Does the gun from the teaser trailer, that looks a lot like this one from the Fallout 2 menu, is in fact a laser gun? Anyone knows? This is a question from a reader of this blog that sent me the links through Meebo.
—X—
There’s a grass roots movement starting on the Bethesda Games Fallout 3 Forum to send a fan appreciation letter to Ron Perlman. The details of the thing are still a bit fuzzy but I’ve signed it anyway, the man rocks!
—X—
After the Fallout 3 teaser got twenty topics opened in record time asking for it to be released, every Zenimax server going down, the Bethesda downloads being replaced by outside mirrors, the outside mirrors going down too and the roar all over the net I think the good people at Bethsoft may be convinced that the interest about Fallout 3 and the Fallout games is something big. Really big. I hope those that thought Fallout only appealed to eleven angry guys think things over and try to learn a bit more on the Fallout games following and fandom.
—X—
Pete Hines had this to say about the teaser to VoodooExtreme:
1) Yes, that’s in-engine (in-engine means it’s done with game assets in our rendering engine, but isn’t done real-time. If it was done in real-time, that’d be gameplay footage. This isn’t something, for example, that was sent to some house [e.g. Blue Studios] so they could build assets and render it out, and create something for us to release [e.g. Dawn of War 40K intro cinematic]).
2) Yes, that’s The Ink Spots singing “I Don’t Want to Set the World On Fire”
3) Yes, that’s Ron Perlman [voiceover man extraordinaire of Fallout 1 and 2]
Later on he added this while talking to DuckandCover:
Pete Hines has graciously confirmed to DAC that the recording of Ron Perlman in the Fallout 3 Teaser Trailer is, in fact, brand new. He recorded it specifically for Bethesda.
In addition, when asked about the release of more information, Pete had this to say:
Still slow for a while, but not long now. We aren’t planning to fill in any more blanks for the time being.
Fallout 3: A Post Nuclear Blog 
I wonder why bethsoft haven’t made a big announcement about whether or not Ron will be doing VO for FO3.
Also, I hope when Pete says “for the time being” that he meant in the next couple of days 🙂 Because I am dying for more info 🙂
there’ll be gaming “journalists” and bloggers at Bethsoft on the 12th, then GI’s July issue is supposed to hit on the 18th, after that I’m guessing we’ll get very little for a long while. Hopefully they flesh out the site a little more, add some concept art and start preparing us for th shift to the East coast by lightly filling in some of the gaps in traveling West to East.
don’t forget E3, I imagine more info will show up during that too.
So one could suppose.
hey brios, you probably should write something about what 1up, gamespot and gamedaily said about fallout? I think this is important, and you have a great opportunity in your hands. Don’t you let fallout don’t 😦
Also, in a shameless self propaganda post, there’s a small article related to quicksave and game over screens in RPG’s, over at megascore.biz
http://megascore.biz/
I will, i was going to put a raving review of the trailer (I loved it, after watching the High Res version a few times) but instead I’ll make a longer blogpost talking about that too. Only it’s a religious holiday here, as you know, so I’m playing around with my family, I’ll post something when I have some free time.
holiday? Out of curiosity, what holiday are you celebrating right now brios? You should get your family hooked on gaming too, that way you can both spend your time with them and enjoy games 🙂
morbus, thanks for the link to megascore, looks to be a interesting site, I will keep my eyes on it now. (I esp. like the fact that it is very clean and content driven)
Oh and since you brought it up here morbus, I want to just make a quick comment about that article related to quicksaves. While I agree that save/reload can kill some of the game experience. I prefer the option of saving anywhere so I can stop the game anytime I want and not loose progress.
Also, because most games are buggy by nature, the option of saving your progress anywhere can really save you from unpredictable crashes.
I also think save anywhere system is esp. good for RPGs, due to its addictive nature. I don’t know about you, but I tend to loose track of time while play a good RPG, and if it is already 4am in the morning, and I have broken my promise of stopping the game after completing “one more quest” the last thing I want is the motivation to play just a little bit more to get to a save point 🙂 Because by the time I get there, something else might have hooked me to play longer 🙂
So briosa, are you one of the bloggers going to visit Bethesda on the 12th? Tannhauser said he was going, I think – or at least, someone from NMA is.
Always enjoy the blog when I visit. Keep up the good work buddy 🙂
@Lithal: I actually don’t know 🙂
@ledriver: No way, they have a nothing related to fan sites or blogs run by fans allowed policy, and I don’t have a valid passport anyway.
Tanhauser would like to go, since he lives just 20 minutes from Bethsoft headquarters, but his admission was refused, just like everyone else from NMA or DAC.
No Corpus Christi celebrations here in the state. Godless communist heathens that we are.
