WorstUsernameEver
But best title ever!
Board Game Geek had a forum community Q&A with Fallout's lead designer Chris Taylor, and surprise surprise, it turns out people were interested in asking a few question on the franchise and even the Wasteland 2 revival. There's plenty of interesting tidbits there so I'll be generous with the quotes:<blockquote>What do you think of the resurrection of Wasteland?
Oh, it's great. Wasteland was one of the games that made me want to be a computer game designer. There were a couple key ideas from Wasteland that formed the core of the work that I did on Fallout (player actions should have consequences and statistics matter).
So to see the success they've had with their Kickstarter campaign is very heart-warming. I just got a chance to see their first screenshot and it looks very promising. I will be playing it the day it comes out.
Now, for some inside dirt, I actually did a treatment a few years ago for inXile for a Wasteland 2 (along with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky). Leonard did this concept art of a mutant dog riding a human that I will always treasure. (And an armed Nun that you would not want to run into in the middle of the night.) It was a fun pitch to make even if it didn't go anywhere.
I understand they have Chris Avellone working on the new game in some capacity. If so, that's wonderful news. He is a great designer and should really have fun with the Wasteland world.
(..)
I know that you were heavily involved in Fallout 1, mostly in designing the SPECIAL system from all I've read. Did you partake in any of the development of the plot? If so which portions of the plot did you have the biggest involvement in?
I was the lead game designer for Fallout 1 after Scott Campbell left the project. Scott did most of the original story and areas. I edited his work, finished some areas (other designers finished other areas), wrote a majority of the spoken dialogue, did most of the work on SPECIAL after we lost the GURPS license (it was based on my homebrew RPG campaign), generated the weapon/armor data spreadsheets and wrote the manual. Oh, and did the HTML for our really cruddy website. That was my fault!
I didn't come up with the original plot of a vaultdweller leaving the vault to get the water-chip. That was Scott Campbell, Tim Cain and Chris Jones, IIRC. I may be wrong.
I was there for the original discussions at Cocos we were brainstormed various GURPS settings. Most of those were multi-genre and had to be discarded due to the cost of doing art for multiple worlds.
(..)
Did you get to meet any of the voice actors for the game, like Ron Perlman, Richard Dean Anderson, or Tony Shaloub?
Yes, I did. I went with Mark O'Green and/or Fred Hatch to the recording sessions to handle any last minute changes to the dialogue. Ron Perlman was the nicest person I've ever met. He gave us his Dodger's tickets and we went to the game after the recording session. My ass has been where Ron Perlman's ass has been.
Richard Dean Anderson was a perfect gentleman. He was really interested in his character. We had some video of the 3d heads that we could show to the actors and he liked his Killian avatar.
It was an amazing experience to watch the professional voice actors work. We had a really good voice director and watching him interact with the actors was one of the highlights for me.
Do you ever speak with any of the Fallout 3 programmers at Bethesda (a few of which are members on BGG) or do they ever approach you for advice or knowledge?
Not at all.
(..)
Have you watched any of the Nuka Break independent Fallout movies they have on youtube?
Yep. Good stuff. The whole Fallout fan movement is way bigger than I ever thought it would be. There are some really dedicated fans out there.
(..)
1. You mentioned designing a Fallout Miniatures game, what's your take on a wasteland settling or scavenging New Vegas game?
Any post-apocalyptic setting worthy of the Wasteland name should have guns with limited ammo; all sorts of odd scavenged weapons; mutants, mutated animals and icky green mutation liquid pools of some sort; vehicles that would make the Road Warrior proud and enough morale dilemmas to shake a snake at.
I'd like to see a 4X style game, with players exploring nearby areas, sending out teams to uncover old technology or scavenge raw materials, and limited resources that can be fought over.
(..)
You've probably been asked this before, but what are your thoughts on Fallout 3?
I once said I'd only comment on Fallout 3 if I had nice things to say about it.
I really liked Fallout New Vegas. I thought it was a very good game. They had a good story, the interactivity was much improved and the Fallout humor was there in the right amount. Obsidian did a great job on New Vegas. I'm biased, of course, and think that FO1 was the best of the series. New Vegas is very good and comes closer to FO1 for me than any of the other games.
