Fallout 3 Lead Designer info

[Spider]

So by your reasoning a 10 hour game that you can replay in a satisfactory way 5 times is better than a game that lasts you 60 hours but has limited (let's say none) replayability? The games (and all playthroughs) being identical where the fin factor is concerned.

[Sand]

The thing is Spider, I can't get into a game that is 10 hours or less long. I need a good long story to keep my interest. If the game is only 10 hours long I say it is a waste of money. Only the first play through counts.

[Spider]

It was only an example. Multiply the numbers with two if it makes you feel better.

 

Also, it needs to be assumed that each playthrough of the game is just as much fun as the first one.

[Sand]

Not possible. Because the first play through the game is a mystery. You don't know the gameplay, the story, the characters, and whatnot. On the second, third, fourth play through you pretty much know everything the game has to offer.

[Spider]

It's a hypothetical question so I can understand Dark Raven's position better. So I am working under the assumption that each playthrough changes the game significantly enough to make it equally fun as the first. It's a gross simplification and it may very well be that no such game exists (although I have seen movies that are better the second time, so why not games?), but that's really beside the point.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I enjoyed the Dark Brotherhood stuff in Oblivion, though I hope Fallout 3 has more branching plotlines and important player chioces.

[jaguars4ever]

I just hope they make the Brotherhood cool again. After FO and FO2, The Brotherhood of Steel was the sh1tzn1tz. Then FO:BOS and FOt:BOS happened... <_<

[LostStraw]

The BOS sucked in Fallout 2 -- a small shanti/shack/hole in the ground does not make for an impressive organization.

[Tigranes]

A replay of a game is naturally never the same as the first playthrough. It's not the question or more or less but of difference. For example, some people enjoy playing more 'passively' or 'tamely' on their first playthrough - letting the story guide them, playing more conventionally, and perhaps a bit recklessly. Then they start to really look at nooks and crannies, do some silly things, or look at deviant character builds / actions / etc. This obviously would give great pleasure and value for money to those who like it.

 

For me, I usually tend to do everything I can in my first playthrough, and my characters often do not deviate much (e.g. Wizard, or Thief, in D&D, in terms of character build.). But replayability can still be a factor. In Planescape: Torment, there wasn't much I missed in the first 2 playthroughs, but I keep playing it as the same logic that I come back to a book I like after a while; I just enjoy the story even if it's no longer new. The story might remain the same, but I have changed.

In the case of BG and IWD games, I enjoy the tactical combat, and it is guaranteed to always bring about new memorable situations. I enjoy the combat there and thus, even if I, say, don't find IWD1's story particularly engrossing the 7th time through, I can have fun.

 

With Oblivion, I spent 60 hours in the first playthrough and pretty muchv isited every single dungeon, cave, and whatever in the game. I'm also pretty sure I did over 80% of the quests, except for very rare ones and the ones that were mutually exclusive. Afterwards i could never start a new game; the novelty of the world and visceral combat was gone, and that was really the only things I thought were great about the game. The sense of exploration and discovery, and of the unknown. Unlike the games I listed above, I didn't find much appeal in any other part of the game (and I hated the end), so that game for me had no replayability.

 

But yes. Let's say player X plays Final Fantasy XIII, which takes about 100 hours to complete fully, then has no incentive to play it again. The same player plays Jade Empire, which takes, what, 20-30 hours, generously; but thinks it has great replaybility value and plays it a lot. (Hey, this is hypothetical. I was thinking of a short RPG. ) It's simply a different kind of enjoyment derived from the fact that the strengths of the two games lie in different areas.

[vesselle]

awww, i love Pags! ever since his Looking Glass Studio/Thief days. i'ma look forward to seeing what happens with FO3.

 

reminds me, i've still got a game going in FO2. i really should get back to it.

 

V***V

[kumquatq3]

Then FO:BOS and FOt:BOS happened... <_<

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

FOT isn't in the same league as FO:BOS. haters.

[Spider]

With Oblivion, I spent 60 hours in the first playthrough and pretty much visited every single dungeon, cave, and whatever in the game. I'm also pretty sure I did over 80% of the quests, except for very rare ones and the ones that were mutually exclusive.

