Interview GameSpot Q&A With Feargus Urquhart

[plin]

You can do an isometric perspective just as easily.

Sure, but that's ignoring the massive gameplay differences between Morrowind and Fallout. Fine - they have a 3d engine. But if they're planning on making a proper Fallout game they're going to have to implement two completely different games with Fallout and the next TES.

You know, maybe if they were poor, and if this was a quick cash grabber to save the dying company, and they are rushing out products like interplay, and if they can't make two seperate games with seperate gameplay from the same engine, then maybe I'd share this pessimism that bethesda's TES IV engine (or just aka Bethesda's new engine for whatever they plan to make in the future) "Fallout 3" will be "MORROWIND WITH GUNS for sSUUUREE LOLERS".

But as of now, with the NON-concrete info we have, I'd say there's no good reason to believe either way. I would say they would have to be pretty stupid and incompetent to bastardize the series even more than it has been, especially when interplay in it's situation did with FO:BOS. That is a horrible example of what a succesful developer/publisher would do.

So basically: We'll see. But at this point, it's a waste of time to lean on extreme optimism or pessimism.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You can do an isometric perspective just as easily. Instead of putting the camera behind the PC, you put it above the PC and lock it into one or more pre-defined positions. And make sure your world models make sense for these camera positions. It would be nice if objects obstructing the view become transparent, and rotating the camera would be nice too.

Isometric needs a totally different control scheme(WASD doesn't work that great in iso), you have to worry about things culling away rooves, trees, dungeon cielings and other things that are in the way of seeing the player/critters, you have to partially remove walls and other ground level objects that might be in the way of the player's vision, have camera controls, have to worry about more objects on the screen at any given time, and so on.

 

[ichpokhudezh]

You can do an isometric perspective just as easily. Instead of putting the camera behind the PC, you put it above the PC and lock it into one or more pre-defined positions.

It's probably beside the point, but this won't give you isometric. Whereever you place your camera, the further an object is the smaller it will appear.

Isometric needs a totally different control scheme(WASD doesn't work that great in iso)

This can be argued as well, since Roguelikes (at least the ones I played/saw) have movement relative to the screen, not to the player's orientation.

, you have to worry about things culling away rooves, trees, dungeon cielings and other things that are in the way of seeing the player/critters, you have to partially remove walls and other ground level objects that might be in the way of the player's vision, have camera controls, have to worry about more objects on the screen at any given time, and so on.

These are general problems with 3d to 2d projection. Do you remember XCOM?

 

[Psilon]

This can be argued as well, since Roguelikes (at least the ones I played/saw) have movement relative to the screen, not to the player's orientation.

Yes, but the overwhelming majority of roguelikes have you taking single five-foot steps where the entire dungeon floor fits into an 80x25 grid. If you had an animated character taking actual footsteps, with items, terrain, and creatures strewn randomly about, moving from place to place would be a nightmare. Think of Silent Storm, zoomed out with the camera directly overhead, and no mouse-based navigation. That's pretty damn close to what you're suggesting.

Any Fallout game with that kind of movement base would either be Avernum-style constant turn-based or a real-time hack'n'slash.

Oh, and another thing, what would happen to the hex grid? Should we make it WEADZX-based movement instead?

 

[geminito]

Games with 3d graphics engines allow mouse input too.
3d graphics engines can be made to support tile-based maps too.
True, making the scene look isometric (which isn't a perspective possible in reality) would require some tricks.

The problem with having buildings in the way can be solved by flattening objects or making objects translucent that are between the camera and the PC. Or something like that.

Actually, didn't Dungeon Keeper have a 3d "isometric" view? And you could even "possess" one of the monsters and you would get a first person view. That was pretty cool actually...

 

[Spazmo]

geminito, nobody's saying 3D wouldn't work for isometric. That idiotic idea is handily disproved by Silent Storm. The point is that first- or third-person gameplay is entirely different from isometric.

 

[plin]

geminito, nobody's saying 3D wouldn't work for isometric. That idiotic idea is handily disproved by Silent Storm. The point is that first- or third-person gameplay is entirely different from isometric.

Yeah, but I doubt it is as much of a horribly difficult task for professional developers to do as much as some people (who have no idea what they are talking about) make it out to be.

 

[mr. lamat]

if people were limited to talking about/complaining about/whining about/pooing their pants over things they actually had some knowledge on webboards would be an empty place.

some old skool nintendo games used a wasd setup and were isometric.

 

[ichpokhudezh]

This can be argued as well, since Roguelikes (at least the ones I played/saw) have movement relative to the screen, not to the player's orientation.

Yes, but the overwhelming majority of roguelikes have you taking single five-foot steps where the entire dungeon floor fits into an 80x25 grid. If you had an animated character taking actual footsteps, with items, terrain, and creatures strewn randomly about, moving from place to place would be a nightmare. Think of Silent Storm, zoomed out with the camera directly overhead, and no mouse-based navigation. That's pretty damn close to what you're suggesting.

