Bethesda's Fan Interview #2

Sander

This ghoul has seen it all
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Bethesda has posted Fan Interview #2 in which fan questions have been selected and answered, amongst other things confirming that children will not be killable, traits have been merged with perks, and intelligent and recruitable non-human NPCs exist. Along with a total of 25 questions and answers, three new pictures were released:

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The most important snippets from the interview:<blockquote>2) Are children and otherwise non essential or non-quest related NPC's vulnerable or invulnerable to accidental or purposeful (deadly) harm? And how about quest essential people? Please elaborate as much as you can, especially on why you choose to do it that way.

You will not be able to be a child killer. There are several reasons for this, some of them are very basic, like we wouldn't be able to sell the game, anywhere to anyone, if the children could be killed. I'm not using that as a scapegoat. We never wanted the game to offer any incentive or desire to be blowing kids away, so from our initial designs, we didn't know how we were going to handle if you shot them, we just knew it was going to be a big no-no, especially with a system like VATS and the graphic fidelity the gore has. Anyway, when attacked, all children flee and any regular NPCs friendly to the children will instantly attack you, so it feels good in the game, in that there is an appropriate response.

In regards to essential NPCs, it works like Oblivion, in that when they "die" they get knocked "unconscious" and get up a little while later. It worked well in Oblivion, so we kept that system, as you can still attack everyone that you want, and get at least a small benefit (being able to avoid them while they are down). I will say that the number of essential characters is minute compared to Oblivion and we've gone to pretty big lengths to cover a lot of people's deaths, but sometimes that's just not possible.

4) Are most of the non-human entities in the game of hostile intent, or can some be reasoned with, or even recruited as companions under the right circumstances?

Most are hostile, but not all. Yes, some can be reasoned with and even hired.

7) What can you tell us about the way Armor works, will it come as a full set or as parts, and how will it influence perception? Will there be a special HUD when wearing it?

It comes as two parts, the body part and the helmet. So you can mix and match. And then you can also put on things like glasses and other items. Different outfits also come with different stat boosts sometimes, and do more then basic "damage resistance". Like mechanic's coveralls that boost your repair skill, that kind of thing. We wanted a reason that you might wear clothes as well as armor. There's a merchant's outfit that ups your Barter skill for instance.

9) Will the PC version of the game include some sort of SDK or level editor like Elder Scrolls games have? If not, might one become available via download in the future? And how about the console versions, what have you done to give them the same options PC players have?

It will definitely not be included on the disk. If and when one is available, it will be a free download. I wish I could promise that an editor will be coming and when, but I can't.

11. How common are the 'Dungeon' areas, and do they play a part in the main story, or are they isolated side quests of their own with little bearing on the outside world. And regarding the creatures inside the dungeons, do they re-spawn or can players clear the area permanently?

They are common, and play a part throughout the game, whether that's the main quest, side quests or just exploring. To even get to downtown DC you're going to have to go through some metro tunnels. And then when you are downtown, the whole thing is like one giant "dungeon". Any structure of size, an office building, destroyed factory, school, hospital, you name it – we use all of these as "dungeons".

15) How will the real-time combat skills work? Will the chance of missing be larger as the skill is lower, or does it affect the amount of damage done? Or will this be featured in weapons swaying and/or recoil compensation?

The skill affects both how well you aim (your hand wobbles on screen), and how much damage you do with a shot. Over the course of the project, we really dialed back the skill wobble, and dialed up the damage effect. It's really not fun to miss all the time, it just made the game feel terrible. You can also "aim", like many shooters. You use the right mouse button, or left trigger on a console, and your character aims at the target. You can't run while you are aiming, but it negates most of the skill wobble. Not all of it, but enough to compensate for a really bad skill. What you find is, as your skill raises, you don't have to rely on aiming as much, so it's a good balance.</blockquote>And finally, traits and perks have been merged. Interestingly, the explanation of the reasoning behind this ignores the issue that perks were purely positive, while traits had negative side-effects:<blockquote>Ok, time for some, perhaps, bad news. Traits have been rolled into Perks. That was a hard decision for us, and one that took, literally, years. We kept coming back to it, and re-discussing it, and once we were playing the game, found that the difference between the two systems was so similar that even half the entries in the community "design a perk" contest were actually traits. Take "Bloody Mess" for example, probably the most famous trait. Is the game really more fun if that can only be taken at the very start? Why can't you pick it at level 6? What's so important about having it only at the start? The perk choice is probably one of the most fun parts of the game, and to relegate certain ones to only be chosen when you first start, before you've even played the game and know how any of it feels, just didn't prove as fun to us. How do you know you want Bloody Mess if you haven't seen how bloody the current mess is? (did I just type that?) Anyway, trust me when I say this one was a debate, a long one, and a decision we're not naive enough to think will be understood or applauded by everyone.