Personally, I liked the turn based combat of Fallout 1 & 2 (I have Fallout tactics, but never got round to playing it - should I?).
I liked the turn-based combat of FO1/2 as well. I was a big fan of the Jagged Alliance games of the time, too. I'd rather you play JA than Fallout Tactics.
Tactics wasn't quite finished. It was rushed out the door and didn't get the final polishing it needed.
We also made a bad decision by adding the real-time gameplay about half-way through development. While that didn't take too long to implement (in fact, it was ready before the turn-based combat was), we didn't realize at the time that it was going to cripple playtesting. Instead of playtesting each mission once, we had to playtest it three times. We just didn't test enough to balance the game or fix all the issues.
It's a decent game. Actually, Fallout Tactics a good game with some problems. There are better games to play unless you're a die-hard Fallout fan.
I was very frustrated to hear the long awaited Fallout 3 was going to be real time in the combat - while I played both Fallout 3 and New Vegas I found the combat to be dumbed down, and VATS was a shadow of it's former self (ie VATS in Fallout 1 & 2 was superior).
Much like the combat in Oblivion, I felt that instead of each % point put into a skill having an incremental effect (as it did in Fallout 1 & 2), in Fallout 3 & NV there were 'stat thresholds' where skills would have a noticeable improvement, eg shooting handling would improve every 25%.
What is your personal opinion of these design changes? Do you agree that these things I've percieved exist? If you do, do you see them as a big flaw?
I thought the combat in FONV was fine for being real-time. I understand the nature of the business that they felt they could't afford to go turn-based.
I think VATS is overpowered. I tried not to use it, but it did seem better in FONV.
I tried not to critically analyze the gameplay mechanics of the newer Fallout games. I just wanted to enjoy the games for what there were. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of both games. FONV did a great job with that.
The big improvement from Fallout 1 & 2 to Fallout 3 was the way the inventory was handled - what are your thoughts on this?
Yes. I take full responsibility for the inventory interface design in FO1/2. It worked okay in the beginning, but was too difficult to manipulate during actual gameplay. We didn't really notice it until it was too late.
I would have preferred a Diablo-style inventory interface.</blockquote>
Oh, it's great. Wasteland was one of the games that made me want to be a computer game designer. There were a couple key ideas from Wasteland that formed the core of the work that I did on Fallout (player actions should have consequences and statistics matter).
So to see the success they've had with their Kickstarter campaign is very heart-warming. I just got a chance to see their first screenshot and it looks very promising. I will be playing it the day it comes out.
Now, for some inside dirt, I actually did a treatment a few years ago for inXile for a Wasteland 2 (along with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky). Leonard did this concept art of a mutant dog riding a human that I will always treasure. (And an armed Nun that you would not want to run into in the middle of the night.) It was a fun pitch to make even if it didn't go anywhere.
I understand they have Chris Avellone working on the new game in some capacity. If so, that's wonderful news. He is a great designer and should really have fun with the Wasteland world.
(..)
I know that you were heavily involved in Fallout 1, mostly in designing the SPECIAL system from all I've read. Did you partake in any of the development of the plot? If so which portions of the plot did you have the biggest involvement in?
I was the lead game designer for Fallout 1 after Scott Campbell left the project. Scott did most of the original story and areas. I edited his work, finished some areas (other designers finished other areas), wrote a majority of the spoken dialogue, did most of the work on SPECIAL after we lost the GURPS license (it was based on my homebrew RPG campaign), generated the weapon/armor data spreadsheets and wrote the manual. Oh, and did the HTML for our really cruddy website. That was my fault!
I didn't come up with the original plot of a vaultdweller leaving the vault to get the water-chip. That was Scott Campbell, Tim Cain and Chris Jones, IIRC. I may be wrong.
I was there for the original discussions at Cocos we were brainstormed various GURPS settings. Most of those were multi-genre and had to be discarded due to the cost of doing art for multiple worlds.
(..)
Did you get to meet any of the voice actors for the game, like Ron Perlman, Richard Dean Anderson, or Tony Shaloub?
