Fallout 3 Endings and More at CVG

The first part of CVG’s interview with Pete Hines is up:

What are you working on at the moment with Fallout 3?

Hines: We’re working towards getting everything into the game. The world hasn’t finished being built yet so we’re still in the process of putting all of the content in the game, fleshing everything out and playing quests. That sort of thing.[…]

How ‘open’ is Fallout 3? Is it like Oblivion in that regard?

Hines: One of the things about Fallout 3 is you cannot do everything in this game. It’s not like Oblivion where it’s just – basically, anybody could do anything. Fallout isn’t like that. Fallout basically is fewer number of quests with lots of ways to complete them and things are opened up to you or locked off to you as you go through the game.
There will be somewhere between nine to 12 different endings to the game based on what you’ve done in the game. So it’s something that is inherently a diverging path. It may be some of the same things but doing them in very different ways, and ultimately that will define your gameplay experience.
Then you’ll have to go back and play again. So you may have to play through once and blow up Megaton [a major city in the game] and then play again and not blow up Megaton just to get to the bits that are all behind both of those paths.

This last part lead to a comment by Jim Sterling of Destructoid that will spark some discussion for sure:

While I and surely many others are looking forward to seeing what Bethesda does with Fallout 3, I have to admit that upwards of nine endings may be just a little too much. I’m all for replay value, but I’ve rarely ever found that extra endings, usually highly disappointing affairs, add anything to it. Seems a bit over the top to me, but Bethesda knows best.

My comment to Jim’s words was:

And yes the game will follow the path of Blade Runner, that had 12 different endings and was really replayable, although far from free form.
Since the original Fallout RPGs were more about how your character affected the game world and the game world affected your character, instead of being a story driven game, the idea of having only a few definite endings but tens of combinations on the game end slides that showed what would happen to the zones you’ve been and the NPCs you’ve met was very appropriate, and provided for a fresh ending every time.
I would prefer that to so many definite endings, but we’ll see, might work, might not work.

I wrote that because I have a feeling Pete is talking of alternate endings like Chrono Trigger and Blade Runner, but maybe he means something different, so I’ll keep an eye on this.

Fake Fallout3: Oblivion with Guns

Actually it’s pretty well made. It’s fake though, not the real Fallout 3.

Fallout 3: Gaygelehs’s Quest

Well it’s Sunday so things are really quiet. Therefore I’ll leave you with this moderately funny video from someone that wants to tease a bit the folks at Bethesda.

Shadowrun and Fallout 3

Previously I’ve talked about 1Up’s article about the lessons of the Shadowrun debacle. On the Bethesda Games Fallout 3 Forum Zingar Baltus brought this issue up, with a comparison on Shadowrun and Fallout 3:

There are many similarities between Shadowrun PC game and Fallout 3 being developed by Bethesda.

* Both games are sequels to acclaimed classics rpgs developed in the 90s.
* These sequels are strongly based on PnPs or inspired by them and still have followers today.
* Both games were/will be designed to be familiar to first person shooter players.

This lead to an answer by Bethesda’s Jay “RadHamster” Woodward:

Don’t miss the portion of that article in which the author was musing on what the new Shadowrun game could’ve been, but wasn’t.

Here’s the final option he cited:

RPG — The obvious choice for a Shadowrun game, but still one with many possible variations. What style of RPG would work best with the combination of magic and technology? Perhaps it would be an Oblivion/Fallout 3-style game, with forests of skyscrapers replacing the brickwork of Anvil, and magic-mad beasts of the forests replacing the radiation-mutated creatures of the wastes.

[…]The article draws a distinct contrast between the two games, at the level of fundamental genre. This runs directly counter to your thesis that they are similar. It’s relevant, irrespective of your capacity to find it so.

What do you think? Are there similitudes or not?

