WorstUsernameEver

Explodes? Check. Uses energy ammo? Check failed. So I guess it's an explosive. Seriously, though, as Sawer already said, it's not made to make sense realism-wise but rather to categorize weapons easily and generally improve game balance. EDIT : The YK-weapons were re-introduced in Fallout 3 by a mod.. I think it was EVE but I may be wrong. With incredibly cool visuals to boot, too!..... that means I'm in favor of seeing them again, anyway. ANOTHER EDIT : Flamers are under energy weapons apparently. So Sawyer said.

It's not just Bethesda's forums to be honest, there's quite a lot of people on No Mutants Allowed and Duck and Cover that didn't like the choice. And to be fair, the people on Bethesda forums have different opinions, they're not a hive mind intent on deprecating rebalancing. Anyway, I'm interested now in hearing about how points will be distributed in Fallout : New Vegas. Sawyer is making it sound like the game will push you into specializing instead of the jack of all trades approach of Fallout 3, and that's definitely a good thing (at least from my point of view.. some will hate the thing, since they probably didn't like the character development aspect of the game and played it as an action-adventure). There also people on NMA that don't mind the change, even some of the vets. Of course, what I was trying to imply isn't that NMAers are idiots that dislike change, but that the discontent about the decision is not present only in the Beths forums.

Personally I think it's a matter of perception, and personally I was referring to the crowd of old-schoolers who doesn't like the new, more action-rpgy/streamlined games (granted, while I like them I think all audiences should be catered too, and games with 'old' design decisions have been quite succesful), but if you ask what is my perception of it.. well I'd call an rpg 'hardcore' if it's stat-based, has a complex character development & combat system that emphasizes strategy, planning and character's skills instead of player's skills.

Holy ****!

Uhm.. yeah Starwars, I posted it on the other page.

Not only we have Vegas almost unharmed, but we have factions like the NCR and the Gun Runners that are actually making new guns and have probably got their hands on some way to build some low-end energy weapons. And Fallout 3 was full of laser pistols, the first I remember finding was in the Super Duper Mart, so quite early in the game, and there were TWO to boot. Granted, the ammo was scarce, especially if you compare it with the availability of normal 10mm ammo and the likes of it, but still you could find energy weapons quite early.

It's not just Bethesda's forums to be honest, there's quite a lot of people on No Mutants Allowed and Duck and Cover that didn't like the choice. And to be fair, the people on Bethesda forums have different opinions, they're not a hive mind intent on deprecating rebalancing. Anyway, I'm interested now in hearing about how points will be distributed in Fallout : New Vegas. Sawyer is making it sound like the game will push you into specializing instead of the jack of all trades approach of Fallout 3, and that's definitely a good thing (at least from my point of view.. some will hate the thing, since they probably didn't like the character development aspect of the game and played it as an action-adventure).

There are already low end energy weapons in Fallout 3, like the laser pistol, so my guess is that we'll be seeing similar weapons, maybe 'civilian' models, you can use for run & gun tactics and similar. By the way, I hope item descriptions will make a comeback.

Good to hear, he did a very good job on MotB and SoZ I'd say.

To be honest there still hasn't been much rage, anyway here's the link: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topi...o/page__st__120 BTW, I like the changes, though I hope the penalty for not meeting the strength requirements is big and not just a little bit of sway. It would be even better if there's some granularity : you don't meet the requirements for 1 point? sway. you don't meet the requirements because you need 5 strength and you have 1? SO MUCH SWAY. Or rate of fire.. by the way is that really the right wording for a melee weapon?