Hey Ledriver this guys is going there and he is Australian
lbooker@atomicmpc.com.au
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=3&c=12&t=12964&p=20
@ Briosafreak
Thanks ok 😛 I feel like it’s very important to counterbalance the reactions… GameSpot, at least, showed us, once again, they aren’t worthy a broken can… Good luck with it 😉
@ lithal
Thanks for your words lithal 🙂 It’s very nice to see a good reaction from readers 😉 We’ll do our best not to disapoint you 😀
As for the holiday, it’s Coprus Christi… As if we were a rich country
Coprus Christ, I gotta look this one up, thanks for letting me know guys 🙂
It is too bad that fan sites won’t get a invite. Though if we really wanted to, we could kidnap a journalist and impersonate him! 🙂 (in the spirit of fallout of course! 🙂 )
Though it is good to see that Atomicmpc are getting a invite, I generally like their stuff, it is too bad that we can’t get that magazine here in the states.
Coprus? Was that a typo?
It’s interesting to see some of the reactions around the interwebs. A lot of these guys strike me as being people that have never really played Fallout (or if they did it was just a cursory type of thing) but HAVE played TES and are basing most of their expectations on that. And continuing on that same clueless train they think the major gripes being voice are just the TB/ISO thing. Completely ignoring the CHOICE, DIALOG and CHARACTERS discussion. As if to say those concerns should be completely dismissed out of hand because they feel Oblivion DID have them.
I don’t know about you guys, but that’s my one true concern about Fallout 3. That if we all play through it, we’ll all come away with the same vanilla outcome/story as each other without having any repercussions on the story lines we just played through. A lot of my replays through Fallout 1/2 were just to go back and see what I missed, what I triggered that destroyed/saved Broken Hills/Gecko/etc, uncover lines of dialog I never explored, piss off Lynette in all new ways (and some old ways just for shits n giggles).
Truthfully, I don’t care if it’s TB/ISO so long as the game is fun, gives you real meaningful choices and has great characters w/ full leafy/branching dialog trees.
Yes, it was a type. It’s Corpus Christi. “Corpus” stands for “body (singular), and “Christi” sands for “of Christ” (relative). It’s Latin. Here in Portugal we call it “Corpo de Cristo” as Portuguese is, as you (should) know, a Latin language.
Sorry about the type AND the offtopic XD
holy frack! it’s not “type” it’s “typo” xD Sorry again… Can you edit that brios? :[
_I_ know it’s Corpus, I posted it before you did. 😛
I suffered through 10 odd years of Catholic school. I know the ropes. 😉
hehe a fan of BSG are you morbus, great show and I love the fact that next season is the last (don’t like shows that drags on and on).
Actually now that I think about it, BSG is actually a not bad post-apoc show, you guys should watch it if you haven’t already.
@killzig, I agree with what you said about Fallout. I am willing to open my mind to experience something new with the FO experience though.
The thought of being able to explore the wasteland and have some in the face encounters with groups of deathclaws does get me excited.
To me the mood, the dialogs, the “immersion” and involvement of the character in the FO world are very important. I could careless what viewpoint FO3 turn out to use.
I am weary of the trend of fully voiced NPCs. From what I have seen, having a voice for every character actually kills the immersion factor for me. Not only are the spoken dialogs not as rich as written texts, the limitation on the number of voice actors used makes the world seem very “forced” to me.
Dialogs in a game can be much much more complex than the “staged” dialogs in a film or a book even. Depending on the player choice, emotions, words of the speakers can change rapidly within a conversation. For example: It is much easier to let the player fill in the blanks themselves, while reading texts “spoken” by a NPC, than to try to explicitly capture the dynamics of a conversation by using different tones of voice.
Sorry for my nonsense, I am not eloquent at all when it comes to putting my thoughts into a concisely written paragraph 😦 (I much rather face to face discussions 🙂 )
the problem with voice over/dialog in oblivion/morrowind is the trouble with consoles on standard def tvs (as shown by lost planet and dead rising. those weren’t games where you had to rely on text but playing on a standard def set posed it’s problems). Hopefully since this is 2k8 they can expect HD sets to be more prevalent and not limit themselves as far as how much dialog they can display on the screen. I’ll actually be really disappointed if they haven’t set aside a small corner of the gui for the rolling text description panel.
some part of me wishes that there are actually 2 distinct versions of the game one for console one for PC.
btw brios, here is something new I spotted on the forum:
http://www.gamedaily.com/fallout-3/pc/game-features/2924/?articleID=42791
[quote]
The two most major and confirmed announcements about the game were a relief. Fallout 3 will continue to use the series’ SPECIAL (i.e. Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck) character attribute system. We guess the system will contain a few small modifications, but the main character system will be in place. Secondly, characters from previous games will make return appearances; they would need to travel from Southern California (the setting for the first two games) to Washington, D.C., the major metropolitan area in the game. This change seems like a good move for Bethesda since it will help keep the game fresh and allow the development team to create a new history for the series (and cheap assets since the developer is located a few miles from the D.C. border).
