Bethesda's Fan Interview #2

[Ausir]

I wouldn't call myself the "Beth Ausir". But I'm not aware of any other Ausir in the Fallout community.

 

[gc051360]

Now.....correct me if I'm wrong. But, I don't remember too many "F-bombs" in the original Fallout.

I think Bethesda may overdo it with the f word.

A lot of f words, can work. Raging Bull, and quite a few other movies use the F word quite effectively. I don't trust Bethesda to be able to use a lot of swearing, in a cool way. I would think they'd be really immature about it.

 

[Ausir]

The word "fuck" and its derivatives appear only 9 times in the whole original Fallout. Much more in Fallout 2, though.

 

[Misty]

I don't think having the F word said too many times is a bad idea per se, but it can be depending on the circumstances of how it's used.

Knowing Beth, any form of a swear word is going to sound forced and be a complete abortion of the word when used in their trademark dialog.

 

[gc051360]

I don't think having the F word said too many times is a bad idea per se, but it can be depending on the circumstances of how it's used.

Knowing Beth, any form of a swear word is going to sound forced and be a complete abortion of the word when used in their trademark dialog.

Exactly my point.

 

[hailtotheking]

Todd's arguments and excuses were incompetent at best.
They honestly couldn't see a huge difference between Traits and Perks?

Harshness and maturity hasn't been messed with and yet you can't kill kids and Todd's example of "good" dialogue is "Gah! What the f*#$ are you?". Grrrrr.

Their approach to stat-boosting armour drove me apoplectic. This is so not Fallout.

The only significantly new picture is the one of the bar, and while the environmental art is fine (if a little blue), the character models are fucking awful and far too remeniscent of Oblivion.

I'm pretty damn positive we won't be getting a SDK, as one of the very first mods to be released would allow the player to kill kids, and Bethesda just won't let that happen.

This obsession with dungeons is narking me off too. Fallout didn't have dungeons. I know, some may argue that old vaults qualified as dungeons, but honestly, how frequent were these things? Let alone which, they were all built to the same template. From the way Bethesda is representing it, it sounds like dungeoneering is going to be a major part of the game.

There's so much bullshit in this interview, I could go on for hours about how they've completely and utterly missed the point, but I think I'm going to have to stop now. It's far too depressing watching these shysters rip the heart out of a game I care so much about.

You pretty much sum up all my gripes, especially with the dungeons. It clearly shows the generic way of thinking. Instead of making the storyline unique and the dungeons an integral part of it, it´s a dumbed down kind of sandbox-mechanic to make the game last longer. At least that´s the feeling you´re gonna get when every "dungeon" you enter lasts more than 15 minutes and includes at least one killer-crab.

But reading and weeping it ocurred to me how spot on you are that this total devastation is a matter of incompetence. Right now I think there is a serious disproportion between money and talent within the game-industry. I´m not talking about visual-talent, or the skill of code-monkeys. I´m thinking more along the lines of artistic vision, big shots like Moebius/Giger, hell even J.J Abrams and his kin. Why aren´t these people attracted to the medium? Hopefully it won´t be that long before we will see a Werner Herzog, or a Kurosawa, emerge in the game-industry. There is absolutely no reason for VG´s to be limited to dumbed down entertainment for console-cattle.

 

[Misty]

I also can't believe that there is no weather. No rain? No ashstorms?

I at least hope there is some sign that the world was once decimated by nuclear weapons. I remember in the Boneyard, the towns folk made references to there being green rain or green auroras at night.

 

[Sander]

I also can't believe that there is no weather. No rain? No ashstorms?

Well, this is hardly surprising or a departure from the original game.

 

[Misty]

I also can't believe that there is no weather. No rain? No ashstorms?

Well, this is hardly surprising or a departure from the original game.

The Fallouts are over a decade old, I can't see not improving over that department just because they didn't have it.

 

[Sander]

The Fallouts are over a decade old, I can't see not improving over that department just because they didn't have it.

I don't see how a game centered on an Arid, Mad-Max style desert environment would benefit from rain. Duststorms maybe, but rain?

 

[Misty]

The Fallouts are over a decade old, I can't see not improving over that department just because they didn't have it.

I don't see how a game centered on an Arid, Mad-Max style desert environment would benefit from rain. Duststorms maybe, but rain?

I guess you would have a point if this was in the West Coast but this is the East Coast.

Unless the East Coast is desert too? I don't know.

But, it just seems odd that there would be no weather. Dust storms would be fine, at least some kind of weather.

 

[Pope Viper]

I'm thinking also along the lines of some weather effects from the Deathland novels. Greenish skies, acid rain, auroras, severe wind/lightning.


I'm sure the trees and grass will kick ass though.

 

[shihonage]

This brings a question... what happened in Fallout when you killed a key NPC ? Did their quests, etc just vanish ?

