[marshal99]

It won't be the same as the original since the original team have already split. Fallout is easily the best action RPG game in a while , much like X-com , they have a place in gaming history.

[[toj.cc]Phantom]

I really hope they don't screw it up, but according to the lead man that developed Oblivion an RPG is riding around on a horse and hitting stuff with a sword. I'm not gonna get my hopes up, but I'll be pissed if they ruin it.

[insane_cobra]

Let's face it, some people are going to bitch about it no matter how it turns out. I'm really excited about it as Bethesda are among my favorite developers and they've already proven they can handle a story and character oriented game (The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard).

[samIamsad]

WE ALREADY HATE YOUR GAME! Nah, we shall see. Recently somebody told me that their latest game was pretty much Daggerfall for retards. I can't tell, my computer can't handle it.

[insane_cobra]

What, it doesn't tell you to breathe?

[Spiwak]

Whatever. As insane said, there's a group out there that will, guaranteed, hate the game. I'm willing to bet it will end up being the hardcore Fallout fans that believe in complete adherance to Fallout-dom, the perspective and the rules and the turn-based and even the 2D. The way I see it is that Fallout was really more about exploring the open-ended post-apocalyptic setting and meeting some hellish people than fighting and real RPGing, and in that case Bethesda should actually prove (one of) the most capable of doing it because we know we'll have a huge, glorious post-apocalyptic world to explore. Hopefully they will get some real writers though. I can't stand Morrowind/Oblivion dialogue. I would say Obsidian or more particularly Troika should handle it, but whatever.

[Putrid Moldyman]

I was intrigued by the idea of a Bethesda-developed Fallout.... until I played Oblivion. I have a lot of problems with Oblivion, and I'm hopeful that they don't show up in any Fallout game of theirs.

Fallout 1 (not 2) is my all-time favorite videogame, and it's hard to not be defensive about it when the spin-offs that followed the first games ranged from mediocre to horrible.

I suppose it works out that the game should come to the Xbox 360, because I happen to own one, and my computer isn't so great.

I do beleive I'll wait to hear the opinions of those who've played the game (I'm assuming this will happen in 2009) before I take the plunge. Yes, this includes the "hardcore" Fallout crowd. While much of the internet is on the "we hate Fallout fans" bandwaggon, I never felt their criticisms were really all that unwarranted. So they were outraged that Interplay shut down production on the original Fallout 3 so that Fallout Brotherhood of Steel (the mediocre at best console action game) could be made... I can't really blame anyone for being upset over something like that. I know I was.

It is a little disheartening that the game doesn't appear to be a big priority for Beth. It seems as though they just snatched the license before anyone else could and were content to sit on it for a few years. I realise the Elder Scrolls is their baby and their biggest priority, but I think Fallout deserves better treatment. Eh. We'll see....

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

What, it doesn't tell you to breathe?

Unfortunately not. I suppose even NEXT-GEN® technology isn't quite there yet...

Originally Posted by Putrid Moldyman

While much of the internet is on the "we hate Fallout fans" bandwaggon

There seem to be people who pick apart everything Bethesda says regarding the new game, 'tis true. The internet is made of fools, not atoms, 'tis also true. If the game turns out to be not_so_good (er, more like not exactly what billions of Fallout nerds are expecting it to be) I wouldn't want to be in their shoes, definitely not.

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by Putrid Moldyman

While much of the internet is on the "we hate Fallout fans" bandwaggon, I never felt their criticisms were really all that unwarranted. So they were outraged that Interplay shut down production on the original Fallout 3 so that Fallout Brotherhood of Steel (the mediocre at best console action game) could be made... I can't really blame anyone for being upset over something like that. I know I was.

