Chris Avellone: Obsidian made multiple proposals to develop spin-offs for Fallout and The Elder Scrolls which were turned down by Bethesda

[scytheavatar]

Chris Avellone probably does understand one thing, if you are going to make a post post apocalypse setting then does that inevitably mean you will need to make a post post post apocalypse? At some point you will start asking if the Fallout idea is something that can be milked long term. Since the wheels of rebuilding civilization would kill the whole point of the franchise.

 

[Bulo]

ulysses if he dragon

 

[Bulo]

You can just set the game somewhere else. All four New Vegas DLCs are technically post-apocalyptic

can't sell that to players with a hero complex, they would complain that their actions didn't matter

Fallout 76 is successful and nothing that happens in it ultimately matters

 

[Camel]

Fallout 3 was post-apocalyptic and set on the US East coast and people still complained about the setting being frozen in time. You can’t satisfy everyone.

 

[Bulo]

There is a degree of logic in the stagnation of the Capital Wasteland. Super mutants have been terrorising the city for centuries. It makes less sense in the safer rural fringes. Megaton doesn't really strike me as a 200 year project.

Also, I've always wondered: why is there a crater around the megaton bomb when it was clearly dropped from an aeroplane? The impact wouldn't displace that much earth

 

[Yosharian]

There is a degree of logic in the stagnation of the Capital Wasteland. Super mutants have been terrorising the city for centuries. It makes less sense in the safer rural fringes. Megaton doesn't really strike me as a 200 year project.

Also, I've always wondered: why is there a crater around the megaton bomb when it was clearly dropped from an aeroplane? The impact wouldn't displace that much earth

Your mistake is expecting logic in Bethesda writing

There is a crater because it's fucking cool, nobody cares that that's not how science works, what are you, a fucking nerd or something?

Fallout isn't for you anymore sorry to break it to you

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Fallout 3 was post-apocalyptic and set on the US East coast and people still complained about the setting being frozen in time. You can’t satisfy everyone.

The thing that Beth didn't understand is that Fallout is not a Mad Max type of post-apocalypse where the bombs dropped some 10 or 20 years ago
Fallout 1 is nearly a century after the bombs and there's already actual emerging civilization, 2 is set almost 2 centuries after the bombs and it's made clear there's actual cities dotting the wastes with functioning societies and trade between them

Super mutants have been terrorising the city for centuries.

But how did the Super Mutants get there in the first place?
The Vault Dweller nearly wipes them out by the end of F1 and without the Master there's no more production of Muties

 

[Sentinel]

wyvern*

 

[Bulo]

But how did the Super Mutants get there in the first place?

Bethesda invents a new source of FEV with each new game. In 3 it was Vault-Tec, in 4 it was the Institute, and in 76 it was West Tek (but not that West Tek). The better question is, why do people from the East Coast call them super mutants? That was the Master's moniker

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Man, now I'm left wondering what TES title with the team from NV would've been like
They had a great deal of experience with gamebryo, they knew what made Beth games appealing but they also vastly improved their experience, they had actual good writers at the time to make sense of the lore and plan a campgain, plus with Skyrim released recently they would be ridding the TES high like NV rode F3 high, so success financial and critical success would be garanteed

Really it seems like the ideal situation for both the companies and players
Bethseda works on the AAA numbered sequel slop for the masses and Obsidian reuses assets and fills in the gaps between releases with tigher spin-offs to sastisfy the hardcore audience

Todd always comes across as decent and genuinely interested in the projects he works on, even if they often tend to go horribly wrong.

In PatricianTV lastest review (the 8hour Starfield analysis), he presented an interview with a senior dev where he shares that ever since Skyrim's development, Todd (through no fault of his own, as he really is an approachable guy and enjoys discussing game design) has become increasingly more unreachable for his devs
Supposedly, pre-Skyrim any Beth dev could just knock on his office doors and consult him on whatever matter conserning the game, but now with mounting responsibilities to the corporate heads and the fact he has to run 3 big studios concurrently, it's pretty much impossible for anyone other than the lead devs to even schedule a meet with the man

 

[d1r]

But how did the Super Mutants get there in the first place?

Bethesda invents a new source of FEV with each new game. In 3 it was Vault-Tec, in 4 it was the Institute, and in 76 it was West Tek (but not that West Tek). The better question is, why do people from the East Coast call them super mutants? That was the Master's moniker

Truly Pagliarulo-esque!

Leave it to the gay paper rapist to come up with new infections in each new Fallout iteration!

 

[Grampy_Bone]

A never-changing status quo, it'll forever be Fallout the First, same as how Dungeons and Dragons is always Dungeons and Dragons.

That's pretty much what Bethesda has done though. F2 and FNV had rising civilization, F3 and F4 are stuck in perpetual scavenger worlds.

Anyway I always wondered if FNV was pushed out the door intentionally buggy to sabotage the metacritic bonus and ensure it would not surpass the primary games.

 

[Immortal]

Chris Avellone probably does understand one thing, if you are going to make a post post apocalypse setting then does that inevitably mean you will need to make a post post post apocalypse? At some point you will start asking if the Fallout idea is something that can be milked long term. Since the wheels of rebuilding civilization would kill the whole point of the franchise.

