Matthew Rorie

The game will default to the last stance that you took. So if your last response was Suave (even if it was in the last level or in another hub), the next time you're faced with a dialogue choice you will default to Suave and use that if the timer clicks out without you changing it.

I feel like we're in a position where we post this reminder every few days. If people cannot remember and post according to the forum guidelines, we will move past the "post reminders" phase. (And yes, I know you were joking.)

I updated the link in the post above, and it should now not require a FB account to view it.

Personal attacks on other developers attract the Eye of Sauron. Repent.

I hate pringles for their advertising. For the longest time they ran these ads insinuating that opening a tin of pringles was a ticket to PARTYVILLE and that music would start playing and your family would love you if you ate them, but oh no, cut to Mr. McGreasyHands who's eating regular chips and wiping his hands on his shirt as he cries off in a corner, sure in the knowledge that loneliness will accompany him to the grave. I generally hate any advertising, on a frightening and primal level, that insinuates that buying a product will in some way make you happier. To a degree this means I hate all adversiting, but some ad campaigns are much more blatant about it.

Oh. Well, in that case, then no, there's not different types of SMG ammo for SMG Model A versus SMG Model B; all SMGs use the same kinds of SMG ammo, all pistols use the same kinds of pistol ammo, etc.

There's more than one type of ammo for each weapon. I don't know that we've discussed that system too much, though.

Or will it?????

Underrated ? really?it was praised and played a lot around here. Actually i think i'm gonna go find my disc ang go play it. Most of the internet nerdery revolving around it when it came out, at least in the circles I traveled, was pretty negative. It definitely had some incredibly bits (that's the ending cinematic if anyone cares about spoilers, but it basically tells you nothing about the game except that you win). Still, I had a good time with it. I loved going through with the toxic guns in real-time mode. Took a lot of scientist time to make the ammo, but damn was it ever fun to make those aliens melt.

We're giving away a signed copy of Storm of Zehir on Twitter now. You'll need a twitter account to enter for it, though. I have a few more to give away, so don't worry if you can't sign up for Twitter or don't want to.

not being facetious, just wondering where the lines are drawn in this regard. 'cause truth be told, i have a really hard time respecting this company. Just address the game(s), not the company. That's what I am going to do. This is the wisest course of action.

That is a fine constructive comment. We have been discussing the merits of multiple topics for a while and will probably start them when this thread reaches the post limit. But there will be less tolerance for posts that fall outside of the forum guidelines if we do so. So everyone gets to feel like they're contributing something; you guys behave, and we give you a bigger playground to play around in.

waitaminute here. have they actually said this? why would they do this? so they can just ban everybody who has anything negative to say about their games? i don't get it and would love to hear the explanation as to why the goddamn company developing the game can't have a forum about the game and the publisher (who is not developing said game) holds the puppet strings here. EDIT: and don't just jolly well say "money!" or i'll be forced to take issue with you, sir! They have not said that, and none of us want them to say that. But the fact of the matter here is that we have pretty specific forum guidelines that all posters are expected to follow, regardless of subject, and there are a number of posts in these Fallout topics that push the envelope. If you guys want more threads to discuss Fallout in, start showing us that you can behave in this one.

I'll respond to this, but then I gotta get back to work . Just keep in mind that there should be plenty of detailed previews after E3 hits. And if I don't respond to specific questions, usually it's because things are still being worked on. NPC's will attempt to roll away from grenades, yes. At the moment they're doing it a bit too well. In the end I think the normal grunts will probably be less reactive to grenades than the higher-end enemies and bosses. I believe it's in the works for enemies to react to seeing dead bodies. Enemies do react to noise and gunfire. Silencers are available for the pistol, but you deal less damage while they're equipped (at least with the less-expensive silencers). I don't think I should go into too much detail regarding enemy alert states, but yes, they do have varying degrees of awareness based on things like alarms, having seen Mike, hearing gunfire, etc. And they do decay in awareness over time. I've probably said too much already! I'm sure you guys are aching for details, but keep in mind that there are a lot of dev diaries and trailers and blogs, etc., to come in the next few months.

Keep it civil.

We've tried a few things, but at this juncture we've got the good old "earn enough XP to gain a level, get advancement points to put into your skills" model. You mainly get XP by completing objectives and either killing/avoiding enemies (so that stealthy/avoidance players are not penalized for not killing everything). Enemies do scale in difficulty with the amount of skill that you've gained - since you can travel to any hub in any order, this is necessary to ensure that enemies are not too strong/too weak if you bounce around through the hubs.

All of which I probably could've not commented on had I bothered to read the article. Still, interesting. I think the Intel marketing power will still keep the Atom in the bulk of future netbooks, though.

Interesting news, if true. I'm thinking they see netbook sales as the future for Windows, and are looking to solidify their position there. Since Apple seems to thus far be ceding the netbook battle to Windows and Linux, it's not a bad move.

We have a series of safehouses that you go to in between missions. You can check them out in the latest gameplay walkthrough trailer. The safehouses are where you head back to check your email, buy more gear, change up your weapons, armor, and mods, talk to contacts on the videophone, and generally get ready for your next mission. And yes, you get to choose which missions you want to do, so if you want to play through Rome for a bit, then head over to Moscow for a while, then play through Taipei, you can do that. Or you can finish off Moscow before ever heading to Taipei, etc.

No, I don't think anything that extreme is going to be in the cards.

There are definitely missions in the game where stealth is an asset, and you will be doing typical spy-type actions. Stuff like entering a building full of guards and attempting to hack a computer behind a locked door on the top floor, then escaping without anyone knowing you were ever there. We try pretty hard to ensure that people can either stealth their way through missions or go through with guns blazing, though (though there may be consequences to killing everyone you see, obviously). But I'm sure we'll do a dev diary or walkthrough trailer on the stealth mechanics at some point so you guys can see how it works for yourself.

Cool, thanks. I'll port it home tonight. I love me some of these minigames.

Not sure if anyone's made a thread for this yet, but I haven't seen it. I just beat this the other day on my work machine, but I was wondering if anyone has found where the saves are stored? It'd be handy to bring them over to my home machine and get them on there as well so I don't have to play through the whole game again. Anyway, if you haven't tried PVZ, I recommend it. It's not as challenging as some other tower defense games probably are, but I enjoy it nonetheless, and some of the minigames and extra challenges are definitely crazy. It's only 10 bucks on Steam, as well (but you don't get the customary install-it-five-times-on-any-computers if you get it on Steam, though).

What a telling omission you've got there Mr. Rorie. Happy now?

Just keep in mind that as a privately-owned company, Obsidian isn't legally required to provide these kind of details to the public. Not that it wouldn't be great to help you with your project, but providing details on stuff like "takeovers", "potential weaknesses", or "resignation of key staff" probably isn't going to be something we can do in this forum, or quite likely any other. I can say that Obsidian was founded in 2003 by the owners mentioned above by Syraxis. Our first project was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, which was followed by Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of the Betrayer, and Storm of Zehir. We're currently working on Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas, and other stuff. Our main products are computer and console role-playing games, with an emphasis on deep and involved storylines. One area of strength is the experience of our team. Our owners have something like 80+ years of experience in the gaming industry between them, which makes it easier to deal with the trials and tribulations that come along with game development.