What are you talking about? Anyone that's played Fallout likes it; I wasn't aware of any Fallout fan haters out there. Fuck, I'm a Fallout fan, if you couldn't tell. If anything I feel there's more of a "we hate Bethesda for making Fallout 3" bandwagon than a "we hate Fallout fans" bandwagon, and I believe the former has plenty of unwarranted criticism. First off all, none of us has any clue how they plan on making it. They've said plenty of times that they love Fallout and want to respect the original games, and in fact hate the console game. There's nothing wrong with injecting their own strengths into the series, such as first-person perspective and whatever: things that don't really make the Fallout games in the first place. But I'm sure they're going to at least attempt to make a Fallout game. And since, following the incredible success of Oblivion, I trust they will be able to make a good game, since they have all the time in the world to make it.

Also, I believe Todd Howard (that's his name, right?) said that now they're done with Oblivion, a large portion of the staff has moved to Fallout 3, so expect production to be ramping up. I think they do care; they're perfectly aware that they have a very fragile piece of property in their hands and I don't think they wanna screw it up.

[Putrid Moldyman]

Originally Posted by Spiwak

What are you talking about?

Fallout fans have been criticised for their own criticisms toward Fallout 2, feeling that without the direction of Fallout creator, Tim Cain, and other key Fallout team members such as Leanoard Boyarski, the sequel strayed from the original. I personally don't see this as being much different from how many here feel about the Monkey Island games.

They've been criticised for believing that Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel wasn't true to the Fallout setting (where even Microforte, the developer, admitted to not having done much research into the Fallout setting).

They were strongly criticised on the net for their protesting Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

As for being pessimistic about Bethesda's Fallout 3 -- I can see why they'd be pessimistic, as the series hasn't exactly been handled with kid gloves lately, and Bethesda certainly got things off on the wrong foot when a Beth developer was bashing the Fallout fan community via forums posts on Somethingawful.com days after it was announced that they'd acquired the license.

[marshal99]

Fallout 2 was great and i feel a improvement on the first one with more options and more fun.
Fallout 3 i don't have high hopes for , it'll probably end up as a generic 3D RPG game.

[sethsez]

Originally Posted by Putrid Moldyman

Fallout fans have been criticised for their own criticisms toward Fallout 2, feeling that without the direction of Fallout creator, Tim Cain, and other key Fallout team members such as Leanoard Boyarski, the sequel strayed from the original. I personally don't see this as being much different from how many here feel about the Monkey Island games.

They've been criticised for believing that Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel wasn't true to the Fallout setting (where even Microforte, the developer, admitted to not having done much research into the Fallout setting).

They were strongly criticised on the net for their protesting Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

But here's the reason for each:

Fallout 2 came out and got shat on by the fanbase. It was criticized as a lame, boring, shitty rehash that totally got the mood of the original wrong. It is now considered a classic, one of the greatest games ever made, etc by the same fanbase. The game didn't change much over that period of time.

Fallout Tactics had some flaws. Everyone admits this. But it was treated like a grand, epic betrayal by the fanbase (who at this point were showing themselves to be quite the drama queens). Most other fanbases can take a mediocre-to-decent spinoff in stride (ever been a Mario fan?), but to Fallout nuts the sky was falling.

Then came BoS. It sucked. We all know it sucked. Again, grand betrayal and all that, but there was a different tone here. Apparantly, all console gamers everywhere were total retards to want a game like this. Now, the fact that it flopped should have clued 'em in to the fact that console gamers did not want it, but logic never stopped them from bitching before.

Hell, even Wasteland vets complained about the original Fallout when it came out. The series was born to the sound of people complaining.

As for being pessimistic about Bethesda's Fallout 3 -- I can see why they'd be pessimistic, as the series hasn't exactly been handled with kid gloves lately, and Bethesda certainly got things off on the wrong foot when a Beth developer was bashing the Fallout fan community via forums posts on Somethingawful.com days after it was announced that they'd acquired the license.

This is because there are many, many, many, many people who love Fallout and hate the NMA brand of Fallout fan. Frankly, as soon as the development was announced I figured I'd check out Bethesda's forums on a lark and every board was flooded with people complaining about "Morrowind with a gun" before a single goddamn thing had been said. Anyone who actually wanted to talk about Elder Scrolls was shit out of luck as topics were pushed off the boards too fast with negative comments coming out the ass.

