Interview Fallout Developer Profile: John Deiley

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: Black Isle Studios; Fallout 3 (Van Buren); John Deiley

<IMG SRC="/images/news/stranger2.gif" ALIGN="right" /><a href="http://www.nma-fallout.com">No Mutants Allowed</a> has released their Fallout developer profile of <a href="http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=7231">John Deiley</a>, who worked on Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 as a designer. In the interview, he discusses his past work in the Fallout series of games, his future prospects, and the kind of stuff you would read in an interview with <a href="http://www.wallpapers.cz/music/Avril%20Lavigne.jpg">Avril Lavigne</a>. Here's a <b>very interesting</b> snippet:<blockquote>
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<b>What is your hope for future Fallout games? Would you like to be a part of a future Fo team?</b>
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I can only hope that a developer who really cares for Fallout and the universe it’s based in gets the license. I don’t want to see the game cheapened in order for someone to just “make a buck” or go with the prevailing trend of console gaming. I think a massively multiplayer online version of Fallout would be nice.
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Would I like to be part of a future team? Absolutely. I can’t think of a better future.
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<b>If you could make any computer game that you wanted, which would it be and why?</b>
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<br>
Two games come to mind. First, Fallout Online. I think that online games are the way of the future and that a Fallout title would do exceptionally well. Second, I’ve been working on a traditional Final Fantasy type console rpg. I love those games and want to try my hand at creating one.
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</blockquote>
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I wouldn't want you on <i>my</i> team. Making a massively multiplayer online version of Fallout is just as cheapening as turning it into a console game (which was done). First off: how the hell would it be balanced? Furthermore, respawning would make absolutely no sense. You're not much of a designer if you think MMORPGs are the way to go for a gritty, realistic game.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

I can just picture the hot ghoul on supermutant cyber action, hours of levelling up on rats in a cave, the brotherhood of steel clan running rampant with ridiculously high levels and super duper turbo alien blaster rifles....

oh the humanity....

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

A Ghoul telling a Supermant to "Fuck off, n00bz0rz!1!!11!1" is just what the series needs, right?

I find it interesting that he wouldn't want the franchise to be cheapened "just to make a buck" or somesuch, but has no problem with the concept of it being used on a game genre which lends itself to an overly stagnant design and gameplay concept, leading to the near destruction of the game's nature itself.

 

[Odin]

<a href="http://www.wallpapers.cz/music/Avril%20Lavigne.jpg">Avril Lavigne</a>

She's HAWTT!

Oh you liked my photoshopping of the Mysterious stranger, meh..half ass job but eck..

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

So which is it, he's just deluded, an idiot or is already developing a fallout mmorpg and this is the beginning of a very subtle campaign to test the waters.....

 

[Volourn]

I don't care for MMORPHs; but I do find it that lameos such as Ex get all riled up by even the mention of it.

Ex = flame and insult and belittle anyone who disagrees with him.

Ex, you can accuse of him of not being much of a deisgner if you are stupid. But, hey, you can whine 'til youa re blue in the face; but obviously you nothing next to nothing about being a designer. Afterall, this guy helped deisgn FO2 one of the best CRPGs of all time, and you have designed, uhg, oh, um, The Whining game which is entertaining but has very little substance.

And, oh, I doubt he'd want to be ona crybaby like your team - not that you'd ever have a team and if you did they'd all be morons for following you.


P.S. That's like 4-5 threads IN A ROW where you have insulted someone for being "stupid" because they disagreed with you. You are worse than Sarge. :twisted:

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

And almost as many thread that you have gone across flaming Exitium....

As far as this post goes I have to agree with most of what exitium has said, and what exactly does his design abilities have to do with his opinions. If you had to be as skilled and intelligent as the person you were criticising I doubt you'd ever get to post again...

 

[Volourn]

Never said he had to be a deisgner to criticize and make an opinion. It's when he uses terms like 'youa ren't much of a designer" which is a joke since, afterall, this guy worked on FO2. 'Nough said. Hoiw can anyone take Exer seriously after that comment?

And, hey if Ex is gonna spam flames against people who aren't here to respond then I think it's only fair I champion the counter flame cause. Ex is a big boy I think he cna handle a little gril like me.

