Over yonder on the Official Interplay Forums there exists an FAQ. It's a thorough and in-depth FAQ that's regularly updated. It holds such enticing answers as:
 
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">What will Fallout Online be rated? It will be restricted to a certain age.
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... and:
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Will there be vehicles? A decision regarding vehicles has been made.
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Be sure to read their answer to "is it just a WoW clone?" and be confused. Amongst all the chaff though, there are some interesting tidbits:
 
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">One of the themes we will be dealing with is regrowth and rebuilding.
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">How will player death, respawning, etc, be dealt with? Death is death in the Fallout world and there are no Resurrection spells or magic wands that bring people back to life. The Master in FO1 was on one path to immortality, but even he wasn't immune to 9mm (or plasma rifles, whatever your weapon of choice was.)

We have a pretty good handle on how we handle player character defeat in PV13.

[Notice the use of the word defeat in the last sentence.]
 
Yes, notice the use of the word defeat in the last sentence.
 
Residents can blame this news item on Dr.Doom.