You say Bethesda got off on the wrong foot, I say the Fallout community got off on the wrong foot. Everyone was demanding that the game be made exactly how they envisioned it, with most demands being of a Comic Book Guy level of bitchiness ("if you don't make it 2D isometric with sprites and have it run at 640 x 480 then I'm going to sue you for emotional trauma" and other such nonsense).

I say good for Bethesda if they choose to ignore that fanbase and focus on the Fallout fans who are reasonable, willing to communicate and don't think they're owed a goddamn thing. There's a vast chasm between giving a developer feedback and threatening them, posting temper tantrums and just flat-out insulting them before a single shred of news has even been released, and frankly Fallout fans did all that and more.

Oh, and for one final anecdote: there was a thread about Fallout on insert-credit.com (their forums are down now for unrelated reasons) and someone linked to a thread on NMA. Someone tracked the link, and within minutes IC was flooded with Fallout nuts screaming bloody murder, spamming the place and just generally being complete assholes, all while crying "we're the victims here!!" They didn't get a great deal of sympathy and the lot of them were banned.

Are there a few people on NMA who are reasonable and level-headed? I'm sure there are. But the place got its reputation for a reason.

As for what we actually know about Fallout 3, production on it is in full swing now and has been since around the time Oblivion wrapped up. The lead writer is the guy who did the Dark Brotherhood arc in Oblivion, and they've stated many times that they know Elder Scrolls and Fallout are not the same series and that they are not approaching Fallout 3 the same way they approach an Elder Scrolls game.

[Spiwak]

Good post.

EDIT: I was not aware of that level of nutitude on the part of the more rabid Fallout fans. That's just sick and totally unnecessary. Almost makes me ashamed to call myself a Fallout fan.

[samIamsad]

Yes, sethsez summed that up very nicely.

Originally Posted by Spiwak

EDIT: I was not aware of that level of nutitude on the part of the more rabid Fallout fans. That's just sick and totally unnecessary. Almost makes me ashamed to call myself a Fallout fan.

I take it that you've never been to the Codex, for instance. Places where plenty individuals gather to eventually form some kind of mighty collective hive-minds (level 18, 195 hitpoints, invulnerable to blunt weapons each) that start bitching and whining about just about everything, since they feel they haven't been proper f*cked in years or something. Metaphorically speaking, naturally.

edit: Mind you, their different take on things is also part of the appeal.

[Putrid Moldyman]

Originally Posted by sethsez

But here's the reason for each:It is now considered a classic, one of the greatest games ever made, etc by the same fanbase. The game didn't change much over that period of time.

This isn't accurate. While the majority of those who've played the two seem to think the sequel is better, if we're referring to the NMA and Duckandcover crowd (which we are), their overall opinion of the game hasn't changed. I don't know what lead you to believe otherwise.

Yes, the NMA and DAC Fallout crew could conduct themselves better, but the thing is, they've rarely been wrong. The two Fallout spin-off titles were rush job projects where the Fallout name was slapped onto a title already in development to make some quick cash for Interplay, and they called it as they saw it.

It most certainly is too early to tell exactly what Bethesda is going to do with Fallout 3, you'll get no argument out of me there, but you can't expect me to get too excited when Pete Hines has stated: "You could make some fairly safe leaps of faith that it would be similar in style [to Morrowind]" in an interview.

As I said, I'm waiting (a very long time) to see what the overall consensus on the game will be. Seeing as it is coming to consoles, though, I suppose I could just rent it.

[sethsez]

Originally Posted by Putrid Moldyman

This isn't accurate. While the majority of those who've played the two seem to think the sequel is better, if we're referring to the NMA and Duckandcover crowd (which we are), their overall opinion of the game hasn't changed. I don't know what lead you to believe otherwise.

Lurking the NMA forums.

Yes, the NMA and DAC Fallout crew could conduct themselves better, but the thing is, they've rarely been wrong. The two Fallout spin-off titles were rush job projects where the Fallout name was slapped onto a title already in development to make some quick cash for Interplay, and they called it as they saw it.