 

[Kamaz]

...then water-testing return bad results - it is no water, but the blood of fallout-fans itself and its growing so large that once it'll swallow all the game industry. Look at IPLY paasing into the grim bordo shades of an ocean, Look there's Titus going downwards...warn my words, bros, its not too long for Doom of the Fallout Legacy 3D: The party at LasVegas GoldenEd. to come out.

But seriously, IMHO MMORPG's as a kind is meant only for one and only purpose - "just to make a buck". It is no game because it is the same as trying to sell our real world as a high-quality videogame with awsome graphics, but badly gameplay. There is no point playing any MMORPG, because you cannot get any game-experience from the process another than "fuck I spent 2 days without sleep" and "But, huh, I got 25th level, yo, Im kewl" while Fallout is more like reading a book with beginning and ending and even story-line between . Colorfull characters...can you imagine a shit lke that in MMORPG? Of course, real people are allways more..how to say..vivid? But mostly the persons that are playing MMORPG are focusing solely on leveling rather story creating. Name at least one example of kewl quest given by PC in MMORPG if you have any experience with that, me myself have heard nothing but "...and then I beat the fucking bastard..hehe" or "I had to kill 131 dragon the get into the guild" or just "the admin kicked my out!". I guess normal single player game takes enough time to spend rather to waste in on bullshit you get nothing back.

Dunno how this guy got to Fallouts, but I hope thats because of his other talents while Fallout MMORPG, even made better than any living example, will be nothing but meat-beat with no sense.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

I would question this guys intelligence as well when he lands such an obviously bad suggestion as a fallout mmorpg, especially after stating he wants the fallout universe well taken care of.

Whatever skill he exercised in fallout 2 must have been well directed by the other designers if his original ideas are of that caliber. Everything that made fallout great would be lost in the maelstrom of shit that is mmorpg's. So I would go so far as to say this guy must be more than a little lacking in the creativity department.

 

[Volourn]

*yawn*


Exitium's Edit: This is an example of a bullshit reply, kids.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

*yawn*

:evil: :shock:

Sorry I forgot the obligatory cast of smilies to hold your interest.

 

[Volourn]

LOL That wasn't the problem. It's kinda hard to have a "discussion" when it comes down to "he sucks, he's stupid, his idea is pathetic, whatever he did on FO2 was either crappy or because others' did the real work". Lame.

 

[Astromarine]

everything I have heard and read about World of Warcraft in the past several weeks tells me that it IS possible to lovingly depict a game world in an MMO format. Granted, what people do with it is their own business, but the infrastructure is there. WoW has a FANTASTIC world and immersion.

BUT - the Warcraft universe has always gone for an over-the-top, comic, cartoony approach to the aestethics of the world. Also, the series depicts the entire planet, allowing for much diversification. ALSO, it's a fantasy setting. Fallout is a gritty, realistic series which takes place in our own universe, in a small region of Earth that is pretty much uniformly destroyed. No fantasy = no dungeons. The biggest strength in the world of Fallout is it's people, not it's location. This makes it, in my mind, impossible to depict with any accuracy. MMONPCs suck the big one. Warcraft is sufficient in this aspect, but not great. Some memorable *quests* are in WoW, but no memorable, quasi-alive NPCs.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

LOL That wasn't the problem. It's kinda hard to have a "discussion" when it comes down to "he sucks, he's stupid, his idea is pathetic, whatever he did on FO2 was either crappy or because others' did the real work". Lame.

Why?

I was actually hoping you might try for some justification. I wouldn't say he sucks, but he musn't be too bright and his idea is pretty far beyond pathetic.

I also stated his work on fallout 2 is questionable if all his original ideas are that bad. Maybe they weren't, maybe he is going through a rough patch, with heavy drinking and mind altering drugs.

 

[Sol Invictus]

<a href="http://www.wallpapers.cz/music/Avril%20Lavigne.jpg">Avril Lavigne</a>

She's HAWTT!

Oh you liked my photoshopping of the Mysterious stranger, meh..half ass job but eck..

