Nightshape

Isn't 75 degree's the same as what Halo use's, or perhaps it's in or around that figure. I know that L4D uses an extremely large angle, 100 perhaps more... I've always found that anything below 80 means I begin to get confused and lost in tight spaces.

Ahhhh How rabbid fallout fans can be...

Can't be that good, not if I ain't heard it... Come on 'PM' me eh!?

Oh go on... I'm betting it's Braid or something like that...

I agree (except for the combat part). But the hatred for Bethesda and new, scary things somehow colours all their opinions about Fallout 3. Yes, the quests were bad. Does that automatically mean the combat was bad, the technology was bad, every new idea that Bethesda brought to the game was bad? No, not really. And this is why it's so annoying trying to discuss Fallout with fans of the series. It's like they all played the old games ten years ago and forgot 95% of them. I've actually seen conversations on this board that went something like this: "Should I play Fallout 3?" "No, the animations suck, the graphics suck and the technology sucks." "But how about Fallout 2 then?" "Oh yeah, that game is the best!" I hope you're not thinking of me when you say this, because I actually LIKE FO3 ALOT!

Mkreku could you knock togeather a quick list of all the elements of the FO3 engine which you think are impressive from a tech point of view so I can place them along side a negatives list and we can then find the clashing points and discuss those? It's a little more analitical to approch consensus on what we think it does nicely/well, than to go "I play crappy animation", HA! "I raise you streaming world".

We are starting to see gameworld well in excess of what we see from puny fallout/oblivions worlds... WoW(from what I here) is huge, and games like Fuel raise the bar (rumoured at 5,000 miles

believe it or not, he actually began to act out the more violent games at school. in particular i think it was uncharted, which is "real" people shooting "real" guns. we just leveled everything at E10 or below for now. there's plenty of violence in many of these games, but it is cartoonish, and he does seem to know the difference. taks I was actually thinking of the moral ambiguity involved with allowing a young child to play adult/teen games. He's your child and you can expose him to whatever you'd like to expose him to in my opinion. It doesn't surprise me that he was acting out the violence at school, I believe it would have the same effect on any child, that said I don't believe that it effects older less impressionable late teens/adults in the same way. Would you let your child watch an R rated movie? So why would you let your child play an R rated game? I just don't get it. It doesn't make sense to me, I don't think you're wrong, I'm making no judgement, my initial thought was that you were thinking he was too young to be effected. I do think you've made the right decision.

Wow. You're using a dancing mod animation made by an amateur that's over-stretching the models (thus creating gaps in the skeleton) as an example of why Bethesda's technology sucks. I'm actually not sure if you're kidding or not. You must be one awesome "game developer" if that's not a joke. And you still haven't defined why Bethesda's technology is so terrible. I'll come and play with you later when I'm not so busy.

No, actually, you're not. You just blurt out that Bethesda's technology is terrible. But feel free to specify just what is so terrible about it, because as an end-user it seems pretty remarkable to me. I am also pretty sure that the engine is not restricting the animators as badly as you all think: If that's what one modder can do, I'm pretty certain that the team at Obsidian can do it too. Why sir, some amazing skinning. featured throughout the video. You're easily impressed! I'm not, I'm a critical sod. As an end user I think beths tech is pants, and I'm not alone in feeling that way. Smoke and mirrors!

It's about the only thing we can certainly say it's probably going to have.

Any engine can be made to support streaming worlds, it's a matter of creating the technology and the pipeline to support it. So you claim that Bethesda's technology is "terrible" and your argument is that all you have to do is make something better..? That's not what I am trying to say at all... Bethesda has some fairly good streaming tech, that's about it... I wouldn't say that it's amazing. Not true at all. It genuinely depends on the specifications for the project, if I have missed something let me know, I was under the impression that we pretty much know next to nothing. Creating a streaming engine is only one part of an overall game engine. Bethesda fall down in loads of other places and I'm specifically speaking about those things. The environments are certainly one of the things they've got correct within their technology. I could make several guesses at how exactly they've achieved it, but I don't see how it matters really, you're free to think what you like, I am free to know what I know and make judgements based on that.