 

First of all, how the hell did you manage that? I played for some 150 hours and while I did do every quest, there were plenty of caves and ruins I didn't do. Doing them all in 60 hours is definitely impressive.

 

 

Second, I definitely understand the value of a replayable game. I am definitely one of those who can play the death out of a game if it's fun enough. I've played BG 2 over ten times I think and all IE games at least three times. I've started five different characters in Titan Quest (one of whom has completed legendary and one that is halfway through). So I see the appeal.

 

What made me curious was the statement that a game must be replayable to be worth the money spent on it. The only reason I can see behind such statement is that you get more gameplay for your buck, which roughly translates to more hours. And I feel that if a game has enough content (or if the content is of a certain quality, but since I'm comparing to multiple playthroughs, length is what is mostly relevant here) then it can definitely be worth the money, even if it only brings a single playthrough.

 

I can agree that when it comes to a game like Fallout 3 (trying to at least be a little on topic), replayability becomes much more important. Because in a Fallout game I want choices to matter. Every single one of them. How I develop my character, what dialogue I chose, who I side with, and so on. But if it turns out to be something else it can still be a fun game.

 

Edit: Oh, and FOT was a pretty good game. Except for the robots. Man I really hated fighting robots. And I wasn't a huge fan of how they turned the Brotherhood into a fascist organisation (but they were a splinter cell) but other than that it was pretty fun. I couldn't care less whether or not the deathclaws had hair.

Edited October 31, 2006 by Spider

[Darque]

Then FO:BOS and FOt:BOS happened... <_<

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

FOT isn't in the same league as FO:BOS. haters.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[jaguars4ever]

The BOS sucked in Fallout 2 -- a small shanti/shack/hole in the ground does not make for an impressive organization.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It was an incognito scouting outpost, dammit!

[Vic]

Should be interesting. I thought Oblivion was a good game for what it was: A gigantic game with each quest being more or less linear, and each of the many, many characters being uninteresting for the most part. A very large, unfocused, yet very fun for what it was, mess.

 

I want to see what they can do with a much smaller game world, and with much fewer characters. I'd imagine the talent would be less spread thin, hopefully making the small game world much more dense and with more personality, also having more branching stories. I also want to see how the (newly hired?) writers take on a much different setting.

 

I'm not convinced turn-based and isometric view (I'd assume it would be a movable camera) are out. I think a PR guy's comments on a game that hadn't even assembled a team to work on pre-production (you know, where they would try out these things and at least partcially decide what they want) are somewhat irrelevent. It'll be interesting to see if Todd and Co. have the cojones to do it.

 

The isometric, turn-based combat would transition just fine to consoles. A control scheme like the ones for Disgaea and other SRPGs would work.

[Vic]

And just to finalize Emil is an interesting guy, he could probably do an interesting game with the right team and tools, just not FO3.

A good developer is capable of developing good games in more than one series or genre.

 

So my advice is let it go and enjoy life, like me, nothing that could be said on the Obsidian Fora could have any effect on how Fo3 is going to be made, or how we like the games, so let's move on.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Says the guy who likely checks NMA every day (I'd guess multiple times a day) for any scruple of new information coming out, and when said scruple does, immediately makes the rounds commenting on it in various gaming forums.

 

Fallout Fanatics: (w00t)

[Briosafreak]

A good developer is capable of developing good games in more than one series or genre.

 

Given the right tools, the right teams, the right context... wich isn't the case.

 

Says the guy who likely checks NMA every day (I'd guess multiple times a day) for any scruple of new information coming out, and when said scruple does, immediately makes the rounds commenting on it in various gaming forums.

 

Fallout Fanatics:  (w00t)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Eheheheh you really don't know me do you? Thought so.

[Vic]

A good developer is capable of developing good games in more than one series or genre.

Given the right tools, the right teams, the right context... wich isn't the case.

 

Why exactly is it not the case? What tools, what context?

 

 

Says the guy who likely checks NMA every day (I'd guess multiple times a day) for any scruple of new information coming out, and when said scruple does, immediately makes the rounds commenting on it in various gaming forums.

 

Fallout Fanatics:  (w00t)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Eheheheh you really don't know me do you? Thought so.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Former admin of NMA. Literally cried when BIS' Fallout 3 was cancelled.