Calling it as they see it is fine. Acting like the spoiled children of the internet is not. X-Com fans went through a lot more shit than Fallout fans did (which kind of goes against Fallout nuts' whole "nobody in gaming is as put-upon as us" mantra), yet they don't have the reputation of being disagreeable, unreasonable, unpleasant people. The same goes for pretty much every other fanbase of series that were slowly and painfully killed, of which PC gaming has no shortage... they generally take it in stride, disappointed but adult about it.

[Aj_]

It's interesting, it's related to the recent thread in chat about fanfiction. It's obvious that Fallout 2 had different thinking behind it, also Fallout Tactics and Fallout: BoS obviously didn't care about the franchise. The rights to "Fallout" were owned by Interplay, probably through a contract.

I don't think the fans own the franchise, but they seem to think they do. I can see how Tim Cain might not be happy with having to give up the franchise, also with not being able to buy it at Troika, but he seemed perfectly happy creating a new franchise. The "spirit" of the original Fallout can be seen in Troika games, from a design point of view, but also plot, political, taste, art.

I'm far more dissappointed with Troika not making games anymore than not the best RPG developer for the Fallout series making Fallout 3. Bethesda wouldn't be my first choice.

I don't think their character/combat engine is great, so implementing SPECIAL is going to be hard for them. Oblivion's dialogue/system is definitely not good enough, but previous games in the series have been better. They don't have the right humour or political view of the world. The whole world levelling with you didn't work, and I'm not sure it would ever work, at least not done in that way. Fallout worlds tend to be bigger than what I think the Oblivion engine can do. Oblivion combat is about raiding dungeons and a few beasts in the wilderness, Fallout combat is about towns and encounters. Fallout used text for most dialogue, and some of the Bethesda team prefers that much more, but there might be pressure to make it all audio. This means voice actors have to do multiple voices, but they always over use voices, so people don't have individual identities like in Fallout.

They have a few things going for them. They've got an engine with good graphics, it's scalable, controls are handled well, great mod support. They pay attention to characters, you can tell they write back stories, that'll be great for making a Fallout-esque game. They like freedom, Fallout is about freedom. They take a similar approach to side quests and main quests. Fallout has people like Richard Dean Anderson, Oblivion has Sean Bean, so Bethesda can attract people talented enough to do memorable characters.

[Crunchy in milk]

Heres hoping they ignore the fanbase and just make a great game. I have every confidence a Mad Max 2 inspired setting will be gaming gold. I hope they don't get bogged down trying to please the stickler fans. Oblivion's pretty much on par with F2 as far as the interface. Theres literally a world (and maybe more) of good the engine can bring the franchise.

[Putrid Moldyman]

Originally Posted by sethsez

Lurking the NMA forums.

Which makes your statement all the more perplexing. The NMA crowd's notorious preference for the original bewilders most gamers (though I share their taste). I recall an interview with the Brotherhood of Steel developers where one of the devs cited this as a reason for their being impossible to please.... something along the lines of "Dude, they even pick apart the sequel."

X-Com fans went through a lot more shit than Fallout fans did (which kind of goes against Fallout nuts' whole "nobody in gaming is as put-upon as us" mantra

Well, most of the NMA crowd are X-com, Jagged Alliance, Ultima, etc. fans, so I think it all sort of carries over. Obviously, you have to be a real cynic to appreciate these guys, and if you're not, then you'll most likely despise 'em. I personally can't bash any group of people who would protest the current crop of developers that play to the lowest common denominator for proffit and drag the name of good game franchises through the mud in the process.

Originally Posted by Crunchy in milk

I have every confidence a Mad Max 2 inspired setting will be gaming gold.

Do you want to see a Mad Max game or a Fallout game? There's more to Fallout's setting than the Mad Max influence. That's one of the areas where the spin-offs went wrong.

[insane_cobra]

Am I the only one who finds discussing a game we know absolutely nothing about at this length completely retarded?