Anyway, many traits from Fallout return, but as perks. And many perks return, as perks. Another change over the last year is that you now pick a perk every time you level, and the perks have been balanced accordingly. Like I said before, we found the level-up-pick-a-perk experience to be so enjoyable, it was actually confusing people why they couldn't do it every level. Perks also still have prerequisites for certain stats, including your level. New perks open up at even levels, so while you still get to pick a perk at the odd levels, you won't see any new ones based on your level, but may see a new one based on say, your Science skill.

The good news is that there are a ton of perks, around 100 if you include the multiple ranks. And with a level cap of 20, you still have only 19 times you get to pick one, so you need at least 5 playthroughs of the game to use them all. It was important to us with all of this, that the choices were hard for the player, no matter what the skills/traits/perks were, and that you couldn't see it all the first time through.</blockquote>There are more bits of info, but we can't put them all here. So go read it!

Link: Bethesda's Fan Interview #2

Thanks Ausir.
 
Hello Sander,

Thanks for posting this.
My comments regarding first two screenshots;

#1 A zombie and a Biker

#2 Gears of War
 
Yet more confirmation that this wont be worth buying.

EDIT: and as far as their whole trait/perk issue, yet more proof that they dont grasp the concept of the type of RPG Fallout is.
 
Sorry, but I like the bar pic. The graphic is nothing that blows me out of my shoes, but it looks ok. I want to see it live ingame. It still does not look like Fallout, but at least it is worth a try, I think.


/Edit: By the way.. second pic, "Shotgun on Robot"... where is the robot?
 
Lexx said:
Sorry, but I like the bar pic. The graphic is nothing that blows me out of my shoes, but it looks ok. I want to see it live ingame. It still does not look like Fallout, but at least it is worth a try, I think.


/Edit: By the way.. second pic, "Shotgun on Robot"... where is the robot?
Being blown to bits, I suppose. It's the title Bethesda gives it in the Fan Interview, in any case.
 
Well at least there is much dialoque. Well I would need something to compare to, but 40k lines sound much at least.
 
Just when you think its gotten really really bad....

It gets worse.

Hey lets level up every time because its fun!

Hey- it would be better that when you kill an essential NPC and it stands back up, its a brain eating zombie! Just saying. (because it would make more sense...)
 
Lexx said:
Sorry, but I like the bar pic. The graphic is nothing that blows me out of my shoes, but it looks ok. I want to see it live ingame. It still does not look like Fallout, but at least it is worth a try, I think.

It looks like a oblivion mod personaly I think.

Lexx said:
/Edit: By the way.. second pic, "Shotgun on Robot"... where is the robot?

In peices, Id assume.



Ok, I have to admit the bar at least looks semi decent. That said, I think the MOST this game can aspire to is being thought of as 'no worse than Tactics'

remember folks, the 3 stands for 3rd spinoff.
 
Moved here, long story short:
You will not be able to be a child killer...We never wanted the game to offer any incentive or desire to be blowing kids away...
Would you take us through a hypothetical dialog tree...?
"I don't have enough space to really do that."
What will the map travel look like?
It works like Oblivion...
Will the PC version of the game include some sort of SDK?
It will definitely not be included on the disk ... I wish I could promise that an editor will be coming and when, but I can't.
Ok, time for some, perhaps, bad news. Traits have been rolled into Perks.
You cannot kneel, lie down, or climb.
There are no...weather effects.
There are a very limited number of [companions] and they are hard to get...You can only have one follower at a time
And do you think it will feel more like a reboot of the series or a continuation from the previous games?
...I've never really viewed Fallout 2 as a direct continuation...
 