[/quote]
I’ve seen it hours ago, already prepared a blogpost about it. Hey Killzig seems we’re going to meet again others besides the new Dogmeat
I am thinking that Sky net will make an apperance, as the evil master mind that created the new Delek-like robot race (only as a minor non main story related quest line though)
Eheheheh we should make a contest asking for those type of ideas
somehow, I get the feeling that if such contest is opened on the official forum, it will degrade to a flame war 😦
Why do you ask? BSG = Battlestar Galatica huh? Nope, I never saw it. You assumed that because of the latin part? You know, I study epigraphy 😛 I know quite a bit of latin xD
On View Point – It’s not about what view point FO3 (or foe) turns out to have. It’s about what combat system will be implemented…
On Full Voice Overs – Of course, and everybody that digress is either ignorant or a fool (arrogance for the win!), text-only dialogs are way better than voice overs. I’ll write about that at megascore.biz, maybe tomorrow…
On “a small corner of the gui for the rolling text description panel – Forget about that killzig. It gets in the way of seeing the action -_-
On FO3’s SPECIAL – LOL! That’s a surprise! I thought it was going to be called EPIC, for Endurance, Perception, Intelligence and Constitution… XP
@morbus:
Frack is a term first used in original Battle Star Galactica show, and became my permenant replacement for the “other” F word 🙂 That is why I was wondering if you picked it up from BSG too 🙂
Lol XD I just use it since I saw Ashley Chang using that, so I guessed it was kinda normal “replacement” or something X3
FUCK.
that will be my reaction if there’s no rolling text descriptions adding a running bit of humor/atmosphere in the damned game.
You’ll say that a long time before you know if they’re putting it in or not…
hehe.
I have high hopes that scrolling dialogs and humor/atmosphere of FO will make it in. (the meet the dev thread gave me great hope)
I’d be happy if a system like NWN2 is used. Where only the key or companion NPCs are fully voiced, and text dialogs for every other npcs.
I am hoping to see things like chat bubble being used for npcs that you are not in direct conversation with. But unfortunately, that would not fit the graphic style that FO3 will be using.
The graphic style I am talking about is the push for more realism, like more realistic faces. Chat bubble would only fit well with games that don’t try to reach that graphic realism.
TBH, I am not a fan of the trend of pushing for more and more realistic LOOKing characters in games. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the advances in graphic realism (I did my master project on CG 🙂 ). But I think a game should focus more on achieving a coherent and unique artistic style.
I think for games, the advances in graphics should be used in more artistic ways, not in the end list push to make in game character more and more realistic.
The reason I say that is because:
1) Realistic looking graphics has come a long way. But other fields such as AI, physics, motion dynamics, facial movements, dialog system have lagged behind. And this disparity in a game takes away realism and reduces immersion.
2) Suppose that absolute realism is finally achieved in a game, I am not sure if I would want to play it any more. I rather live my RL the normal way thank you very much 🙂
/end rant
Again, please forgive me for my crappy skill of forming coherent sentences.
@ lithal – Imagine that absolute realism is finally achieved in a movie. Would you still want to see it, give it has a good argument? I’m talking about graphics, of course.
For for RL/games, RL has nothing to be compared with games. Games are part of RL, not a different version of that which RL is a version of, nor a different version of RL itself. Have some respect for games will ya 😉
hehe, I was just exaggerating there. But all I am trying to say is in a game like the original FO, I have no problem blasting someone in the face with a minigun and watch him/her explode. But if that npc looked just like a real person, I’d have real problem even raising a gun at him/her 😉
I don’t see what’s the problem there… We are talking about role-playing.
heh, role-playing is okay, but when things become so real and it becomes “real-life-roll-simulation” I may be averse to play the roles that are given to me 🙂
It’s “make believe”, it’s not real life… Don’t tell me you feel pity when you see random people dying in movies… I mean, I don’t at least…
For me, graphics don’t mean jack. There are only two games that made me cry. One is Arcanum (a dialog, text-only, believe it or not), the other is Sword of Mana (the ending, it touched my feelings… it’s like a movie, though, so no fun).
it is only “make believe” because of our current technical limitation. I was referring to a future, where the “make believe” is no longer must “make believe” (actually MMOs are already smearing the boundary between the RL and the VL for some people, but in this case it is the involvement of real people that is smearing the boundary)
Anyway, if you read my post carefully, you will see that I don’t think Graphic alone means jack either.
Have you played Planescape: torment? If not, definitely try it. I dare say that it is one of the best RPG that I have played. It is one of those game that will make you cry, wonder about your existance, etc.