A New Fallout Game/Mod

[Lexx]

Since you are obviously involved with the project, what can you tell us about new stuff added to the game? It does use the graphical assets from FO2 but how much new stuff are you adding in? Graphically the game was fine for its time, but for a MP game, a bit more variety would be nice. Do we get to use different avatars? Does every guy in metal armor look exactly the same as the next one?

 

First of all, 2238 uses the Fallout 1 and 2 worldmap merged to one big. Beside this, forget every quest and stuff you remember from the original games-- 2238 is set 77 years after Fallout 1 and 3 before Fallout 2, we have a different scenario. Quest wise, the 2238 server has not much to offer yet because we are still working to get all basics done. At the moment there are the factions, brahmin trading, slaving, etc. etc.

 

We use the same Graphics as Fallout 1 and 2, also we are creating new scenery graphics, etc. etc. We have some new critter graphics too but nothing that can be used for players. So, yes, all people in metal armor will look exactly the same.

 

What about races? Can we play a super mutant or a ghoul? Deathclaw?

 

You can only play humans because humans are the only critter-types who offer all animations. It could be also possible to add super mutants and ghouls and disable for the player that he can use weapon x and y but even then... trust me, it is damn annoying if you cannot run and super mutants and ghouls cannot run. In the beginning it is still fun, but after one or two days it just sucks because you are very slow.

 

And what's the gameplay going to revolve around? I have no interest in a game that forces (or encourages) players to spend most of their time farming moisture, so to speak.

 

We (the 2238 devs) are mostly roleplayers. We don't like endless stupid grinding and so we try to avoid this and give other things you can do. For this we are working on a big crafting system with professions and so on. It is already in game and will be updated from time to time. Beside this, we have the other stuff named above... brahmin trading, slaving, something that is called "Town Control", etc.

Beside this, we plan to introduce special events every now and then. They will be lead by game master and offer more or less unique quests. We will se how this will work out.

About parties. Is there a party system? Can you have people moving together around the world map? If so, who decides where to go? How are encounters with other parties handled?

 

Yes, 2238 started approx 8 months ago as "Faction Mod" that aimed to allow players to found factions and manage their members easier etc. You don't need a faction- it is still possible to move around alone. If you don't want to be in a faction but also don't want to run around alone, you can team up with other players and roam around. Beside this.. travelling with other players in a group is always saver... we have no non-pvp zones. Everybody can kill everybody everytime on every place. Some locations are saver because of police forces and so on but you can still die everywhere and loose everything.

 

 

The open beta starts tomorrow, yes. Time is most likely from 15. to 16.. but don't ask for exact GMT time... I have no clue right now. (I would say GMT+4, not sure tho')

Edited August 14, 2009 by Lexx

[213374U]

We use the same Graphics as Fallout 1 and 2, also we are creating new scenery graphics, etc. etc. We have some new critter graphics too but nothing that can be used for players. So, yes, all people in metal armor will look exactly the same.

What? You aren't even allowing use of the black and redhead characters? Is this final, or just out of the scope of the present release?

 

 

You can only play humans because humans are the only critter-types who offer all animations. It could be also possible to add super mutants and ghouls and disable for the player that he can use weapon x and y but even then... trust me, it is damn annoying if you cannot run and super mutants and ghouls cannot run. In the beginning it is still fun, but after one or two days it just sucks because you are very slow.

Well, sorry mate but that just sounds like an excuse to me. I could understand if you said that at present it's too much work, or that you'd rather do other things first. But not being able to run as the rationale for a design choice just doesn't cut it. Considering the size of FO maps and the fact that in TB, action points is what governs a creature's speed, it's not really a deal breaker for me. Besides, you could always speed up the standard walking anim of the mutie a wee bit and make it advance a little faster for the "run" mode. Nobody said a 300+ kg mutie should be able to break any speed world records, anyway.

 

Ghouls can't run because they aren't supposed to be able to... or that's what I gathered from talking to Lenny anyway. So, yeah. Choosing a ghoul or a mutie as your race SHOULD have its drawbacks. I don't think it's such a big deal.