I've heard the argument made that the Starwars setting is only equipped to tell one type of story. The "Young Jedi grows up, meets a mentor, challenged by the temptation of the dark side". Any other attempts to tell a different story are met with failure / rejected by fans.

Did MCA attempt to break out of that mould in KOTOR 2?

 

[Roguey]

That's pretty much what Bethesda has done though. F2 and FNV had rising civilization, F3 and F4 are stuck in perpetual scavenger worlds.

Tim Cain said Fallout 4 with its focus on synths (and synth rights) doesn't feel like Fallout to him anymore and I agree.

Anyway I always wondered if FNV was pushed out the door intentionally buggy to sabotage the metacritic bonus and ensure it would not surpass the primary games.

Chris Avellone claims they did not, Anthony Davis and Brian Fargo claimed they did. I'd say it's possible for two things to be possible at once, that Obsidian didn't manage the project as well as they could have (which is true of virtually every video game ever created) and that Bethesda moved the release date up just a tad to ding the review scores when the product was shaping up to be a little too good.

 

[0sacred]

can't sell that to players with a hero complex, they would complain that their actions didn't matter. Also no awesome button effect

That's less abrasive than Avellone's "just keep nuking the world so your actions don't matter" solution which pisses a lot of people off (me included).

welp, you could say at least there was some dynamic in the setting. Things beyond your control, sure, but it doesn't give off the vibe of a static world where your actions are window dressing.

 

[Lemming42]

In PatricianTV lastest review (the 8hour Starfield analysis), he presented dev interviews that make the assertion that ever since Skyrim's development, Todd (through no fault of his own, as he really is an approachable guy and enjoys discussing game design) has become increasingly more unreachable for his devs
Supposedly, pre-Skyrim any Beth dev could just knock on his office doors and consult him on whatever matter conserning the game, but now with mounting responsibilities to the corporate heads and the fact he has to run 3 big studios concurrently, it's pretty much impossible for anyone other than the lead devs to even schedule a meet with the an

Sounds about right - those behind the scenes pre-release Starfield videos gave the impression that the company had become unwieldy and bloated, with too many people doing too many different things, nobody talking to each other and no real central direction. Obviously made a lot worse by the amount of international outsourcing they did.

I get the impression that Todd himself is kind of tired at this point too, the days of being a hands-on project lead over a relatively small team are long gone and now he's basically just the face of a corporation and his main role seems to be to take the blame when people aren't satisfied with their products.

 

[Yosharian]

All the old guard are tired and past it at this point

And a lot of them were never exactly swimming in talent in the first place

Time for Bethesda to be taken outside and shot in the head

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Todd has a fame of being a douche at work. I wonder if said fame has been built upon years of "well, Todd said..." moments.

 

[The Jester]

A never-changing status quo, it'll forever be Fallout the First, same as how Dungeons and Dragons is always Dungeons and Dragons.

D&D was a lot to begin with, it can support a lot of stories and it's still D&D. Fallout was basically self-contained, seems very difficult to expand on without going bigger. Humanity wouldn't be left scrabbling around in the dirt forever, at least not in the apocalypse Fallout presented. Would love to hear Chris talk about this now and if he still feels the same.

There must be a delicate balance between Bethesda's shitty Mad Max theme park and Mojave's possible post-post-post-apocalyptic future that becomes almost indistinguishable from regular society.

Bethesda's approach leans too much into the exaggerated, almost caricatured post-apocalyptic world. On the other hand, Avellone's notion of keeping Fallout grounded in the aftermath, without allowing it to progress too far into a rebuilt world, aims to maintain that distinct Fallout feel.

The danger lies in losing what makes Fallout Fallout—struggling against humanity's past mistakes.
Avellone's extreme-sounding ideas about resetting and nuking regions might actually serve as a safeguard against Fallout losing its unique essence amidst a civilization that's too far removed from its post-apocalyptic origins.

 

[Yosharian]

I honestly don't give a shit whether Fallout stays Fallout I just want a good game

If the series changes then it is what it is, but the principal thing is to make a fucking good videogame already

 

[The Jester]

I honestly don't give a shit whether Fallout stays Fallout I just want a good game

If the series changes then it is what it is, but the principal thing is to make a fucking good videogame already

I guess it's all comes back to "what is Fallout to you?".

 

[Harthwain]

Chris claims Todd was always on their side. It's some of the people above and below him that are the problem.

"The people above"? Isn't Todd the top man in Bethesda?

 

[Drowed]

Actually, what I regret the most is the fact that Skyrim:Obsidian was never released, so that I could see Bethesda and everyone else getting butthurt when it was considered superior to OG Skyrim in practically every way.

 

[Gargaune]

"The people above"? Isn't Todd the top man in Bethesda?

Not quite.

Bethesda Game Studios

Key people
Angela Browder (studio director)
Ashley Cheng (managing director)
Todd Howard (executive producer)

Plus the corporate managers at Bethesda Softworks, plus the same at ZeniMax/Microsoft, there's plenty of people who could potentially overrule him on various aspects.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Todd is probably the guy who has the highest rank whenever he's in the room for the dailies, but he has to answer to the board of directors.