Matthew Rorie

Don't hold me to this, because things often change in game development, but if I had to compare it to anything, it's a bit like NWN2. There's a portion of it that you have to go through (as it's integral to setting up the story), but the bulk of the technical stuff (learning about firing weapons, using gadgets, etc.) can be skipped.

I don't think we have any info on this at this point, sorry.

You made me chuckle. But no worries guys. I'm happy to talk about stuff when I can, but obviously I need to make sure I don't talk about stuff here that may someday become part of a marketing or PR effort (i.e. if Sega plans to someday publish a dev diary about customization, I shouldn't talk about it a huge amount here). But I will try to pipe in from time to time to answer questions.

This is something that will probably be covered through a video at some point, so I don't want to give away too much lest I step on someone's toes. Short answer is that you have a lot of customization options for MT. It's all been coming together over the last month or so and a lot of the features that we've put in should be popping up in screenshots around E3 time or sooner. So we'll all finally be able to see MT with something other than the default haircut.

You have lethal and nonlethal ways to incapacitate opponents. In some cases you might want to avoid killing "hostile" forces, such as when you're sneaking past innocent(ish) security guards or cops. (You can kill them if you like, but your handlers might not approve, and might wind up disliking you because of it.) Or you might just want to be a pacifist spy. So we try to let people do that when feasible, but I don't think you can get through the entire game without ever firing a weapon.

That's basically the case. The Suave/Professional/Aggressive buttons are often replaced by more context-sensitive choices, though, as you'll see in videos of our dialogue system. But your choices usually match up to one of those three basic emotions, and if you want Mike to stick with a certain emotion throughout the game, you only need to make one choice and the game will default to it (or whatever your other last choice was) throughout the game. As far as timing goes, it does sometimes depend on the dialogue that you're responding to, but it's usually around five seconds. You'll be able to pause the dialogue if you need to take a break, or fast forward through them on a line-by-line basis if you want to get through them quickly.

That seems probable. Though I'm fairly certain we've seen an older video which showed PS3 buttons in their place rather than generic white dots. I'm pretty sure the white dots were to ensure that the same video could be placed on XBL and PSN. Sometimes Sony/MS don't like it when trailers prominently feature the buttons of the other console. So blanking them out makes it less likely that they'll complain when you try to put the trailer on their respective services. I'm not 100% sure on that, but it makes sense.

Right now his pistol is holstered on his chest. It might be hard to see in older screenshots because I think it was changed recently, but I'm sure it'll be on view in upcoming screens/videos. Having a bunch of different holsters available on different parts of the body is probably not going to happen, as you have to have different animations for each one. And that's a lot of work for something that doesn't affect gameplay all that much. But we do have a lot of wardrobe items to choose from, as well as a bunch of character customization options to cycle through. A lot of it has only gone in relatively recently, so hopefully you'll be seeing more of those in screenshots as they hit magazines and websites in the future.

I think we are getting into technicalities. "Terror" rather than "horror" is good enough for me! Let's get some Aliens! Orson Scott Card had a good essay about the difference between dread (anticipation), horror (primal fear), and terror (shock at something that just happened). Interesting read if you can find it.

I used to use an ATI TV Wonder Pro with Dscaler (dscaler.org), but it's a pain to set up and they come out in low-res. Saves you a lot of processing overhead though.

There's an excellent chance of that. The builds we play already look a lot better; there's a bit of lag time between when these are recorded versus when the footage is released.

yer. no problem here, i didn't realize it had to be that way. No worries, just clearing it up.

Gonna repost this for anyone who missed it. We've got a pretty even-tempered mod team here, and we're happy to let this thread be your sandbox to play around in, but try to keep the discussion focused on Fallout, as opposed to old flamewars or why you got banned from another messageboard. All of our new posters have a clean slate as far as we're concerned, but please endeavour to keep it that way. It's ok to disagree and be passionate, so long as everything is kept civil. And try to keep everything in this thread. I'm as big a fan of that as some of you probably are, but unfortunately that's the way it is going to be. There is a Fallout Spoilers thread in the Spoilers sub-forum if you want to discuss plot points.

Let's try to keep Fallout-related discussions in one topic if possible.

Recently we set up and have been fooling around with a Facebook Page for Obsidian. It's open to the public to join, so if you feel like checking it out, it's here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Ob...ent/82956101592 There are not necessarily going to be SHOCKING EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS, but it might be a good way for some of you who check Facebook every day to keep abreast of what's up with Obsid.

Customization is coming along pretty nicely. I've been taking a bunch of screens with some of the beard options on. I like the 5:00 shadow one.

You can bounce around hubs all you like. Do two missions in Moscow, go to Taipei for a bit, finish off Rome...you can do that stuff in whatever order you like.

Part 2 of this interview is available at the bottom of that first page, in case anyone missed that.

It doesn't cost 50g to respec (at least not with the dual specialization ability), but you have to plunk down 1000g to buy the ability. (Actually, I guess it will cost you 50g to change a spec that you've already laid out after you buy the ability; not sure). I don't think there's a cooldown.

Pretty sure you can swap specs anywhere outside of an Arena or while you're in combat, actually. Maybe not in battlegrounds, either. http://www.wowwiki.com/Dual_Talent_Specialization Switching between specializations Currently in the PTR, there is no reagent, cooldown, or monetary cost to switch. Players will not be able to switch between specs during combat, in Battlegrounds (except during Preparation, before the battle begins), or in Arenas (no exception).[1] Lexicons of Power will not be necessary for switching between saved talent specs and glyphs. Players will be able to switch between their chosen talents anywhere.[1] Switching between talent specs will take 5 seconds, and all mana and resources will be reset to zero when doing so.[1] To switch, pull up the talent pane, select the primary or secondary spec and activate the talents. Once the 5 second cast has completed, your glyphs, action bars, and talents have all be restored to your other specialization.

"Execute".

Ha, way to help out Rorie. Yeah, at least you could answer us one of these three questions: 1) Is it a licensed game or a new IP? (My suspicion: licensed game - hence the early contract signing) 2) Is it a fantasy game, a sci-fi game or a modern game? 3) Is it a RPG? It is a game. But srsly, not going to be able to talk about anything for a while. I'm sure you guys will have fun speculating in the meantime.

There's a shot in one of the recent trailers of an AI attempting to dive away from a grenade. We're tweaking it a bit at the moment - for a while now the AI has been, if anything, a little too good at diving away from grenades.

The only hint we can provide is that the game will be awesome.