Yes, it was nice, but I had to photoshop it further to remove the white jaggies on the outside.
Here's the original and then my version:

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

I suppose it would be completely impossible to have that loaded as an avatar? :D

 

[Odin]

Yes, it was nice, but I had to photoshop it further to remove the white jaggies on the outside.

Cheers, we'd make a great couple

 

[Sol Invictus]

A Ghoul telling a Supermant to "Fuck off, n00bz0rz!1!!11!1" is just what the series needs, right?

I can picture the game now. It will be a zone-less Asheron's Call clone with a ton of crafting features, and guns. I will now attempt to recreate the experience in my mind in the form of text.

There will be 8-player parties, and a session of gaming in one of the high level spots (The Glow) will go like this. I will use the Powah Armor Mans faux-clan as an example of a 4-player gaming session:

Party members: Killian (Level 40 Brotherhood Paladin), Exitium (Level 41 Brotherhood Medic), Spazmo (Level 42 Tribal Guardian), LlamaGod (Level 43 Super Mutant Heavy Weapons Master)

Equipment:
Killian - Powercharged Turbo Plasma Rifle (Mods: PowerBlast, Turbo x2)
Exitium - Gauss Rifle MK1, Battlefield Stimulants, Super MediKit
Spazmo - PowerSledge MK3
LlamaGod - Avenger Minigun MK2

Combat Perks:
Killian - Triple Shot, Aimed Shot, Charged Power Blast, Morale MK3 (health buff)
Exitium - Battleheal, Mass Heal MK3, Alacrity (speed buff), Revive (resurrect spell), Morale MK1, Brotherhood Shield (bonus to defense buff)
Spazmo - Heavy Hit, Powerstrike, Whirling Strike, Cleave
LlamaGod - Spray, Adreneline (self-buff for 200% aiming accuracy)

Location: The Glow (Level 40-50 Hunting Area)

The group arrives at The Glow from a 10 minute walk from The Hub after Killian buys his Power Armor MK1 from a weapons trader. We arrive at the entrance and summarily choose a room, so to speak - to hunt in.

Killian: Come here guys. The mobs respawn quickly here.
Spazmo: Sweet. Here they come
LlamaGod: Need buffs!
*Exitium casts Alacrity, Morale, Brotherhood Shield
Killian: My morale is better than yours. Stop casting morale.
*Killian casts Morale MK3
*Exitium casts Morale
Killian: OMFG stop casting it, I said mine's better. Save your energy.
*Killian casts Morale MK3

- robots start spawning, all 10 at once -

*LlamaGod uses Spray, does 200 damage to 7 of the 10 monsters, weakening them.
LlamaGod: I can't use that for another 600 seconds. Take the others down.
*Spazmo uses Whirling Strike and does 100 damage to 5 of the 10 monsters.
*Killian attacks various monsters for 50 damage a blast, killing several.

You hit monster for 50 damage
You hit monster for 30 damage
You hit monster for 13 damage
You CRITICALLY hit monster for 123 damage
You hit monster for 25 damage
You hit monster for 32 damage

Casting Battle Heal
Casting Battle Heal

Casting Morale
Casting Alacrity

You CRITICALLY hit monster for 132 damage
You hit monster for 52 damage
You CRITICALLY hit monster for 111 damage
You hit monster for 37 damage
You hit monster for 43 damage
You hit monster for 50 damage

- the monsters start attacking and Spazmo's health goes to 20% -
Spazmo: HEAL! HEAL!
LlamaGod: Kite it! Pull it here while I shoot it.
*Spazmo kites the monster but gets hit, health goes down to 10%

*Exitium casts Battle Heal on Spazmo, raising it to 60%
Exitium: Be careful dammit.

*LlamaGod kills the monster.
-5 monsters respawn-

Killian: ADD 5!

You hit monster for 32 damage
You CRITICALLY hit monster for 122 damage
You hit monster for 61 damage
You hit monster for 37 damage
You hit monster for 43 damage
You hit monster for 50 damage

-Rinse and repeat for another hour-
*LlamaGod levels up and is now 44.

LlamaGod: LVL!
Exitium: gratz
Killian: grats
Spazmo: grats.

LlamaGod: I just got a new attack - Spray MK2!

