Devastated DC Week

Last week the mood changed a bit on the Meet the Devs topic on the Bethesda Games Studio Fallout 3 Forum. It still produced some good one liners and a few interesting moments of feedback, but the tension on the Forum started to creep in.

Anyway here are some highlights, starting with Gary “VXSS” Noonan:

What do you think of Fallout’s old turn based system?

Back then, it was ok, but I never really thought about it then. I don;t have the patience for TB nowadays though.

What could have been made differently?

Seriously don’t know. I may get the hammer for this one, but I actually enjoyed having the ability to turn off TB in Tactics.[...]

If you are a Fallout fan; do you find Fallout 3 to be satisfying?

I am a fan and I do find it appealing.

Go and get your hammers ready!

 

Now for Erik J. “DoctorSpooky” Caponi:

1) Do you think RPG’s and FPS games should be mixed in a way or another?

2) If you are a Fallout fan; do you find Fallout 3 to be satisfying?

3) Do you work on Fallout 3 willingly or is it just a business for you?

4) How long did it take to create the full outline of gameplay mechanics before development?

1) Sure, why not? First person is only one way of viewing the game world. It says very little about the game itself, if you ask me. Just because it’s primarily been used for linear action shooters doesn’t mean that the perspective itself lacks value in terms of how it can be used in other genres.

2) I do. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Obviously, I’ve known what the game was going to be for quite some time and I still jumped on board.

3) Well, they chained me to the desk and this dark elf guy won’t stop telling me that I’m going to die down here, but other than that, I’m here willingly. Seriously though, no one makes games as a job and nothing more. There are much easier ways to make money. Look up a game industry salary survey and compare the numbers there to other, similar industries.

4) Game mechanics are a first in/last out thing. They are designed before anything else and you are changing and tweaking them until the minute that the game ships. They’re never done.

You are aware that not all the Fallout fans are disgruntled nay-sayers about anything of what we know about Fallout 3 so far, right? -_-

i do know that you’re out there, but it’s nice to hear from you.

And Fred “Fizzbang” Zeleny added this in reply to the previous question:

I had heard the tales, but I had thought them only the wishful thinkings of sun-addled youths! To believe that such a wondrous creature exists — no, it’s too much for this old, waste-burnt wanderer to accept.

But what’s this? You bear the mark foretold in the prophecies? A glowing beacon, with radiating spokes of black and gold!

By the wastes’ glow, the legends are true, and we may yet have hope for the future!

Mark “Wolfric Tugmutton” Lampert:

Without giving anything away, have you encountered moments in the creation process where you were giddy at the thought of Fallout Fans seeing what you have created for the first time?

Oh yeah, fairly regularly. Most of the time it occurs when I see some new piece of art or a character that someone is working on and it gives me something to work with in terms of getting started with any corresponding sounds. I get excited about it myself because I can’t wait to see it go into the hands of the world and level builders and see what they do with it all. New programming changes get me excited, too, because the work the coders do is often invisible but of course very far reaching. Toward the end of a game’s development cycle when aspects of the game are being tweaked and tuned, code adjustments behind the scenes can really do wonders for a game, to say nothing of all the work they do as a whole just to keep the whole thing running smoothly in the first place. There are countless instances of seeing something in the game, getting really excited about it and thinking about what it’ll be like for people who are coming to the came with no prior knowledge of it to experience it for the very first time.

Are there moments where you have felt the opposite imagining FO Fans seeing what you have done?

Yeah, of course. I haven’t seen anything which makes me think, “Oh, they’ll hate that,” but only that I don’t know which way it’ll go. A lot of the time I’ve found that if there’s something standing out so much that it makes me concerned, chances are that there are already a bunch of other folks on the team who feel the same way, and it’s either already in the process of being changed or will be soon when everyone makes their thoughts known. We are all both creators and judges the whole way.

Christiane “Maverique” Meister:

If you were walking out late at night, and met someone who said “I am the world’s most rabid Fallout Fan. I have Google Maps. I have traveled far. Who… who are YOU?” What would you say?

Actually, this happened just recently. Not the late at night part, but nonetheless. We were enjoying the sun for a bit outside the building, when this guy comes up and asks if we are the heads of Bethesda. We said we were the toes.

Megan “Ghostgirl” Sawyer:

I challenge any of the devs to come here and honestly say they enjoy turn-based combat.

‘Kay. I love turn based games, but sometimes you can run across some that become tedious. My sister and I are the only ones of our friends (note: friends, not necessarily coworkers ) who can stand turn based games because of that. Gotta keep in mind that one person’s opinion doesn’t really foretell what kind of game we’re making. Heck, if we couldn’t make a game because one person didn’t like something, we wouldn’t make anything. Actually, I bet we’d make Guitar Hero. Nobody doesn’t like Guitar Hero.

Seems I’m the only person in the world that doesn’t like Guitar Hero…

Well another week another Meet the Devs, go and read it.