[Tigranes]

First of all, how the hell did you manage that? I played for some 150 hours and while I did do every quest, there were plenty of caves and ruins I didn't do. Doing them all in 60 hours is definitely impressive.

 

Perhaps I missed a bit more than I thought; though it's hard to see how. Before I set it down I checked the maps on the net and saw that I had indeed checked out every single 'location', and talked to every person. It's hard to miss a significant portion of the game if you do that.

 

I made extensive use of fast travel though; early-game I was still on 512mb and trust me, 'exploration' really loses its flair when you're on 13-15fps and you can't see any grass. I still walked a fair bit, though, or I'd never have discovered every ruin and so forth.

 

What made me curious was the statement that a game must be replayable to be worth the money spent on it.

 

Yeah, I think my previous post shows my stance - that I would never say something like that. I do see the value in a game that loses much of its appeal after one play-through. It's simply that its strengths lie in other areas - as I said, for example, if a game's major appeal is in discovery of the unknown, then you're not going to have very strong replayability.

[Briosafreak]

Why exactly is it not the case? What tools, what context?

 

The context now is a world after Oblivion's success, meaning the action/adventure RPG light stuff is the name of the game for Bethesda from now on (it has been since Morrowing, to be fair). The tools are the Oblivion Real Time/soil erosin more important than story depth aparatus from Oblivion. the Team is the team from Oblivion (and Battlespire...). And more important the time for a Fallout game has passed, there's no way someone outside small outfits from Europe is going to make a good TB game, with depth, maturity, creativity and a basis on alive worlds where choices lead to relevant and diferent consequences.

 

So yeah he can make very interesting games, just not a real Fallout game

 

 

Former admin of NMA. Literally cried when BIS' Fallout 3 was cancelled.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

So i could now reply that talking about this topic on a couple of Fallout fansites and participating on discussions in two other sites isn't in relative terms much. Much so because in the RPGWatch topic i only posted to give my support for a campaign to make Obsidian create a new planescape game, something quite off topic, and here i only participated to tell someone that this is not the place for passionate and inteligent posts about FO3, since:

 

a) many won't be simpathetic no matter what we write;

b) whatever we say in this place won't have any impact to Bethesda and Fallout3;

c) and let me add another point, that writing about FO3 tends to bring smartasses that go around the net calling fallout fans fanatics and getting all happy with themselves, and that's very unfortunate.

 

Regarding my personal grief because of the cancellation of Van Buren, now that wasn't much because of the game, although that made me sad, like many more in this forum (members and devs) but because of the reaction of despair and hanger i was getting from fans. I was literally getting tens of mails, PMs and IM messages every hour after i broke the news. Hell i found the newsbit of the cancelation of FO3 and the end of BIS written in 11 languages... you don't imagine how nerve wrecking was to read those messages, from romanian teenagers to 40 years old IT specialists from California, from people that had never talked about games in any place to people that has seen the game being cancelled three times already.

 

So it wasn't a joking matter dude, but a really emotional time for me and many others. Of course i won't pretend you'll understand this and everything else i wrote, so I'll leave it at that.

 

 

For Sawyer, i really hope you guys put just an inch of the choices and consequences from VB on NWN2, just an inch would make the game so much better.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

*Snip*

 

*points*

 

*Screams*

 

"IT'S A RABBID FALLOUT FAN! RUNAWAY! RUNAWAY!"

 

*Runs off flailing arms and legs*

[Gorth]

a) many won't be simpathetic no matter what we write;

The many are just the many. They are unimportant. It is important to those who cares and loves the Fallout games

[Briosafreak]

Ok Gorth good point

[CoM_Solaufein]

Then FO:BOS and FOt:BOS happened... <_<

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

FOT isn't in the same league as FO:BOS. haters.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Its one notch above it. Barely.

[Girias_Solo]

Yes, I remember that damn day.

 

Hopefully Obsidian can come up with something to whet the appetite thats actually palatable, or maybe even Bioware....maybe. heh. Obsidian certainly has the people to do it sometime.

 

Until that day, heres to Age of Decadence. Its becoming quite a full basket of eggs of late in the TBC crowd. :D