It's beyond cringeworthy, it's amaturish crap. My feeling is that it is likely related to tech, afterall, who'd hire an animator from Bethseda based on the work produced? I don't know, it forgivable due to gameplay, but the simple fact that everyone looks like they're walking on ice. Adam Brenneke I just got done playing Black, I know it's an FPS, but the quality and quantity of the animations are well in excess of beth's stuff. That had a development cycle of 9 months, it's a totally different case in alot of respects but hey, what the hell are Obsidian's animators going to be upto? It's probably in their interest to either redo/fixup any animation. Oh the pressure is certainly on, I'm stuck on a short dev cycle myself and the pressure has been on since the get go, and it's quite a load to bare. Based upon the experience of the team, it's certainly doable, CRPG's are what obsidian do best, they've likely already scoped and planned the project already, hence I doubt they're currently in preproduction. We shall see, I am making guessing aswell but I do believe that it'll be surprising how much they can get done in a short time period. I really hope it turns out to be more than a FO3 mod, and runs using the Onxy engine, but hey I'm sure all will become clear over time.

Please, they have either chosen not to or are unable to support the kind of fidelity required to even contend. The environments are fairly good but everything else sucks. I am concerned that Obsidian will be forced into producing the same kind of low quality character artwork that Bethseda produce for their games due to engine "limitations".

Really? Feel free to mention all the other sandbox, gigantic-world-rendering-without-a-hitch RPG engines that you know of, that also ships with an easy to use editor? The only major flaw that I can see with Bethesda's engine is that it has to have loading times when you enter buildings/caves/cities/whatever. That means you can never look through windows and all doors/windows/holes are "painted on". Any engine can be made to support streaming worlds, it's a matter of creating the technology and the pipeline to support it. Beth's stuff is built ontop of Gamebyro (a turd of an engine) so you could say that basically it's got some crappy foundations. GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas all used Renderware. World streaming is hard to do, and nobody said Obsidian would even be streaming in their world... That aside, it's the one thing beth's tech is okay at, it's not great, but it can do it. If I may be so blunt, if Obsidian go with beth's tech, and assets then we're really just buying a modification of FO3? FO3 but with some well written dialog, same crappy environment textures, and characters made of wood. *YAWN*

Uh huh... But ya know Red Bull gives you wings! Didn't MCA once say something about having a heart complaint due to excessive caffine intake at one point in his life? I'm not certain about Mr Josh being involved in this project, that poor geeza is jinxed, it'll be canned before we see a screenie.

This can be debated, but what you have to bare in mind is that Beth's technology is built off Gamebyro, and Havok. A couple of middleware solutions which require licencing. It's not clear what the conditions are so if Obsidian have to buy licence's for this tech, what exactly is the saving? It's not forced to be a financial saving, they could make a saving in regards to engine development time and asset like you imply. This depends on the maturity of the Onxy asset pipeline I guess, it really depends upon that. If the asset pipeline is mature enough then it's a matter of reprocessing the data to fit with onxy, if they've got access to the source assets that is. It's also questionable why they'd want to reuse source assets, matters of art direction, and the simple fact of where it's set, Las Vegas. Whatever Obsidian choose to do, they need to do something about the P.O.S. Animations/Characters in FO3. Asset generation is only part of the problem, and it really depends upon Obsidians capacity to create new artwork. I don't personally think very highly of the tech which beth's has produced. I've often refered to FO3 as that turd of a game which somehow sparkles when you stir it togeather.

And when they do I'll believe it, I'll also be around to say "BAD MOVE GUYS!" Beth's tech is terrible.

i believe it's been confirmed they're using the same engine as FO3. I won't believe it until I here someone official say so... got a link?

An engine change would also mean we'd have to wait 18-24 month more. No thanks, using the Fallout 3 engine has been a smart (and the obvious) decision. You might want to rethink that post. Onyx is already built. Granted, the art assets from FO3 may cut about 6 months off development time (not to mention costs). Oh I'd say it's likely to be 12-18 months... Depends what engine they use, I hope they go with Onyx.

I made that noise too...

