Fallout 3: You Never Know

What’s the current state of the game, and any changes or suggestions from the fans still matter? Matt “Gstaff” Grandstaff takes the stand:

A lot of the developers spend their free time reading the forums. Some, like Emil, have accounts and post when they have time. There are other members of the team that don’t necessarily have accounts, but I know many of them still read up on what you have to say.

As Todd mentioned in a recent podcast interview with OXM, the game is finished. Most of the work now is testing and polishing. Still, if I see an interesting trend (or just a great idea), I continue to let the developers know what you guys are thinking. I guess you never know what could happen.

My guess is that it’s too late for that, we’ll see.

Inside the Vault:Jenny “From The Block” Noland

From the BethBlog:

Today’s Inside the Vault is about Jennifer Noland, QA tester. Jennifer started out as an intern, worked her way to become one of the original five core testers on Oblivion, and she’s been an important part of our QA department ever since.

What’s your job at Bethesda?
I am a tester in the Quality Assurance department, currently working on Fallout 3.

What other games have you worked on?
Bethesda was my first job in the gaming industry. I started here back in 2003 and began work on the second The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind expansion pack, Bloodmoon. I have also worked on Pirates of the Caribbean, IHRA Drag Racing 2004, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Shivering Isles expansion, and various downloadable content for Oblivion, including Knights of the Nine.

What is the best part about working as a tester? The worst part?
You know, I’m not sure there is just one thing I like the best about working as a tester, but I guess one of the top things I like is that I find it really interesting to get the chance to see how games get put together, slowly building up and changing into the final product. I like to think about how the game looked when I first began testing it and comparing it to the end product. I get excited about things that are going to be in the games, and then getting the chance to see them for the first time.

Apokalipsy

Ausir sends news that Polish gaming magazine Play has a FO3 preview. Here’s some quick notes taken from the article:

* Same pics as in other magazines lately
* Summary of the BoS article
* Super mutants kidnap local people and found a way to turn them into mutants
* You’ll be able to issue commands to Dogmeat, e.g. tell him to bring you some items like ammo
* The main statistic of weapons will be DPS or Damage Per Second. E.g. a shotgun has 20-40 DPS
* There will be addictions and diseases
* The world will have no invisible walls or other artificial barriers, instead of using the main entrance, you’ll be able to climb over a wall or use another alternative way in
* The developers are considering making the player able to complete the game without killing anyone, using only dialogues, sneaking and hacking
* Conclusion: Despite the complaints of orthodox fans, hey’re convinced that Fallout 3 is the future of RPG and will be great, but they’re worried that while having awesome gameplay and atmosphere, the game will lack black humor

Thanks Ausir.

Getting Back, Misc. Edition

Jeff Green

After these images were posted 117.308 people visited this blog. Wow.

Games For Windows is no more. All the best for Jeff Green and the crew in their new endeavor and all the luck for the artists that were laid off.

Word in the street is that the embargo on pics and info about Fallout 3 is almost over, a lot of stuff will show up online soon.

Interplay teases about their new site coming really soon. Ok then.

Both my computers were infected, I lost gigs of data. Some things I’ve been able to recover, others seem to be lost forever. My e-mail contacts seem to be in this last category, so if you know me send a mail so I can create a new list, please.