Message in a Todd Bottle

Howard during his Mars hollidays

For only the third time in four years Bethsoft Executive Producer and Fallout 3 Lead Todd Howard leaves a message on the Bethesda Games forum:

See, I read the forums too.

Thanks to everyone here that has supported us and our games over the years. I really enjoyed meeting so many of you at PAX, and I know Pete, Emil, Istvan, and Matt did as well. It was, by far, our favorite convention ever. We really do have the best fans in the world, and we take both the praise and criticism the way it’s intended – to help us make better games.

Maybe someday we’ll be popular enough to have a “Bethfest!” and you can meet the whole team of over 100 people that work on these games. I assure you, they’re some of the most dedicated and amazing people you’d ever meet.

In other news this blog will return for the regular news service next Wednesday or Thursday. I’ll still be available on Meebo or mail.

When Emil Speaks An Angel Gets Some Wings and a Beard

Emil Pagliarulo

And Emil Pagliarulo decided to reply to an impromptu interview on the Bethesda Games Fallout 3 forum:

Can you target cars in VATS to explode?

Emil: No, you can’t. We actually experimented with that for a while, but found that the “battlefield” got so littered with “explodable” objects that you ended up having too many targets to cycle through, or the the camera would autozoom onto a car instead of the target you wanted, etc. So, like a lot of things, we started off that way, played the game and realized it didn’t work, and changed it.

Does stealing cost less -karma then murder?

Emil: Yes, definitely. I find that’s how I maintain my “Neutral” karma level with my current character (crazy Raider-looking girl named Fahrenheit) — I’ll generally be nice to people (which earns good karma), and then rip them off blind (which earns bad karma). If I were to go around murdering people, I’d jump pretty quickly down to “Evil.”

Can an evil character make a redeeming decision and become good and vice versa? (and it makes sense)

Emil:Yes! That became one of our big goals, actually — redemption. There are ways a completely good character can turn evil, but that’s easy — just go on a killing spree. But there are also ways for a completely evil character to turn good. You can complete quests in an obviously “good” way, donate money to a church, give purified water to a better, etc. etc. So yeah, we definitely support that.

I had one character who was totally evil. I blew up Megaton, went on a killing spree… and then Dogmeat taught me how to love. Role-playing FTW!

Every time Emil speaks on the forum there is much rejoicing in the Elves community and the Brotherhood groupies. Ausir isn’t very pleased with the last answer though. Thanks Incognito for the heads up.

Fallout 3 Rated in the U.K.

Nice belt Behemoth

From Gamepolitics:

That’s the word from the British Board of Film Classification, which yesterday stamped the much-anticipated Bethesda title with an 18 rating, meaning that it can legally be sold to those of that age and older.

Curiously, a “consumer advice” note posted with the rating decision does not mention the drug use which got Fallout 3 banned in Australia earlier this year. The only reference to content is “Contains very strong bloody violence and gore.”

Spotted at NMA.

Hines and Trade Shows

Fallout fans at PAX2008/Photo Zacbond

Talking to Videogaming247:

Bethesda’s Peter Hines has admitted that showing RPGs like Fallout 3 at tradeshows like E3 and Games Convention can be a frustrating business.

“Sometimes, yeah,” he told VG247, when asked if showing such a large game to people in such a short space of time was problematic.[...]

Fallout 3 did come under some fire after E3, where journalists were allowed to play the game for 30 minutes.

“You play the game and you see what you think,” Hines said previously on the matter.

“At E3 we let people play the game for a half hour, and if in a half hour you can make up your mind one way or the other, OK. I don’t really get into judging the rightness or wrongness of it. I just give people a chance to play it and they draw their own conclusions.”

PSU Interviews PH

PSU interviews Pete Hines:

PSU: How do you intend to make Fallout 3 approachable to those who haven’t played the earlier games in the series?

Pete Hines: Well, we make sure you don’t have to have played the previous Fallout games to understand what’s going on in Fallout 3. Obviously the control scheme should be familiar with folks who have played a 1st or 3rd person game. That was one of the nice things I heard at PAX from a number of folks is that they felt like the basic controls were pretty intuitive and seemed to pick up on things like how to use the Pip-Boy or the V.A.T.S. combat system pretty quickly.

PSU: We’ve heard there will be different factions/gangs throughout the game. Can you join any of them and how will they play a role in Fallout 3?

Hines: There are a lot of factions in the world, but you can’t join them. They’re groups you interact with and decide how you’re going to deal with them. How will you deal with the Slavers when you find them? Will you try to free slaves and be a good guy, or try to profit from working with the Slavers? But there aren’t groups you join and try to become the head of or anything like that.

PSU: Are there items, aside from power armor, that boost stats or skills? What can you tell us about them?

Hines: There are items you can find that will give you a boost to certain skills, whether it’s your original Vault Suit or the Sherrif’s Duster or any number of other things.