Yes, I did. I went with Mark O'Green and/or Fred Hatch to the recording sessions to handle any last minute changes to the dialogue. Ron Perlman was the nicest person I've ever met. He gave us his Dodger's tickets and we went to the game after the recording session. My ass has been where Ron Perlman's ass has been.
Richard Dean Anderson was a perfect gentleman. He was really interested in his character. We had some video of the 3d heads that we could show to the actors and he liked his Killian avatar.
It was an amazing experience to watch the professional voice actors work. We had a really good voice director and watching him interact with the actors was one of the highlights for me.
Do you ever speak with any of the Fallout 3 programmers at Bethesda (a few of which are members on BGG) or do they ever approach you for advice or knowledge?
Not at all.
(..)
Have you watched any of the Nuka Break independent Fallout movies they have on youtube?
Yep. Good stuff. The whole Fallout fan movement is way bigger than I ever thought it would be. There are some really dedicated fans out there.
(..)
1. You mentioned designing a Fallout Miniatures game, what's your take on a wasteland settling or scavenging New Vegas game?
Any post-apocalyptic setting worthy of the Wasteland name should have guns with limited ammo; all sorts of odd scavenged weapons; mutants, mutated animals and icky green mutation liquid pools of some sort; vehicles that would make the Road Warrior proud and enough morale dilemmas to shake a snake at.
I'd like to see a 4X style game, with players exploring nearby areas, sending out teams to uncover old technology or scavenge raw materials, and limited resources that can be fought over.
(..)
You've probably been asked this before, but what are your thoughts on Fallout 3?
I once said I'd only comment on Fallout 3 if I had nice things to say about it.
I really liked Fallout New Vegas. I thought it was a very good game. They had a good story, the interactivity was much improved and the Fallout humor was there in the right amount. Obsidian did a great job on New Vegas. I'm biased, of course, and think that FO1 was the best of the series. New Vegas is very good and comes closer to FO1 for me than any of the other games.
Personally, I liked the turn based combat of Fallout 1 & 2 (I have Fallout tactics, but never got round to playing it - should I?).
I liked the turn-based combat of FO1/2 as well. I was a big fan of the Jagged Alliance games of the time, too. I'd rather you play JA than Fallout Tactics.
Tactics wasn't quite finished. It was rushed out the door and didn't get the final polishing it needed.
We also made a bad decision by adding the real-time gameplay about half-way through development. While that didn't take too long to implement (in fact, it was ready before the turn-based combat was), we didn't realize at the time that it was going to cripple playtesting. Instead of playtesting each mission once, we had to playtest it three times. We just didn't test enough to balance the game or fix all the issues.
It's a decent game. Actually, Fallout Tactics a good game with some problems. There are better games to play unless you're a die-hard Fallout fan.
I was very frustrated to hear the long awaited Fallout 3 was going to be real time in the combat - while I played both Fallout 3 and New Vegas I found the combat to be dumbed down, and VATS was a shadow of it's former self (ie VATS in Fallout 1 & 2 was superior).
Much like the combat in Oblivion, I felt that instead of each % point put into a skill having an incremental effect (as it did in Fallout 1 & 2), in Fallout 3 & NV there were 'stat thresholds' where skills would have a noticeable improvement, eg shooting handling would improve every 25%.
What is your personal opinion of these design changes? Do you agree that these things I've percieved exist? If you do, do you see them as a big flaw?
I thought the combat in FONV was fine for being real-time. I understand the nature of the business that they felt they could't afford to go turn-based.
I think VATS is overpowered. I tried not to use it, but it did seem better in FONV.
I tried not to critically analyze the gameplay mechanics of the newer Fallout games. I just wanted to enjoy the games for what there were. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of both games. FONV did a great job with that.
The big improvement from Fallout 1 & 2 to Fallout 3 was the way the inventory was handled - what are your thoughts on this?
Yes. I take full responsibility for the inventory interface design in FO1/2. It worked okay in the beginning, but was too difficult to manipulate during actual gameplay. We didn't really notice it until it was too late.
I would have preferred a Diablo-style inventory interface.</blockquote>