-30 minutes pass and another group of adventurers comes in-
Howling1: GTFO.
ShadowPaladin: Get out now, all your base are belong to us.
SuqDeezNutZ: 0ur r00m n00bz
[GIZMO]Harold: PVP now or we will grief you!

The good guys: Bring it!

-PVP ensues, but it has to be initiated first. -

Do you confirm you want to engage in Group PVP? -yes-
You hit SuqDeezNutZ for 61 damage
You hit SuqDeezNutZ for 37 damage
You hit SuqDeezNutZ for 43 damage
You hit SuqDeezNutZ for 50 damage

*SuqDeezNutZ dies

The bad guys: OMFG. Let's teleport out of here.
SuqDeezNutZ: I need res!!!
Howling1: I don't have res.
Exitium: I will res you so you don't lose exp, for a price.
-trading ensues-

*SuqDeezNutZ: k click confirm, 5000?
Exitium: k.
SuqDeezNutZ: thx. cya.
LlamaGod: That was fun, don't **** with us anymore.

....or was it?!
No.

 

[Sol Invictus]

*snip stupid bullshit*:

Anyone can be a designer. How do you think Sawyer, Gaider, Avellone and shmucks like Chuck Cuevas got into designer positions? Game design school? Hell no. They started up from QA, pitched a few ideas to someone in charge, and that someone might have liked what they had to offer. Sometimes it works out well, and other times it comes out like Daikatana and FOBOS.

By the way, Volourn - in terms of game design, Fallout 2 sucked ass. Individual areas were good, like Vault City, The Den (which was designed by Tim Cain), and New Reno (which was done by Avellone) and, even though New Reno did not, at all, fit the game's 50s pulp-future theme and setting. The game as a whole was a huge mess of non-aligned locations and botched storylines (like the Enclave trading with the Mafiosos). Deiley did some of the worse locations in the game, namely Vault 13 (TALKING DEATHCLAWS), NCR and Navarro.

Edit: TEMPLE OF TRIALS

Need I say more?

 

[Sol Invictus]

*snip masturbating over WOW session*

Axelgreese is in the beta and he says it's no different than any other mmorpg out there. It's all about levelling and completing quests you don't much care about since -everybody- does them and they don't impact the world one bit. Your character is just a bunch of levels and it isn't something you can get attached to as in Fallout or PS: Torment.

The trade skills are completely useless, aside from fishing, because the phat lewt you get from drops is a lot better than anything you can craft. You will also spend as many points to pump up on crafting skills as you would if you pumped the same amount of skill points into more useful fighting skills. How's that for making crafting useless? Crafting skills are supposed to bring the community to live by creating an economy of supply and demand. Trade skills have always been some of the most important things in any society, so for a game to not put much importance on them simply kills any immersion you might have had in the beginning. What's funny about WOW is how everybody wants to buy bags. Bags to carry phat lewt. So bag-making is the only useful craft.

 

[Ausir]

I was responsible for the Temple of Trials at the beginning

This sentence says it all.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yes, it was nice, but I had to photoshop it further to remove the white jaggies on the outside.

Cheers, we'd make a great couple

Make more of those and I'll clean them up for ya :D

 

[mr. lamat]

someone's got his angry pants on today.

if the players per server were kept under one hundred, game type specified and locked, it might actually work as a mmorpg. those conditions would bankrupt any company within a week though.

 

[Volourn]

What exactly was wrong with Navarro and NCR? They ere pretty damn good.

While the Temple of Trials was silly in the way it was presented, there was still more than a few ways to complete it so it wasn't too bad. Not the best place but not completely horrible.

I agree the talking death claws was a tad over the top; but otherwise Vault 13 wasn't too horrible in atmosphere and interatcion which, to me, is what FO is all about.

You are right. Anyone can be a designer; but not evryone can be a *successful* designer which Gaider, Avellone, and to a lesser degree Sawyer are. Cuevas is a whole 'nother bottle of spaghetti. Heh. The point I wa smaking it's one thing to disagree with his opinion and some of his ideas; it's totally another to just take out the bash stick and basically say bullshit like "he sucks, he's dumb, he's retarded". Stuff like that makes it hard to take your criticisms seriously.

Also, even though I've been ragging on ya (heh); your Glow area example is funny.