Fallout 3 at PixelRage

It’s time for PixelRage to talk about Fallout 3:

“War, war never changes”
And indeed it doesn’t. This is the phrase that kept gamers awake for nearly 10 years as Black Isle gave them the bread and water they needed under the form of Fallout. It is probably the single greatest game ever made. Not because of high poly count, latest shaders, use of directX 10 or any other tricky little tech term but because of the fantastic gameplay, one that could easily kidnap you from real life for hours.

It was maybe the only RPG that dared not to use sorcerers, damsels in distress, dragons or any other fantasy related object or being. It dared to be different and the bet Black Isle made with the gaming industry was by far the craziest one. But in the end they won. They won the hearts of countless gamers and some of them probably started worshiping the game studio right after that. I know I did.
But if war never changes, developers and the owner of an IP has to, sometime. After 10 years the Fallout IP landed in Bethesda’s own backyard and for a second the gaming world went nuts. Not because Fallout would come to life again but because of another cataclysmic event known as “Oblivion with guns”. This is the term gamers invented for Fallout 3 as soon as Bethesda went ahead and gave news of the recent purchase.[…]

Lot of things have been said until now. On one side we have the old-school gamers that crave for real Fallout and not a remake of Oblivion and, on the other side, we have the “other” gamers, not familiar to the Fallout universe, that have nothing against Bethesda’s new project. Writing a review you always have to be impartial and, that said, I will pick the middle path, somewhere between the angry mob waiting to slay Bethesda at the first sight of an Oblivion with guns and those that wait for a shinny new Post-Apocalyptic RPG.[…]

All these being said I think it’s time to close the Vault door and wait, in silence, for the next game. I have always been an optimistic person and although the gaming industry seems to be somewhat angry on Bethesda I am going to give them their time and wish them good luck with the game. Not that I’m always the good guy but in the end it will be their head on a plate and not mine.

I don’t think the industry is angry at Bethesda, still it’s an interesting read, a bit different from most of the other previews.

Spotted at NMA and RPGWatch.

Fallout 3 Pruning and Tackling

On the Bethesda Games Forum Brother None asked this:

Why [Old threads are pruned in this section something like ever 60 days or so automatically]? Don’t tell me this IP.board is so ruthlessly inefficient that it’s impossible to keep all the threads archived? NMA’s threads go back to 2000, no problem.

Community Manager Gstaff replied:

Since you asked, I went ahead and tried to get some information for you on this from our IT department. Looking at the total number of articles posted on NMA, it looks like you have around 430,000 articles or posts made with around 13,000 members. Getting rough numbers (not accounting for pruning), our community discussion has had 113,000 posts in 2 months. So in half a year or so, that’s already approaching the numbers you’ve guys have had since 2000 (that is if the number on your site is accurate). That’s with about 160,000 active members…by that members that have been active in the last 13 months.

The number of posts fluctuates pretty wildly around releases and so forth. So when Shivering Isles came out months ago, it was a lot higher traffic than that. Around the time Oblivion came out we were pruning messages that were more that a couple days old, because the volume was so high. We’ve got this stuff running over 4 servers, and if it’s necessary to prune to keep the forums going, that’s what we do.

Speaking with our IT department, it sounds like our pruning procedure has something to do with the search function (which we even have to disable at times of heavy traffic).

And talking about more game pics and developers answers about the game:

[…]I know Todd enjoyed answering the questions. We’ll definitely be tackling questions again at some point. Not sure if it’ll be Todd the next time, or other members of the team talking about specific issues….we’ll see.

Yeah we’ll see, they still need to impress more people, for sure.

Shadowrun as Oblivion/Fallout 3?

From RPGCodex:

Now that we all know the PC Shadowrun game was a disaster and FASA Interactive was forcibly dismantled by Microsoft, 1up’s editor Michael Zenke thinks it’s time for a little retrospective and failure analysis.
The text starts with reminding us of the three console Shadowrun games of the 90s (yes, three), but the heart of the text is the section where the author considers what could have been done if the developers had more creativity and the title belonged to a different genre. Here’s what he says about RPGs:

RPG — The obvious choice for a Shadowrun game, but still one with many possible variations. What style of RPG would work best with the combination of magic and technology? Perhaps it would be an Oblivion/Fallout 3-style game, with forests of skyscrapers replacing the brickwork of Anvil, and magic-mad beasts of the forests replacing the radiation-mutated creatures of the wastes.