Things happened like you'd expect them to happen. Farmer #3 tells you he'll give you a shiny thing if you move the boulder that blocks the way to his field. "OK," you say, shoot him in the guts and go to remove the boulder. When you come back for your reward, Farmer #3 is on the ground and doesn't give it to you. Nothing more or less. The universe doesn't break. The game doesn't break. Having reaped what you sowed, you move on.

Yeah, but this only worked because each city was isolated and NPCs weren't allowed free roaming between cities.

If Fallout 3 is attempting a more "emergent" approach, then say, a band of pirates can run into Shady Sands and kill Farmer #3 before he even gives you the quest, or while you're doing it.

That's why I think that the "NPC knocked down and then get up" approach may be a necessary cop-out unless one is willing to go for deeper life simulation mechanisms, where when a town leader is killed, someone else becomes the town leader.

 

[Ausir]

Acid rains that inflict damage and make you look for cover would be pretty cool.

If Fallout 3 is attempting a more "emergent" approach, then say, a band of pirates can run into Shady Sands and kill Farmer #3 before he even gives you the quest, or while you're doing it.

Doubt that. They can always limit how far a given pirate can go from his starting place.

 

[Per]

Bloom rain that sticks on you and gives enemies bonuses to hit.

 

[Misty]

I'm thinking also along the lines of some weather effects from the Deathland novels. Greenish skies, acid rain, auroras, severe wind/lightning.


I'm sure the trees and grass will kick ass though.

I'd like to see weather like that. I'd be really disappointed if there weren't any green skies.

 

[Sander]

Yeah, but this only worked because each city was isolated and NPCs weren't allowed free roaming between cities.

If Fallout 3 is attempting a more "emergent" approach, then say, a band of pirates can run into Shady Sands and kill Farmer #3 before he even gives you the quest, or while you're doing it.

That's why I think that the "NPC knocked down and then get up" approach may be a necessary cop-out unless one is willing to go for deeper life simulation mechanisms, where when a town leader is killed, someone else becomes the town leader.

Bethesda isn't attempting to build a world simulator, here, they aren't going to get random raiding parties just stomping through time at random moments.

 

[maximaz]

I like the mood of the bar pic but it looks like crap!

 

[Glowing Ghouls]

This brings a question... what happened in Fallout when you killed a key NPC ? Did their quests, etc just vanish ?

Things happened like you'd expect them to happen. Farmer #3 tells you he'll give you a shiny thing if you move the boulder that blocks the way to his field. "OK," you say, shoot him in the guts and go to remove the boulder. When you come back for your reward, Farmer #3 is on the ground and doesn't give it to you. Nothing more or less. The universe doesn't break. The game doesn't break. Having reaped what you sowed, you move on.

Yeah, but this only worked because each city was isolated and NPCs weren't allowed free roaming between cities.

If Fallout 3 is attempting a more "emergent" approach, then say, a band of pirates can run into Shady Sands and kill Farmer #3 before he even gives you the quest, or while you're doing it.

That's why I think that the "NPC knocked down and then get up" approach may be a necessary cop-out unless one is willing to go for deeper life simulation mechanisms, where when a town leader is killed, someone else becomes the town leader.

Indeed that could make for HEAVILY immersive atmosphere of the game.

TownA has a leader, and several factions within it (not factions in the bethesda 'guild' sense, but rather what they view as best for the town and personal goals), but they all respect the leader.

The leader gets killed fighting off some hostile party (a random event that may not happen with 100 differnt people doing multiple playthrus of the game, but happen to a single person), and someone from one of the factions that did NOT agree with the leader's asking/hiring you to do somethin takes over.

So you return to the town and suddenly you're not in the favor of the towns leader, people that disliked but dealt with you before (services, barter, etc etc) suddenly cease to offer said services with the death of hte origonal leader, plus your payment for the quest suddenly is changed, or youre basicly told 'tough luck, we dont care anymore about the widget you recoverd. That would be awsome (admitedly it could be annoying as well, but hey its a RPG, you're supposedly playing for just such an event) but with the 'essentel' tag on characthers, impossible.

 

[Mungrul]

I´m thinking more along the lines of artistic vision, big shots like Moebius/Giger, hell even J.J Abrams and his kin. Why aren´t these people attracted to the medium? Hopefully it won´t be that long before we will see a Werner Herzog, or a Kurosawa, emerge in the game-industry. There is absolutely no reason for VG´s to be limited to dumbed down entertainment for console-cattle.

I think you can qualify someone like Miyamoto as having grand artistic vision. I think it's just that because his games have spawned countless spin-offs, people forget how innovative he's really been.

I think people are also looking to compare videogaming quite naturally to the only other artforms out there that use moving images: movies and video/TV.

But videogames should be approached differently.

You can't apply the same rules of narrative to video-games unless you're aiming to tell a very specific story where the player has very little input, and frankly, that's underselling the medium.

The very best video-game stories make the player feel like their presence had an impact on the world, and that if they played the game again and did things differently, the story would be resolved differently.

This is what a lot of modern developers are getting wrong.

The golden rule should be this:
Either let the player create their own story within your world or don't have a story.

Remember, some of the best video-games in the world haven't had stories.