Interview Reflecting back on the development of Fallout 3

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Fallout 3

Bethesda's Todd Howard and Emil Pagliarulo <a href="http://www.nowgamer.com/features/262/fallout-3-retrospective">go in-depth at NowGamer</a>:
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<blockquote>“We felt obligated by the series, not by the fans in particular, as we’re big fans ourselves,” explains Todd Howard, the game’s producer. “We knew, going into it, that we had huge shoes to fill.” Bethesda is an immensely capable studio, but the Fallout series’ unique personality and rare maturity attracted a jealously protective audience. Very few games took you to the places that Black Isle dared, and it’s natural to be wary of even the most skilful and well-meaning alien influence. Howard could have screamed his sincerity from the highest mountain, but suspicion came with the territory.
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“WE MAKE BIG games, but it’s never just space for space’s sake,” insists Pagliarulo. “The downtown DC section was, at one point, twice as big as what we shipped with. We’re talking polished gameplay spaces, with weeks, even months of work having been put into them. But we looked at all that space and had to be honest with ourselves: it was too much, it was hard for the player to navigate, it didn’t really add much to the game, and so we cut it.”
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[...]
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“The choice to save or destroy Megaton was definitely a deliberate attempt to show the world we were serious about taking on the Fallout franchise,” says Pagliarulo, “because a big part of that is giving the player some really tough choices to make. Megaton is definitely one of the first big decisions you have to make. It’s one of the biggest in the entire game, really. The Fallout world is not pretty, and that’s something we fully embraced. It’s epitomised in the Megaton quest.”</blockquote>
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All the standard tropes are included. Namely that the fans suck and only impartial people are truly able to appreciate Fallout 3 for the beauty that it is.
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You can also check a bunch of Broken Steel reviews including <a href="http://au.xboxlive.ign.com/articles/980/980045p1.html">IGN</a>, <a href="http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/fallout_3_broken_steel/review.html">VideoGamer</a> and <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gaming/reviews/2009/05/the-third-times-the-charm-broken-steel-reviewed.ars">Ars Technica</a>. All are 9 / 10, 5 stars etc...
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Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com">GameBanshee</a>

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

“...it didn’t really add much to the game, and so we cut it.”

Kinda like foreskin. Revealling Fallout 3 in all its glory, pointed at us.

On a more serious note, all that reads as "We couldn't come up with anything (let alone, something interesting) to fill the gameworld with, and so we shrunk it to the size of my back yard."

 

[Pliskin]

“We felt obligated by the series, not by the fans in particular, as we’re big fans ourselves,” explains Todd Howard

Do they speak English in WUT?

 

[Tolknaz]

Oh great, another Fallout 3 themed circle jerk. When will this shit end?

 

[Micmu]

Batshitsda are famous for making such bullshit statements "OMG we had like 3X moar content at first, didn't work too well, so we had to cut it!11".
Yet their games keep getting smaller and shittier.

 

[Gragt]

I feel like I read that one before, months ago.

 

[sah]

I looked to the right and saw the name of another article:

Bethesda: We haven't yet mastered the RPG

 

[Kron]

So Bethesda makes polished games, and BIG GAMES too?
I'm not too sure what they mean by BIG, but in any case Fallout 3 felt small and ridiculously cramped; if it's not about space for space's sake, then it must at least be space for coherence's sake.

 

[Jaesun]

We talk to Bethesda on the creation of one of the finest RPGs in recent years

However, impartial observers had reached a different conclusion: Fallout 3 was in the care of Bethesda Softworks, a master of the art of role-play...

 

[Carceri]

if Oblivion was big, Fallout 3 could always be bigger – but Bethesda actually decided to head in the opposite direction. After all, the emptiness of the wasteland made it feel vast by default,

That's Fallout 3, a game filled with an empty vastness.

 

[Micmu]

We talk to Bethesda on the creation of one of the finest RPGs in recent years

However, impartial observers had reached a different conclusion: Fallout 3 was in the care of Bethesda Softworks, a master of the art of role-play...

Makes sense. They mastered the art of role-playing RPG developers.

 

[Tails]

We talk to Bethesda on the creation of one of the finest RPGs in recent years

However, impartial observers had reached a different conclusion: Fallout 3 was in the care of Bethesda Softworks, a master of the art of role-play...

I just lost words after reading this.

 

[Talby]

Bethesda is easily the most unprofessional mainsteam game developer around. Why do they get this ridiculous cock-sucking praise from the videogame media?

 

[Xor]

Because the gaming media exists solely to sell you games.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Because the gaming media exists solely to suck cock.

fix

 

[poocolator]

Pagliarulo is why I jog every day.

EDIT:
(_(_):::::::::::::::::D

 

[Texas Red]

Batshitsda are famous for making such bullshit statements "OMG we had like 3X moar content at first, didn't work too well, so we had to cut it!11".
Yet their games keep getting smaller and shittier.

Yes I noticed this from Bioware and Bethesda. "Radiant AI was just too smart. It did things you'd never expect and so we had to tweak it" or "The dynamic shadows were too demanding for most systems so we had to cut some of it off."

 

[1eyedking]

Shit, deja-vu all over. Again.

 

[Repposh.Press]

Teh Subjekt Line

Cutting area, that's prime real estate for modders saving the main game.

Beth. should be more honest, "We didn't have the time/money/support from the higher-ups to finish what visions we had." VATS has stimpacks and other items wrote into it. If I placed my tinfoil hat on... Beth wanted some kind of Action Point based combat system that in a way mimic TB. But in the big bucket of fail that is they shipped a buggy 80% finished turd.

*Wack*

<edit>
more WACKING
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[elander_]

Game over Bethesda. You screwed up big this time.

 

[Kron]

Game over Bethesda. You screwed up big this time.

Sadly, no. It's not game over, and they didn't screw up big time. They squeezed out a half-made, mediocre piece of shit... and they sold millions.

Bethesda is far from reaching the Game Over screen. They will keep on releasing crap for a long while...

 

[jiujitsu]

I enjoyed Fallout 3. I don't think it was as good as it could be. I'm really looking forward to Obsidian's spin on it. RIP Troika.

I sometimes wish I was a billionaire. I would buy it all out and pay to have Tim Cain make whatever he damn well wanted. And Chris Avellone would be there and Leonard Boyarsky would be there and JE Sawyer would be there and...

I've been drinking.

 

[racofer]

Bethesda is easily the most unprofessional mainsteam game developer around. Why do they get this ridiculous cock-sucking praise from the videogame media?

Because this unprofessionalism is hawt and makes Bethesda less of a mainstream developer, thus catching to casual hardcore players since it's not a professional studio.

Imagine Bethesda as the indie developer of mainstream hardcore casual gamers.

 

[bhlaab]

Hats off to the guy who wrote that article. Way to ask the tough questions

 

[Jaesun]

Oh Todd! Emil! *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* Oh Gawd! I love it! *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* I can't get enough Bethesda cock! *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* Gawd! Your RPG cocks, are so HUGE! *slurp* *slurp* Oh God! *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* IT'S HEVAN! *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*