 

 

We (the 2238 devs) are mostly roleplayers. We don't like endless stupid grinding and so we try to avoid this and give other things you can do. For this we are working on a big crafting system with professions and so on. It is already in game and will be updated from time to time. Beside this, we have the other stuff named above... brahmin trading, slaving, something that is called "Town Control", etc.

Uh, oh. Care to explain how this works in a little more detail? It's cool to have a crafting system and a functional economy that supports trading, but fun in the FO games came from exploration and roleplaying, mainly.

 

 

Some locations are saver because of police forces and so on but you can still die everywhere and loose everything.

Cool. Is the police force player-run or NPC? If so, whom do they attack if a firefight breaks out in town? Can you surrender?

 

The stuff I haven't quoted sounds sweet. Thanks for the answers.

[Purkake]

Is the beta in Russian? The site that your blog links to is in Russian.

[213374U]

You lucky ex-commies, you!

[Purkake]

So where do I get the beta? Your support is lacking, mod team.

[213374U]

Account suspended - Аккаунт заблокирован.


Account for domain fonline.ru has been suspended

для выяснения причины блокировки обратитесь в службу технической поддержки.

 

 

From the news items posted in the blog, it also seems there's huge lag going on and stuff... for those who actually got their grubby paws on the client.

[Purkake]

Worst mod ever?

[Lexx]

What? You aren't even allowing use of the black and redhead characters? Is this final, or just out of the scope of the present release?

 

We can't allow you to use these characters. The redhead character as example has only melee animations. So if you could play with this, you couldn't use any weapon except strict melee weapons like knuckles, etc. And as long as nobody wants to edit thousands of animations, it will not be possible. That's the oath of 2d graphics.

 

 

Ghouls can't run because they aren't supposed to be able to... or that's what I gathered from talking to Lenny anyway. So, yeah. Choosing a ghoul or a mutie as your race SHOULD have its drawbacks. I don't think it's such a big deal.

 

It is really no fun, you can believe me. Even when I teleport with admin-commands, it is often annoying.

 

 

Cool. Is the police force player-run or NPC? If so, whom do they attack if a firefight breaks out in town? Can you surrender?

 

The police force is NPC only for now. It would be too hard to try to get if a player made a "good" kill right now in a town or a "bad" kill. So even if someone is flagged as police, we could probably run around and kill other players without getting somehow punished by this.

 

 

Is the beta in Russian? The site that your blog links to is in Russian.

 

The Life After is in russia, 2238 is english.

 

Account suspended - Аккаунт заблокирован.

 

This is because of too much traffic. The hoster is gone crazy... heh.

 

To the lags: Yes, we are fighting since the start of the beta now with the lags. We still try to figure out what causes them and this is not really easy. At the moment, the lags are responsible for 90% of all problems. Still, there are always approx 200 to 250 people online and even if we take down the server for maintenance, as soon as he is up again, 80 clients are connected. This is just for 2238--- The Life After has three times more people online. It's practically a mess right now. Didn't know that the hype would be so big... there are more people on one server than we got in the last two tests all together on three server.

 

The lags are the biggest problem right now and we are working hard on fixing them. This is something we didn't noticed before because in closed test, the most people online in the same time have been 20 and not 200.

[213374U]

We can't allow you to use these characters. The redhead character as example has only melee animations. So if you could play with this, you couldn't use any weapon except strict melee weapons like knuckles, etc. And as long as nobody wants to edit thousands of animations, it will not be possible. That's the oath of 2d graphics.

What do you mean you "can't". All it would take is cutting the head and pasting it on the regular sprites which do have animations. They made Myron wear combat armor. You're telling me you "can't" make the black vault suit-clad guy fire a minigun? Especially after you said you have introduced NEW graphics for creatures?

 

About the mutants, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I would really like to play a big, dumb, green guy with impaired grammar. Oh well.

 

The host seems to be up again. I got the torrent but I don't think I'll be logging in until the lag has been reduced to manageable levels. I get terrible pings already with good servers close to me... if the server itself is experiencing traffic overload it could be too much for my nerves. I'll be keeping a close eye on this, though.

[Lexx]

What do you mean you "can't". All it would take is cutting the head and pasting it on the regular sprites which do have animations. They made Myron wear combat armor. You're telling me you "can't" make the black vault suit-clad guy fire a minigun? Especially after you said you have introduced NEW graphics for creatures?