I haven't played SS, but in X-Com I would have liked the ability to move soldiers/viewport from the keyboard. Besides, why and how would items/terrain/etc impede a keyboard-based interface more than a mouse-based one?
Edit: I have not suggested to get rid of the vermin completely, btw.

Oh, and another thing, what would happen to the hex grid? Should we make it WEADZX-based movement instead?

Neat-o. This might work, actually

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

some old skool nintendo games used a wasd setup and were isometric.

Like Syndicate, sure, but it didn't work nearly as well as it did with the mouse and keyboard that the Amiga and PC versions used. I'm pretty saure the SNES version of Syndicate relied on autoaiming and autofire.

Games with 3d graphics engines allow mouse input too.

Only if they're written to handle it. Having mouse selection in 3D isometric isn't exactly the easiest thing to write, either, but it's something someone is going to have to sit down and whip up before you can make it playable. You have to worry about selection bias, if there's a character standing near or on top of an item, which one does the character want to select? If there's a wall in the way, you have to it the character more important to the selection gadget than the wall. Things like that are something you don't have to do in an FPS.

Isometric involves a little bit more than just taking an engine designed for first person shooters and moving the camera farther away.

 

[Araanor]

Yeah, but I doubt it is as much of a horribly difficult task for professional developers to do as much as some people (who have no idea what they are talking about) make it out to be.

The biggest cost-saver in software development is re-using assets. Developing something new takes a lot of work in design, implementation and testing to get a quality product. Taking something that already works well and has GOTY awards and doing a snazzy paint-job on it might be a great idea, at least with the common logic in the games biz. It's cheap and it worked for our best-seller, hey, why not?

Note that I'm not saying Bethesda can't or won't do a proper Fallout.

 

[Seven]

geminito, nobody's saying 3D wouldn't work for isometric. That idiotic idea is handily disproved by Silent Storm. The point is that first- or third-person gameplay is entirely different from isometric.

I'm glad to see that some one finally spelled it out for the young man. On a side note, any one else hate the fact of how things can easily sneak up on you with a FPS view (often with devastating effect) even if it's a huge ass monster that you'd probably hear a mile a way in real life?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That's why I've never understood the argument that FIRST PERSON = IMMERSION. First person perspective is horribly limited in terms of viewpoint as well as perceptive abilities. I'm pretty aware of my surroundings at most points in time. My field of view is probably around 140-160 degrees. First person shooters have a 80-90 degree FOV. It's like wearing a box on your head with the front cut out so you can see.

That's also why I think cliff racers pissed so many people off in Morrowind, because that monster above all else exposes the weakness of first person viewpoints in computer games.

 

[DamnElfGirl]

First person isn't going to be immersive for me until we've got wraparound VR helmets. Though I prefer playing some games in first person view because I find them easier to control that way, the random weapon floating in front of me just isn't immersive.

The worst Morrowind experience is being attacked by a cliff racer and a slaughterfish at the same time. **shudders**

 

[suibhne]

That's only one of many, many good reasons for hatred of Cliff Racers. :evil:

One valid way in which FPV helps immersion, I think, is in coordination with an accurate surround-sound engine. Since FPV fixes your perspective at one point, it's intuitive for the aural landscape to be keyed to that point, and it's highly immersive insofar as it mirrors our real-world aural experience. That's an experience which can't be effectively analogized using any other perspective, though you can clumsily do it with a third-person behind-the-back camera.

Otherwise I agree with your criticisms 100%. With peripheral vision (which is highly effective at perceiving motion, at least), my FOV is probably 160 degrees or so, and I think Morrowind presents literally half of that. And I'm frequently reminded in poorly-designed first-person titles that I really can't perceive my character's position relative to other objects in the landscape - like the criminally idiotic burning barrels in Deus Ex, or navigating steeper terrain in Morrowind.

I do want to point out, in response to an earlier post (by Saint?), that you don't necessarily have to occlude walls if you implement free camera rotation.

 

[geminito]

some old skool nintendo games used a wasd setup and were isometric.

Like Syndicate, sure, but it didn't work nearly as well as it did with the mouse and keyboard that the Amiga and PC versions used. I'm pretty saure the SNES version of Syndicate relied on autoaiming and autofire.

Games with 3d graphics engines allow mouse input too.

Only if they're written to handle it. Having mouse selection in 3D isometric isn't exactly the easiest thing to write, either, but it's something someone is going to have to sit down and whip up before you can make it playable. You have to worry about selection bias, if there's a character standing near or on top of an item, which one does the character want to select? If there's a wall in the way, you have to it the character more important to the selection gadget than the wall. Things like that are something you don't have to do in an FPS.

Isometric involves a little bit more than just taking an engine designed for first person shooters and moving the camera farther away.

You're right, old man. It can't be done.

The Sims.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You're right, old man. It can't be done.

Are you English or retarded? All I said was that isometric was more than moving the camera way up in the air. I never said it couldn't be done, I'm pointing out that there's a lot more work to it than just moving the camera.

And I seriously doubt The Sims started off as a first person shooter.