I don’t know about that, instead this part of the article seems more worth of some thought:

They may not be the largest group, but fans of the pen-and-paper Shadowrun game wanted to be heard because the Microsoft title inspired a real sense of loss. The Shadowrun world affords potentially exciting storytelling and high action for a wide variety of videogames. While the role-playing genre obviously springs to mind, many fans were actually excited by the announcement that the game would be a first-person shooter. A story-based design in the mold of Half-Life 2 could thrive in Shadowrun‘s Sixth World. Instead, Microsoft and FASA labored for years to produce a title only loosely based on the signature elements of the Shadowrun world. The final product released at the end of May 2007 was a decent shooter that pushed the genre in a few new directions…but fans wondered why it needed the Shadowrun name on it.

That’s a risk Bethsoft is taking too. Still read it for yourselves, and check David Gaider from Bioware thoughts on the Shadowrun debacle.

Community AI

Lingwei starts a topic about AI on Fallout 3 on the Bethesda Games Fallout 3 forum, and at some point Jay “RadHamster” Woodward posts this:

While you’re standing by, though, we’re still listening, and I’d be interested to hear what sorts of new & improved functionality you’d like to see from the non-combat AI.
Just don’t let the topic wander too much — the less aimless wandering, the better, right?

So head towards the topic and have your say, AI is something they really need some fresh ideas.

And if you go there then spend some time on the Community Wish List topic, Matt “Gstaff” Grandstaff wants your suggestions to:

Good thread. Keep the suggestions coming.

Ok then.

Orin Tresnjak: Inside The Vault

It’s Orin time:

This edition of Inside the Vault features programmer, Orin Tresnjak. Orin is one of the awesome programmers who work on multiple systems. He’s worked on a variety of interfaces and shaders, and even made tools for creating DLC and PC installers (Orin even pitched in and made the installer for Star Trek: Legacy). In short, we drop Orin in and cool stuff results.

What’s your job at Bethesda?

I’m a graphics programmer (also known as one of Scott Franke’s background threads). My main responsibilities at the moment are LOD rendering and the various old-computer and old-TV effects associated with the Pipboy, other displays, and VATS mode in Fallout. Additionally, I’ve done lots of miscellaneous graphics stuff and occasionally get roped into doing installers, because I’m in the unfortunate position of being the only person around here who knows Installshield inside out.[…]

Pitch your dream game.

Well, I’d like to see games that are dark, not just by virtue of gore and violence, but because they touch on dark moments in human history and dark things about the human soul. I’d like to see games that tackle the horrors of war without glorifying it, for example–gaming’s Platoon or Apocalypse Now. I’ve always wanted to see a war FPS where you play an African-American soldier in the Philippines war of the turn of the 20th century (which was really a precursor to Vietnam in a lot of ways). So on the one hand, you’ve got the indiscrimate slaughter of civilians in an extremely one-sided conflict, and on the other hand, you see the same racial epithets being flung by white soldiers at the dark-skinned natives that the Black soldiers have also been at the receiving end of. Many deserted, some even enlisted with the insurgent army. Now there’s a tough choice to be faced with in a game!

Or, maybe an adventure game where you play a Japanese orphan trying to scrape out a life after the Allied firebombing of WW2. (Blatantly inspired by the Ghibli film “Grave of the Fireflies” here.) Or an open-ended sandbox game where you’re a homeless person trying to survive in Washinton DC (let’s subvert the whole GTA concept). Or…

By the way that picture is from Orin, you can see his photo works here and here.

