love. Do you think that’s something the very hardcore Fallout fans miss?

Pete Hines: I don’t know whether they miss it or not - it may be that they don’t care and think, “that’s all well and good, but you’re not the ones we wanted to make this”. I don’t pretend to know exactly what their motivations and thought processes are. Those guys are very enthusiastic - we’re talking about the very hardest of the hardcore Fallout fan. They’re very passionate about this thing and protective about it. And that’s okay. It’s something they’ve clearly got a lot of attachment too. At the same time, we are making the very best game that we can. It’s not for any one group of folk - we’re making the best game we know how for a lot of people who’ll come to play and enjoy it.

Before I slap Kieron with a large trout, because of this last question, let me advise you guys and girls to read this interview, there’s a lot more to be read there. Even the mandatory (for Gillen) Ken Levine reference is interesting. Nothing new about the game itself though.

Update: this interview sparkled a great discussion on Rock,Paper,Shotgun, also worth a read.