Since when did Bethesda made Fallout 1 and 2? In the end, FOnline is still just a Fallout 2 mod, because you need a legal copy of Fallout 2 if you want to play it.
And even if... if Bethesda is scared by us so much that they need to sue us, then wow, we must have some big balls or we work on a mega project and they see their income shattered.
To the rest: I for myself don't like MMOs in general. I played a lot and "different" games and they all bored me already after one week. The longest time I played a MMO was with UO but this is years ago. When I first tested FOnline in late 2007, I was excited-- not in the first moment because it was strange, but on the second day everything changed, I got my first equipment, I met the first cool people etc. etc. Then I played the whole open test long... so approx three weeks, a new record for me, yay. In the second open test it was nearly the same, one could say.. a lot people who never really played any MMO played FOnline the whole three weeks long. And some of the people (heh) are now the developers of FOnline: 2238, the english game based on the FOnline engine.
One question tho':
You already know our core concept?
(Yeah, I love to post that story) I personally hate grinding. It sucks, it is boring and hell, I hate endless grinding for exp and leveling up (in every game). Most in our dev team are roleplayers in their hearts and they don't like grinding and all the other generic MMO stuff too. That's the reason why we try to do something unique with our game and not put the focus on endless monster bashing. At the moment, we try to include as much different ways to do stuff in the game, as possible. But this needs time and we don't have much (next open test starts soon). I think, it will be still good, even in the beginning. FOnline: 2238 will be playable in alpha stage and then updated from time to time. We will see how the outcome will be.