I'm copying this from Bethesda's forums, straight from J.E. Sawyer's mouth (well.. fingers technically): Gun chat. In 1997, I played the original Fallout. Like the games that followed it, Fallout had Small Guns, Big Guns, and Energy Weapons. In F1, the gun skills were designed for phased obsolescence. If you tagged Big Guns or Energy Weapons early on, you would not be able to gain much, if any, benefit from it for a long time. Even back then, I thought this was problematic. Before playing the game, players could not know how content would limit the applicability of weapons. Ultimately, it came down to three weapons: the minigun, rocket launcher, and flamer. Large, with heavy ammo, and either burst or AoE only. In Fallout 3, the list of Big Guns was expanded to include the fat man, rock-it launcher, and gatling laser. In most situations, these weapons were all still at least mid-power at their weakest. In talking to people in person and online, and in reading online commentary, I found that people were also still unclear on what marked the clear division between Small Guns and Big Guns (and even Energy Weapons, in the case of the Gatling Laser). Certainly the UI could be improved to help with this (something we have already done for F:NV), but it conceptually was a sticking point. When I was looking at Big Guns for F:NV, I considered that the list of weapons was small compared to any other weapon category and several of the weapons arguably belonged (or at least could be easily categorized) elsewhere. Moving the Big Guns to different weapon skills and dissolving the Big Guns skill would allow weapons like the minigun to remain as a powerful top tier weapon without needing to invent low-tier "Big Guns" that might further confuse the dividing line. Coming up with a wide power spectrum of Guns, Energy Weapons, and Explosives would not be hard at all. Since our skill point economy is more frugal (I'll delve into this another time) and since we do have Strength requirements on weapons (resulting in increased sway for firearms and a decreased rate of fire for melee/unarmed), where you invest your skill points and SPECIAL points is still pretty important. A fully upgraded minigun wielded by a character with high Guns and high Strength cuts down rooms of people like a scythe, even at relatively long range. In the hands of an unskilled, low Strength character, it sprays a lot of bullets all over the place. The exact categorization of weapons in F:NV isn't rooted in the logic of transferable skills from real life, but it's arguable they never were previously, either (missile launcher/flamer/minigun, for example). The categorizations have more to do with being clear and consistent with definitions. It follows this basic pattern: * Does it explode? It's an Explosive. * Does it use Small Energy Cells, Microfusion Cells, or other energy ammo? It's an Energy Weapon. * Does it use conventional bullets of some flavor as ammo? It's a Gun. So while it's accurate to say that Big Guns no longer exists as a category, it's not accurate to say that Big Guns and Small Guns were combined. The weapons in Big Guns were divided among the other weapon skills. I know not everyone will be happy with this re-organization, but those are the reasons for the change. I hope the reasons are clear, even if you disagree with the decision. Thanks.

SoZ had a couple of bugs relating the economy system, but yeah, never had much trouble with it. To be fair, I didn't have much trouble with MotB and OC too (yeah, even the OC), so I'm probably just lucky.

Hot, but still not as hot as it could be. Which is good, since I still have exams this month.

As far as I know the characters he and Annie did are still in the game, though of course, the story changed so their role probably changed a bit, and their dialogue was written by someone else (Chris Avellone and maybe someone else I don't know too?) so the tone will probably be a bit different, no matter how true they wanted to be to the characters. Avellone is an awesome writer too and I'm digging what I saw of Alpha Protocol's dialogues so I really can't complain. Now back to the Vampire games... well of course I'd like an rpg based on it, and actually I think that the new setting would suit Mitsoda's writing much more than Vampire : The Masquerade, but I don't know how they could translate the ruleset in a decent manner for a CRPG, and I don't see any sign that indicates that White Wolf is interested, sadly. =/

I like the answers, especially when Parker explains that, yes, Alpha Protocol isn't as hardcore as some old rpgs, but it's the right amount for what they wanted to accomplish. Of course some HARDCORE rpg-ers will take this statement the wrong way, but who cares.

You know but others don't, and it's easier to clear that mess before someone jumps on and says 'Obsidian is made of ex-Troika devs? AWESOME' imho.

Very strange that they skipped Fable II though... maybe we'll see a rushed port to put it into a 'trilogy' very expensive pack?