Play Fallout 3

Saw this at NMA, seems Play.tm also has a demo review of Fallout 3:

This is not Oblivion, however, and Bethesda will stand no more comparisons. Likewise, those likening the game to a first-person shooter will be forcibly removed, I’m almost warned entering the theatre. Though it has to be said that, purely from an aesthetic stand-point, Fallout 3 isn’t dissimilar to an FPS, even if no one will thank me for noting it. Similarities are thankfully little more than superficial, and even the combat – which can be tackled FPS style – is more intelligently approached using the pseudo turn-based VATS combat system – which allows you to pause the action and select parts of an enemy to hit, with your timing and shooting ability effecting how likely you are to succeed with that tricky head-shot, or the disabling leg-shot.[…]

But, in a relationship councilor sty-lee (appropriate in the field of games journalism), what have we learned? Well, Fallout 3 is rich, ambitious and epic in scale. Whether it can blend perfectly RPG and FPS (with a splash of third-person thrown in) remains to be seen, but the lengths the developers are going to are more than apparent. We’ll certainly be following this new offering with interest as it is polished, tweaked and expanded ahead of a debut around this time next year. Until then, suffice to say that this is one wasteland we’ll be more than happy to revisit.

A warm salutation to Luke Guttridge, the author of this piece, I remember him from the old days as a nice guy and a good professional .

Fallout MMO and a Surprise

Surprise surprise:

“As we are working to secure funding for the development of a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) based on the popular Fallout franchise,” he continued, “we are at the same time exploring ways to leverage our impressive portfolio of gaming properties through sequels and various development and publishing arrangements.” Caen offered no further details on just what arrangements were being considered.

In a release, Interplay announced, though, that with the reopening of its in-house studio, it has hired former Fallout designer Jason Anderson, who previously left development of Fallout 2 to form Troika Games, as creative director.

I saw this at Gamasutra, Next Gen and RPGCodex and my jaw dropped every time.

Still hugs to Jason.

The Game of 2008? Part Two

The interview with Pete Hines and demo impressions on Msn tech and gadgets are up as you know, and the author of the piece Patrick Goss was kind to join us and leave a few more notes from the encounter with Pete:

Seeing as you asked nicely and I like the blog – here’s an exclusive snippet for you that I didn’t use. Apologies if it doesn’t add anything new – just figured you would be interested:

The demo showed little of the rough edges you normally see this far in advance of publication – but Hines was insistent that work was still feverish. “We do need the time,” he said.

“This demo serves us well internally because we have to make a big huge world and everyone on the team needs to understand where the bar is; what the environment looks like and how the game plays and feels.

“You don’t want to build the whole world and then say ‘that’s not right’ you do something like this demo where you show interiors and exteriors and you not only to show folks like yourselves [the press] but it also allows the team to go off and say ‘I can build another part of the world but with the same kind of impact of say Megaton’, “We are building out the rest of the world and it is being populated and fleshed out.

“When you get all that stuff in you then need to spend time playing the game asking ‘does everything work?’ ‘Do we need to add anything?’ We’re all big believers in the fact that great games are played not made. We don’t want to be slaves to a technical design we want to play it with everything in it and then make the changes. “We need that process, but it takes a long time.”

Cheers and keep blogging.

Cheers Patrick.

The Game of 2008?

The interview with Pete Hines and demo impressions are up on Msn tech and gadgets:

Pete Hines: We’re really encouraging people to play the game through a few times and see what happens if you take a different choice at different points. With Oblivion you could do every quest line and end up being head of every guild in the same character, but in Fallout 3 you can’t play every outcome at the same time – you have to make choices that you cannot go back on.

Hines is aware that, by hyping the product a year ahead of release, Bethesda are taking on a huge burden of keeping people interested, but believes that the already enthusiastic community and a slow trickle of information and game footage will keep Fallout 3 at the forefront of people’s minds.

Pete Hines: We’re holding a while lot of stuff back. We’ve shown off gameplay footage to the press but not anywhere else yet. We have lots of stuff planned and, hopefully, we’ll be able to keep people interested and pick up a lot more fans as we get closer to launch.

