Slowtrain

You know what bugged me about those marked lines in FO3? For the most part they added nothing to the game. You got an additional line of dialogue based on ENdurance or Science or Entomologist and most of the time time they were just throwaway lines that meant nothing. Why would you spend time writing "special" lines for a game that added nothing other than the line itself. To me it's just more proof that Bethesda simply doesn't grasp the concept of "consequences". In a crpg, things need to have meaningful consequences that make the player feel like they have made a significant choice. Bethesda appears to believe that a crpg is defined by giving the player a whole ****load of completely meaningless things to do. To me its a really empty philosphy of game design, especially when applied to crpgs.

If this one doesn't do something different, preferably with story and characters, I won't be buying it either. I thought FO3 was all right, certainly much better than Oblivion, but it wasn't interesting enough to merit me playing another version of the same game based in a different part of the US.

It's really only relevant if they have full creative control. If everything has to go by Bethesda for approval, then it's really a bethesda game not an Obsidian Hopefully Bethesda has the courage to take a hands off approach and let Obsidian spin the game in the manner they feel is appropriate. They can start by using 2 syllable words in the dialogues. Or even 3 syllables. Imagine the possibilities!

I think I'll just wait here for those of you are tolerant enough to visit Bethie's forums to bring back whatever interesting news there is.

I wonder if we will ever find out just how much freedom Obsidian really has in the design of the game. Really, it could be that Bethesda is still the "brains" behind the project and Obsidian is just the sub-contracted labor punching the 100 hour a week clock. WHich would be depressing.

I think its great to have some of the guys from NMA and Codex around. Adds some zest.

I would second the desire for an on-site forum. I guess, if not, we'll just have to use threads in general gaming. Bethesda's forums are retarded and I simply don't/won't go there on any sort of regular basis. It is more like a punishment than anything interesting or fun.

for a brit trousers are what goes over your pants.

It's about the only thing we can certainly say it's probably going to have. If Obsidian was left to their own devices, yes, totally. Most definitely. But how much is Bethesda going to say: "No, sorry, that's too much dialogue; our fans don't want that. And the story is too complicated. Cut out half the story and put in some more explosions and slow motion headshots. Thanks." That's my fear.

I think for me, the most important things would be writing and story, with atmosphere a close second. I would love to see a strong, fleshed-out story with interesting characters and plot twists. I would like to see well-written and interesting dialogue that is enjoyable to read. I would like to see a gameworld people with story-signifcant npcs that change as the story progresses. I would like to feel the impact of my player character on the gameworld. I would like to see exploration and sidequests kept to a minimum. Sure a little bit for variety sake is fine, but it would be great if the focus was on story, characters, and writing. In the end, I don't even care about animations, or yellow faces, or VATS. Just give me story and characters. Please.

In some ways, it almost feels like IWD2 deja vu. I hope the result ends up a lot better.

I don't disagree with this at all. Some of the animations in FO3 are cringeworthy. But I'm not hopeful. Given a development time of about a year (which appears to be what is being bandied about at the moment), does Obsidian have the time to get involved in redoing animations? I think the presssure is going to be on Obsidian, especially given their previous development history, to knock the game out smartly, on time and on schedule the whole way. In order to do that I can only assume that as much of FO3 that can be reused will be. Probably we will see some new location art, some new weapons and armor, some new enemies, all mixed around pre-existing FO3 assets. The game feels more like an xpack in some ways than a "new" game. Obviously, I am guessing here, since we have no official info, and I would love it if a whole bunch of new art and modeling was done for this game, but I can't see it happening at this point.

And when they do I'll believe it, I'll also be around to say "BAD MOVE GUYS!" Beth's tech is terrible. Wouldn't it make the most sense financially to use the same engine that already has all the assets created for it? IS it hard to move pre-existing assets between engines? Does it make any sense to do so? I am assuming of course that Obsidian's Fallout will reuse much of the assets from Bethie's fallout.

I wonder how much autonomy Josh and the team have to do things their way. I remember back when Josh was helming IWD2 and everything had to be cleared through WoTC. IIRC, that caused a few problems.

I always find that when I go play an older game, they do tend to look jarring at first. But after playing for a while, the graphics become "normalized" and cease to look bad anymore. *shrugs* I dunno. Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for that sort of thing. I still play Master of Orion and XCOM, so maybe I am a bad example?

As I see it, there are many possible ways to make a good crpg. Fallout 1 was one way and it was a good way. So was Deus Ex. So was Baldur's Gate. So was Bloodlines. etc and so forth. I enjoyed them all. The problem is Bethesda has never found a good way.

I would like to see a Fallout game that lacks Bethesda's typical gameplay stylings. Whether its is like Fallout 1 or 2 or not, I don't particularly care.

There's some truth there, if one reduces any game far enough. But Bethesda post-Daggerfall has taken pointless, aimless gameplay to a whole new level.

Yep, there was some good detail to some of those scenes, I agree. After awhuile it became fairly reptitive though. Also, there were some POTENTIALLY interesting stories to be found. Big Town, Vance's little group vampires, these things had potential beyond a simple fed ex quest, but Bethesda doesn't seem to like being bothered with developing a story and making it worthwhile. They just take the easy way out.

AS far as I could tell, all the stories were pretty much utterly devoid of significant consequences. Other than "OMG thank you Wasteland Ranger! Here, have a handful of caps and this old gun." Typical Bethesda.

NMA seems guardedly positive about the news. The Codex a little less so. I love those codex guys but man sometimes you gotta let go... I'm speaking generally of course. Individual reactions run the gamut.

I agree that is fine as well. IF they can ratchet up all the non-combat aspects. The problem with FO3 was that combat was pretty much all there was to the game and the combat sucked hard regardless of how you played. FO1 didn't have great combat either, but the rest of the gameworld was so rich that it didn't matter. At least to me. But, if Obsidian's Fallout has the same level of writing, dialogue, and consequences as Bethie's Fallout, then they better overhaul the combat, because the combat of FO3 isn't eneough to carry a sequel. Sandbox exploration won't cut it this time.

STALKER is more of an immersive crpg than FO3 on its best day. WHich is pretty sad. @hurlie: I think VATS hurt the realtime combat because the combat was balanced for VATS not for rt play. I played throigh FO3 using only the real time combat, and it's not good. It was better than VATS though. If nothing else RT was a bit more challenging and entertaining.

Well, the real question is how much feedom is Obsidian going to have? Though I feverntly hope otherwise, I don't believe Bethesda would allow them to drop VATS. Best we can probably hope for is more of a redesign to make it more challening and fun. I know Josh has thoughts about VATS and what would make it better.