 

Wow, stop. This are approx 3000 animation images. This is a ****load of work and with a ****load I mean a really really ****load. Just for recoloring the basic animation set of a critter I needed one week working from morning to evening. For creating my bald head combat armor dude, I worked one week from morning to evening and it doesn't have half of all needed animation sets right now. Seriously, you never have done any critter editing work on Fallout yet.

 

And: Yes, we have new critter graphics. One fellow russian (I think it was one, I don't know his name) edited all vault suit images and deleted the 13 on the back. But only from the male ones. Also we could use some graphics from other Fallout modder who have done the tedious work of creating new critters. The next character we want to introduce is the so called "long hair dude" from x'il, Brother Soifran and Josan1. Three people worked on this several weeks. So you see, it is very time consuming and annoying, especially if you don't get paid for doing this.

Edited August 17, 2009 by Lexx

[213374U]

Wow, stop. This are approx 3000 animation images. This is a ****load of work and with a ****load I mean a really really ****load. Just for recoloring the basic animation set of a critter I needed one week working from morning to evening. For creating my bald head combat armor dude, I worked one week from morning to evening and it doesn't have half of all needed animation sets right now. Seriously, you never have done any critter editing work on Fallout yet.

Yes, I've fiddled with the FRMs, so I know the kind of numbers we're talking about here - just my avatar here is 16 frames, and it's a tiny fraction of what's there for that critter. But don't tell me you "can't", when people have done just that with the NPC armor mod. You just don't want to do it or have more pressing things to do, such as quests. I totally understand that, and agree with the decision. I favor content over cosmetics - was simply interested in knowing if it had been done or considered. I just find it sad that at this stage it's been written off as unfeasible. Edited August 17, 2009 by 213374U

[Gizmo]

I have a question for Lexx...

 

(coming from a guy that has used the F2 editor, and seen the sprite animation sets...)

 

I was wondering why take the recolor route (though it absolutely has its uses), instead of the route done with Fallout 2 ~Namely Vic, and the Boxer, and the black skirted blonde woman... I have not tried this myself, but I wonder if after measuring up a weeks work recoloring, against a weeks work rigging a model (one that would render out at ~what 70x35?)... For non PC's, would it not give the same results, only allow you to do one set, then render the motions from six sides. [and later recoloring and minor changes would become trivial.]

 

**Might even be possible to texture a plane with the weapon art and have the sprite use the gun.

 

*** Eh... sort of like this in a way (but not quite)..

Rendered out that small.. most couldn't tell that he wasn't holding it.

 

There was a neat tool this guy wrote years ago that made BAMs out of GIFs... Could this be done for Fallout FRMs? (if it were, it might make future custom sprites a relative cinch.)

Edited August 17, 2009 by Gizmo

[Lexx]

Yes, it is possible. But also a lot work and I have no clue how the outcome would be (if the quality is good or not, etc).

 

Also a possible way is to recreate the original animations based on the frm's and build new models who are using these animations then. But recreating the animations is - just like frm editing - a tedious work. Nobody has done it yet and I also think it will never happen. (Best thing would be if... somehow... a cd with a lot raw original Fallout art content would be leaked... accidentally of course.)

[Gizmo]

Yes, it is possible. But also a lot work and I have no clue how the outcome would be (if the quality is good or not, etc).

 

Also a possible way is to recreate the original animations based on the frm's and build new models who are using these animations then. But recreating the animations is - just like frm editing - a tedious work. Nobody has done it yet and I also think it will never happen. (Best thing would be if... somehow... a cd with a lot raw original Fallout art content would be leaked... accidentally of course.)

I'm under the impression that no one really knows where any of it is. (that's not to say its not in someone's upstairs closet in an old box of floppies and HDs, but I really doubt that Bethesda got it.)

[Lexx]

Jason said a while ago, that he will look at his old zip discs for backups and so on. But yeh, he could find old stuff, but not Fallout related, if I remember correctly.

 

 

To 2238: We could find and fix the source of the heavy lags. Now it runs pretty smooth again. We now start to concentrate on other stuff.

Edited August 21, 2009 by Lexx