UPDATE 360: Now: Halo 2 So far Halo 2 is prooving to actually be a good and solid console FPS. It's far more enjoyable than Halo: Combat Evolved, visually is not bad, little over zealous on the normal mapping but otherwise pleasing. The colour palette seems alot less harsh and the overall art direction is certainly better. The gameplay feels slicker too, considering I've come into Halo 2 straight from Halo: Combat Evolved, I expected it to be more of the same and extremely stale. I'm being pleasantly surprised. Next: Halo 3 Previous: Halo: Combat Evolved I still don't understand why Halo was popular, level asset recycling is done to death, the level design is cookie cutter copy and paste, the art direction is poor. I don't see any reason why anyone would want to play Halo. It's a pretty horrible game. The story is average, and its certainly not delivered in an engaging manner. Verdict: 4/10 Now: GTA IV. I've been playing GTA IV since release, in short bursts. It's been one of those long, exuasting experiences which I have very little respect for, the gameplay is fairly fun, but hasn't really evolved very far since GTA III, and the story has not been worthy of mention. I do believe that the whole spree kill factor keeps the game interesting. Next: Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Previous: Black All in all I don't feel that Black was a bad experience, as an Audio and Visual experience it was top notch perhaps even the best experience of the last generation consoles, sadly the gameplay was certainly lacking, feeling like it was only a few steps removed from Doom. I certainly say it's worth playing if you like FPS's on consoles, it looks as good as a first generation X360 game. The story was forgetable, some strange live action pants which should have just been avoided entirely. It also wasn't skippable! very annoying. The level design and asset quality was well in excess of Halo, (which I would have expected Black being released in 2006). Verdict: 6/10 Now: Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Tactical shooter, not alot to say about it really. I do believe it's extremely challenging. Next: Gears of War, on Hardcore. Now: Endwar. I mostly play this online, I've not actually completed the games compaign Next: Nothing, I only play this occasionally online for an hour or two at a time. Wii: (GameCube) Now: Resident Evil Zero. I've been playing this for months, I mean that, I have found it to be a game that drags on, alot... It's not bad, mostly I have found it to be dull. I'm waiting for that final push, I just haven't managed to build up the motivation. Still haven't managed to motivate myself. Next: Resident Evil. (Virtual Console: NES) Now: The Legend of Zelda I've had this sitting around for ages on my Wii, I kinda fooled around with it for 10 minutes, and kinda smiled alot thinking it was a cute game but never bothered to play it properly. Until today when I just sat down and spent some time playing it properly, I've decided to continue playing it and see how it goes. Next: Zelda II (Wii) Now: MadWorld I've only played this for a short period of time since I picked up a copy, seems kinda novel and humourious so far... Not much to say at the moment. Next: Geometry Wars: Galaxies PC: Now: Hellgate: London I play this at lunch because it allows me to jump in and do a quick quest and not really care about anything other than slaying a bunch of monsters. (Work PC) Next: Dark Messiah Might and Magic. Now: Bioshock I don't get what the fuss was about this game when it was released... That said, I don't think it's bad. (Desktop at home, I just fixed it) Next: The Witcher. Now: Fallout I've not been playing this aggressively but after playing through FO3 I decided to go back and play FO... I'm enjoying it! And I'm enjoying the more casual pace that I am playing it at. (Laptop at home) Next: Neverwinter Nights OC.

What is the point of saying something like that? Alot of years of frustration at ramza's posts all coming out at once. I am in no way criticizing you for whatever frustration you may nor may not feel, but we are a community to at least some degree. Your words just seemed unneccessarily harsh. Yeah, I totally stepped over the line... Sorry Ramza.

If that's your perspective. Good for you! I'm mostly trying to be informative. I suppose I can be a little harsh, I cry ignorance alot, because I see that as a problem with fans. They're ignorant, making large things seem very small, because such a feature seems so small to someone in a position of ignorance. I've shared everything I've learnt over the years openly, correcting and pointing out differences when I felt the need to, I wouldn't even say I am 100% right all of the time. It's not about getting in someone's face about something, it's about communicating facts. Ramza is stuck in a fantasy of BG3 being released some day in its original form(Black Isle's BG3), so much so that he's making statements like he did, I'd just gotten so tired of reading posts in the vain of the one I commented on that I probably stepped over the line.

What is the point of saying something like that? Alot of years of frustration at ramza's posts all coming out at once.