You can read the rest here, I hope you tell us a bit more Patrick.

Swell!

The BoS in Fallout 3

Brother None talked a bit about the true nature of the Brotherhood of Steel:

Brotherhood of Steel Paladins aren’t soldiers, though.

Interesting misconception, that is. But the BoS doesn’t have soldiers, since it’s not a purely military organisation. Paladins are what they called, the highly trained, highly disciplined guards of what the BoS holds sacred; technology.

You’ll have to excuse people who are confused by their being replaced by a bunch of guys from Full Metal Jacket (hyperbole).

Remember the sergeant of the Enclave in Fallout 2? Yeah, now that was a grunt type. That one, amongst others, showed and highlighted the difference between the Enclave and the BoS as opposing organisations, again underscoring by the BoS’ relative powerlessness. But you should also remember Cabbot, the gatekeeper, or Rhombus, the head paladin. Army cliche types? Not really. Let’s go over a few of Rhombus’ lines:

The Boneyard is far south. You will find only violence there.
They copy the weapon documents down and come up with new ideas. What they research, the Knights make.
Insolent pup. Apologize now and you’ll not be hurt.
There are rumors of a strange army gathering. I will not say more

Oh noez, where’s the gruff-mouthed bad-ass nature?
Nowhere is where. You can argue there’s a difference between dialogue and combat taunts, and you’d be right, but you’d still be missing the marked difference between the Enclave sergeant and paladins like Rhombus or Cabbot in simply things like bearing, attitude and choice of words.

Not soldiers. If you think they are, you kind of missed the point of the BoS.

This lead to a comment by Bethsoft Steve “Mr. SmileyFaceDude” Meister on the behaviour of the BoS on the Fallout 3 demo:

Actually, only Initiate Reddin was swearing & all gung-ho in the demo. Vargas even told her to knock it off, more than once.

Hope this means a less regular soldier nature to the BoS, good news.

Enough Cookies For All

Matt “Gstaff” Grandstaff brings some thoughts on the Fallout 10th Anniversary Contest:

The winner doesn’t come from me. I listed several dozens that I saw as “favorites,” but the devs ultimately decide this based on what they like, what fits, what’s funny, what isn’t already in the game, etc, etc.

We’ll be giving out bonus prizes for stuff that gets our attention. I suppose that could include ideas we’ve already come up. Maybe the “you read my mind” award.
When someone favorites something, they all get moved to one area. I’m not sure if there was a way to track who made each one a favorite, but all the devs had access to the portal we created.
I think we all get enough cookies.

My personal favorite was one that was actually shared in a team meeting shortly after we launched contest (within like the first two days of the contest).

A few weeks to go until we know the winners.

IGN and Fallout 3 Again

Pete Hines talks to IGN:

IGN: Can you talk a bit more about the melee system in the game?

Pete Hones: We’re still working on and sorting out the melee system. The gist of it is that it works just like ranged combat using a gun. You can use VATs [targeting system] using a melee weapon and the idea is that when you get up close with someone with a melee weapon you do pretty significant amounts of damage, because it’s more than likely you’ll be shot at when you’re running towards the enemy. So the idea is that when you get up close you can do serious damage, providing you’re any good with that weapon. The reverse of that is true as well, that if someone with a melee weapon gets close to you then you can take a lot of damage. In fact, it’s viable to play the whole game using only a melee weapon – you can do it and be really good at it. It’s another class of weapon that has its own custom weapon that you can make and it fits into the mould of all the other weapons in terms of being a viable choice to play through the whole game with.[…]

IGN: When can we expect to see new stuff on Fallout 3?

Pete Hines: We’re planning to show some new stuff off early next year. I’m not really sure what we’ll show but it’ll be something new but I’m not sure what. Right now we’re in the process of putting stuff into the game, building out the world and adding all the content in there. So until we get all that in there and start to go back through and polish it all off to a final level I have no idea what we’ll be able to talk about come February or March.