Fallout 3 discussion

[Lemur]

Well, with all due fairness, the meanness of the fallout boards lately is as much because of the number of people who've decided to come in and start flaming.

Second, you have the hideous amounts of incredibly ignorant and equally as obnoxious and loud Bethesda Fanboys©.

I'm sure the Bethesda fanbois are a pain, but please, I gotta call both of you on this. The Fallout fan boards were brimming with hate long, long before Bethesda was even rumored to be purchasing the rights to Fallout. If some clueless Oblivion-loving fellows have made themselves convenient targets, well, that's too bad for them, isn't it?

But the hate and anger go a lot deeper, and are much older than what you're implying. Heck, I remember how ugly things were getting on the Interplay boards around the time of Fallout Tactics. This is an old anger, a deep, entrenched grudge. I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if, upon their deaths, some of the haters from NMA begin coming back to hate from the dead. It will all be very J-horror, you know, "Play this web game and ten days later you die."

[Bob the Insane]

All this talk has made me dig out the old Oblivion for the PC and get some of those mods in... With something to kill the leveling system it works much better... And with a better system that prevented you being the holiest holy and the evilest evil at the same time and better definied NPCs it would have been a way better RPG experience IMO...

As they have basically promised these items for Fallout 3 I don't think it is all doom and gloom as long as you can deal with the whole FPS nature of the gameplay...

[Phatose]

I'm sure the Bethesda fanbois are a pain, but please, I gotta call both of you on this. The Fallout fan boards were brimming with hate long, long before Bethesda was even rumored to be purchasing the rights to Fallout. If some clueless Oblivion-loving fellows have made themselves convenient targets, well, that's too bad for them, isn't it?

But the hate and anger go a lot deeper, and are much older than what you're implying. Heck, I remember how ugly things were getting on the Interplay boards around the time of Fallout Tactics. This is an old anger, a deep, entrenched grudge. I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if, upon their deaths, some of the haters from NMA begin coming back to hate from the dead. It will all be very J-horror, you know, "Play this web game and ten days later you die."

There are definitely some very pissed off, nearly insane fallout fanboys out there, who have been for a long time. And, well, if FO2 wasn't FO enough to please these guys, then between FOT, BoS, and FO3, they're gonna be nuts.

Find me a community without a psycho or two and I'll show you a very small community.

It's just these days, even the more mild of the Fallout Fans are being aggravated for sport. It's more then just the extremists. It's the entire community. And while there are certainly Bethesda fanboys who are there just to preach, there are also plenty of people there who really have no stake in the matter whatsoever who are just there because they heard fallout fans were all nuts and want to throw the rock at the hornets nests.

Repeat this everywhere on the net, and the entire community is gonna be on edge.



@Bob:

Well, they haven't actually promised to kill the leveling system. It's been altered so at to not be so far reaching, but "fit zone to player level" is still in there.

[TB666]

Well, they haven't actually promised to kill the leveling system. It's been altered so at to not be so far reaching, but "fit zone to player level" is still in there.

And where have you read that ??
I know that they said that level scaling is gone and just like in Fallout there are areas that you can't enter if you are too low-level.

[Bob the Insane]

And where have you read that ??
I know that they said that level scaling is gone and just like in Fallout there are areas that you can't enter if you are too low-level.

He is right, it is referenced in the blog linked above...

Areas of the world that you have not entered yet level up with the player as a whole within limited parameters (minimum and maximum levels I guess) until you enter that area at which point it's overall level is locked and will not change should you return later with your now higher level character...

Kind of maintain the challenge, but still having initially dangerous places and preventing bandits appearing in the best gear... Sort of have your cake and eat it... Will have to see if it works...

Finally, I totally agree with TinCow's summary on the popularity of the setting of Fallout rather than the mechanics...

[Phatose]

And where have you read that ??
I know that they said that level scaling is gone and just like in Fallout there are areas that you can't enter if you are too low-level.

http://fallout3.wordpress.com/2007/0...-on-fallout-3/



As for why fallout's alive, it's not mechanics or setting.
It's just that using somebodies existing world was cheaper then making up a new one. It's not the special romance of fallout, or the dedication of fans to SPECIAL, or the setting or the ambiance or anything.

They could've bought a road warrior license, or made up their own post-apoc setting. This was cheaper. They're obviously not gunning for the existing fanbase, so it's not like they're trying to cash in on the warm and fuzzy feeling people get from the name.

It's that Interplay was having a fire sale, and Bethesda felt like diversifying. Nothing more then that.

[Lemur]

They could've bought a road warrior license, or made up their own post-apoc setting. This was cheaper.

What a strange thing to say. They paid a good deal of money for the license, and they could have gotten rights to Wasteland for much less. There are tons of post-apocalypse books they could have plundered for less money. And how do you figure that doing their own take on the genre would be more expensive than paying a few million for an existing property?

I mean, hey, dump on Bethesda all you like, but try to make sense when you do so.

[Phatose]

How much do you think a skilled designer or team of designers to fully develop a brand new IP, that has to be marketable and usable in a game, is going to cost?

They've got to create the entire world, smooth out incosistencies, create a style and theme, populate it in a way that won't have lawyers for other post apoc IP looking for a lawsuit, while at the same time ensuring it's going to be usable in a game and marketable?


Developing a new IP ain't cheap. Even getting an underdeveloped one up to snuff is going to cost quite a bit. This is the root of why people buy IP to begin with, or license other peoples.

[Bob the Insane]

I think we may be forgeting the geek factor... I mean the accounts at Bethsoft may not be geeks but the project management surely is and many of the programmers and there is plently of Kudos in the gaming world associated with a name like Fallout...

[Lemur]

Developing a new IP ain't cheap. Even getting an underdeveloped one up to snuff is going to cost quite a bit. This is the root of why people buy IP to begin with, or license other peoples.

Well, this is all a bit meaningless without some real data to back up your claims. Who says they have to have skilled designers? Why can't they hire hacks? If they're as cost-conscious as you assert, I can't see why they wouldn't. There are plenty of ways to cut corners and lower costs. BMX-XXX is a prime example. No expensive design involved.

Your assertion that paying several million dollars for a ten-year-old IP was done for cost savings is kinda out there, and unless you can find some data to support it, I'm gonna have to walk away whistling.