Uhm.. I'd say probably no for now, for various reasons. First of all, let's clear a common misconception: Obsidian being the devs behind Bloodlines. No, they're not. That was Troika. I think a couple of Troika's devs went to Obsidian after Troika disbanded, including Brian Mitsoda, I think he was the lead writer behind Bloodlines (lead or not, he worked on a lot of the dialogue of the game anyway). Mitsoda worked on Alpha Protocol for a time, making a lot of the characters with Annie Carlson (which has worked on.. Storm of Zehir I think) and working on one of the first drafts of the story, later scrapped in favor of the version that's being published. He left Obsidian to found his personal indie dev team which is.. Doublebear or what the hell it's called, and he's now working on the awesome concept known as ZRPG, an isometric, turn-based, survival role playing game set during a zombie apocalypse. Second, Obsidian now has its hands full.I mean, we don't know for sure what the 'unannounced project' is, so there is still a spot open, but for now there's really nothing that suggests that it's a Vampire rpg, if anything, some little tidbits would suggest that it's a fantasy class-based rpg (mind you, that's extreme speculation on my part and will probably turn out wrong when they announce what it really is), they're also working on Fallout : New Vegas and the Wheel of Time game(s?) with Red Eagle Games at the lead. Third, I believe that for now White Wolf isn't interested in single-player CRPG. Could be because the games published until now have been either canceled or have utterly failed (Vampire : Bloodlines is awesome, but it sold very poorly at the beginning.. I believe it's only selling decently now that Wesp has patched it), or because there's a World of Darkness MMORPG they've been working on (well, technically it's the developer they contracted that's working on it with them supervising). So... yeah, I think we'll have to wait before we see another Vampire game, especially one as awesome as Bloodlines... let's hope not too long.

Only part of this screens are from the Strip, the rest either from Primm or some faction's camp (very probably only the New California's one). Anyway, I like A LOT the look of the Strip. It's like so kind of El Dorado, with the people of the Mojave wasteland living their ****ty life and the walled and protected New Vegas citizen living a luxurious, pre-war style life. There's definitely a nice contrast and while some people will complain that it's not enough post-apocalyptic, I think it's good that they play a bit with the concept, otherwise we'd end up getting very similar, stale and boring stories.

Sounds pretty much like what I expected and I must say.. that's awesome. Good to see that 'til now I haven't heard anyone complaining about technical issues... does this mean that Alpha Protocol is the first... polished... Obsidian game? I certainly hope so.

I agree with all Gromnir's considerations. They could at list go for a mixed approach between accuracy and damage so even if you're dead-on accurate you can still put points raising your weapon damage (and with the damage threshold return, this could indeed be important) or... most probably the designers could come up with something better and more balanced than some rambling on a forum. Or at least they should.

Yup, as funcroc already clarified. To be honest, I've been mislead by someone posting the Sonia IM (or whatever her name is) in a thread about the surprising and shocking/revolutionary announcement of Square Enix Japan that no-one would believe.

This time I'll anticipate our dear funcroc: new milestone just rolled in on project X! Can't wait to reveal the latest and greatest RPG to come outta Square Enix. From David Hoffman's twitter.

I'm actually wondering if Beth will keep some of these changes in Fallout 4 or if they will overhaul the skill system once again. Too soon to think about that probably, but whatever.

Strength requirements for big guns, perception for small guns, perhaps intelligence for energy? I'd go for something like that. The merge wouldn't even bother me if something like that occured. So long as overall we don't winde up with an even less balanced skill system and level cap. I know they've said the game will go up to thirty, but that won't really be a problem if we get fewer points and more skills to dump them into. Strength for all weapons would suffice with heavy weapons being wielded by only particularly strong characters you'd eliminate the problem of sneak characters the occasionally pull out a mingun and clear off a room full of heavily armed Nightkin. Energy weapons is still separated from Firearms, and I personally don't think that small arms need a requirement at all. I really doubt that the Obsidian team can pull off a system even less balanced than Fallout 3 anyway.