The Bar looks gorgeus. The characters are a bit off, though. The Ghoul lacks some serious oozing and flora. But the place itself? :o

Also: the "shotgun" looks more like one of those russian/chinese ww2 machine guns.
 
I really like the screenshot of the bar, think that was probably the best part of this thing for me. Looks quite nice and moody.
The second screenshot is a good example of why I wonder wtf the people who actually take and present these screenshots think sometimes. Third screenshot, well. I kinda like the aesthetics, but I hope we won't have to do to much scrolling on the PC version.

The actual interview is pretty informative, but it's almost only bad news for me personally. The bit about the dungeons is... well, not very good. Fallout 1 was mercifully free of any lengthy ones, except for the Glow which was very atmospheric at any rate. Fallout 2 introduced a number of dungeons, of which a lot of sucked.
If dungeons are now "common" well... That just sucks. My guess is it will lead to a lot of corridor shooting, or sneaking (like Oblivion but with, yeah... guns!). If there were few dungeons, then I could at least think that much thought was put into them, making them unique and interactive. But common? Ack...

Find the reasoning of cutting the Traits (or making them into Perks). Like Sander said, they added another decision at character creation (and you didn't get another chance to get them in the game if you didn't take them at the start), where you could weigh good points against bad points. This obviously needed balance in some cases, but making it all into perks?

And the bit about Combat Skill and how it affects aiming and damage... Well, to me it once again sounds like they're trying to design a RPG (or a shooter for that matter) starting from the wrong direction.
 
Starwars said:
Third screenshot, well. I kinda like the aesthetics, but I hope we won't have to do to much scrolling on the PC version.


They're designing it for consoles first, so dont get your hopes up.
 
Again, they replaced shadows with black spotted textures (still horribly low-res) and it just doesn't look right at all - dirty, not decayed. Also, look at the glass and the bartender's arm. Maybe it's just my recent experience with Mass Effect, but I really think the bar screenshot looks cheap and ugly. The environment seems pretty detailed though.
 
Todd Howard said:
Anyway, when attacked, all children flee and any regular NPCs friendly to the children will instantly attack you, so it feels good in the game, in that there is an appropriate response.

Yeah, running to mommy is a totally appropriate response to being nuked with a Fatman.

Todd Howard said:
Different outfits also come with different stat boosts sometimes, and do more then basic "damage resistance". Like mechanic's coveralls that boost your repair skill, that kind of thing.

Magic Suit of the Mechanic confirmed in. Shame they botched this whole concept up, had it been handled differently it could have ended up okay.

Todd Howard said:
Traits have been rolled into Perks.

Wow. This one's so damn retarded and has such a piss-poor explanation that even the most adamant Bethesda hater would not have seen it coming. Traits and perks similar? Only if you're one of those developers who dislike frustrating their players with drawbacks to anything and so uncerimoniously removes them.

People liked picking them, you say? They didn't get that choosing them were important decisions? Far be it from Bethesda to actually impose any consequences to fucking up your character by picking the wrong trait or perk, what would the fun in that be?
 
The ghoul looks like someone took a human model and was told to to ugly it up in an hour. That's the extent of character/creativity that went into it.
 
Third screenshot, well. I kinda like the aesthetics, but I hope we won't have to do to much scrolling on the PC version.

Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. In FO1, FO2, FOT and VB, you had the entire character sheet on one screen. And now you can't even see the whole list of skills without scrolling? One would think that with higher resolutions and widescreens, you'd be able to fit more on one screen, not less.
 
like we wouldn't be able to sell the game, anywhere to anyone, if the children could be killed.

Where "anywhere" means WalMart, no? That's such a load of bullshit.

I'm not using that as a scapegoat.

Of course not...

We never wanted the game to offer any incentive or desire to be blowing kids away, so from our initial designs, we didn't know how we were going to handle if you shot them, we just knew it was going to be a big no-no,

Coupled with the evil looking VaultBoy for weapon skills this makes for a pacifist game. What's with all the blood then?
How is killing a kid worse than blowing up an entire town, I don't know.

In regards to essential NPCs, it works like Oblivion, in that when they "die" they get knocked "unconscious" and get up a little while later. It worked well in Oblivion, so we kept that system,

Great system. Certainly does wonders to the "immershun".
 
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