Game News Pete Hines chats with Eurogamer

[Herbert West]

Their PR campaign forced a million dollar's worth of hype down journalist's throats and people are buying it, believing that the fake image they project is what Fallout 3 is going to be. Why destroy that perfect idyll by showing what the game is really like? Besides, it's like Saint said it, people will buy it anyway, demo or not.

What fake image? Toddler himself has said "It's basically oblivion with guns."

 

[inwoker]

When there is no demo, one torrents.

Amen

 

[JarlFrank]

Their PR campaign forced a million dollar's worth of hype down journalist's throats and people are buying it, believing that the fake image they project is what Fallout 3 is going to be. Why destroy that perfect idyll by showing what the game is really like? Besides, it's like Saint said it, people will buy it anyway, demo or not.

What fake image? Toddler himself has said "It's basically oblivion with guns."

The "improved Radiant AI", the quests with tons of choice and consequence... when you release a demo that lacks those promised features, people will know. If you don't, and only release hype and faked videos like they did with Oblivion [remember the AI demonstration with that woman and the dog? Completely scripted, and Beth claimed it to be non-scripted AI behaviour], then people will believe the fake image you show them.

 

[Monolith]

Thanks, Jarl.

 

[Annonchinil]

On the PC you essentailly need a demo.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

That doesn't excuse the fact that the gaming media is doing a major dicksuck job on this game though. "200 Endings" is the new "Retarded AI".

Now it's "500 Endings".

 

[Jabbapop]

lol if teh game is anything like oblivion i bet most people will get the same ending: shutting the game off in complete boredom.

kekekekkeke

 

[Dire Roach]

Why go through the trouble of making a demo when the last game you made didn't have one and still sold like hotcakes?

 

[pkt-zer0]

It's amazing how they can screw up even such simple stuff. You're going to say there's no demo - fine. State that the reasons for this is that it's UNPOSSIBLE - not good.
But I guess it wouldn't be Bethesda PR if they didn't lie about one thing or another.

 

[lefthandblack]

"Arrows cost money, the Irish cost nothing."

In this case the Irish are fanboys and journalists.

 

[elander_]

like anyone expected Beth to release a demo of this shit. or?
though the single fact of -no demo- can be used as a new troll material to mess with what's left of f3 fanboys' brains.

And at the same time you likely wonder why no one outside the existing fan base takes the opinions of fans seriously when people like you exist.

Don't be such an hater Pete Hines/Mech. Isn't it funny that you have such a childish hater signature and still the Codex let's you post?

 

[elander_]

They don't have to take a portion of the game and make that the demo. They could just create a small brand new area from scratch showing off gameplay elements. Its not that hard. When there is no demo, one torrents.

Exactly. Again Bethesda is targeting at people who will buy the game to know if it's good, which are the only guys who are either young enough or lacking IQ enough to buy a game from them.

 

[haphazad]

Some really quite good games have been released without demos - Galciv and Sins of a solar empire, to name two. The justification Stardock gives for no pre-release demos is that the time and effort used to create a demo could be better spent on more beta testing, tweaking and added features.

Admittedly Bethesda are unlikely to use the extra time all that effectively, but I don't think it's unreasonable for a company that's assured sales to not release a demo for their rpg. RPG demos nearly always suck anyway. Why waste money releasing something that's certainly going to get rammed when you can get people to pay for something that might be rammed?

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I don't see why Pete Hines can't just tell the truth he's always making some altruistic reason as to why something that is stupid is really the right choice.

 

[ushdugery]

I'm so sick of seeing a fallout game that isn't even made for fallout fans.It makes me really sad and annoyed that my memories are getting raped and defiled so some wanker can have his go at fucking with greatness.

 

[Section8]

They don't have to take a portion of the game and make that the demo. They could just create a small brand new area from scratch showing off gameplay elements. Its not that hard. When there is no demo, one torrents.

Thing is, why do that when you could invest the same man power into pay-to-download content? I think they're only being partway sinister with their motives here. They know the game will sell plenty of copies without a demo, they know it would take time and money to create a demo, and they know that their actual gameplay isn't developed enough to stand up on it's own without the carrot-on-a-stick that gaining levels and dicking about in a giant world provide.

 

[MetalCraze]

On to the dangers you'll face then. During our demo these came in the form of mutants and Ghouls. Super mutants are your biggest foe in the game, with super mutant strongholds being set up across the wasteland. You'll also face Ghouls (humans exposed to extreme amounts of radiation), with one particular variant being so full of radiation that it glows. How easily you spot these enemies depends on your perception stat, with high level characters seeing enemies on their radar much sooner than beginners.

I like this very much.

 

[thesheeep]

Okay, guys...

I don't know how many of you actually are into programming and "making a game", but it is entirely possible that the whole system (engine, etc.) Fallout 3 is being build on is simply not that easy to cut down to a demo.

That said, since they are using a modified Oblivion engine (can't recall it's name), they should have enough experience with it to be able to make a demo. Of course the demo wouldn't be representative for the whole game (well at least I hope so), but nobody would really expect that. Bethsoft is probably afraid that people would expect that, because they're aiming at their "dumb" audience anyway, and therefore decided not to spend their time on making a demo.

Another reason is, of course, that this is business and a company has to release a game as soon as possible. And if the company knows (or can at least guess) that the title will be a success anyway... why make a demo?

I can completely understand their decision... I just hope that they will at least be releasing gameplay videos like mad.

 

[elander_]

The problem is that the tools they are using were not developed with the idea of making a demo from the beginning. That justification Pete gave makes no sense. They said they made small town where they prototyped parts of the game so with some planing it would take little work to later cut off that portion of the map and release as a demo.

Bethesda games follow the Ultima 7 model of a sandbox with a continuous map the size of a park that can be walked from one end to the other and this game was planed to have a demo from the beginning. The U7 demo is one of the coolest game demos i played and it shows that with skill you can make a demo that helps selling a game.

 

[Section8]

I don't know how many of you actually are into programming and "making a game", but it is entirely possible that the whole system (engine, etc.) Fallout 3 is being build on is simply not that easy to cut down to a demo.

It's certainly not trivial, but nor is it difficult. It's a question of whether it's worth investing the time and money into a demo. Interestingly enough, Chris Taylor surfaced in the bastard half-brother of this thread on NMA, and said he kind of regrets the Fallout demo, because he felt the effort spent could have been put toward the final game itself. But the thing is, the demo sold a good many people on the game. It truly was a nifty little snapshot of what to expect, from the myriad of choices to the messy death animations.

The other thing is, their primary platforms are the 360 and the PS3, and demos are far less commonplace on consoles compared with PCs.

So yeah, there's ample reason not to release a demo, but this is Bethesda and so there's always going to be that undercurrent of "the concept on paper is always better than the final product" to rope in gullible buyers.

Heh, imagine if there was an Oblivion demo with a single town and a couple of dungeons. You've basically got the whole game right there, since there's little point in actually exploring anywhere.

 

[fastpunk]

I like this very much.

I don't know if that was sarcasm or not but the feature seems fair. Balancing it is another issue and Beth might very well get it wrong (God knows they did before), but the feature is fair.

 

[Kingston]

All I'd ask for is a little roadside bar where there is a small quarrel and you can fix the problem by shooting, dialogue or whatever. Just a feel of the game. I don't know how VATS works for real, I wanna try it out myself to see if I like it. I wanna see what the dialogue is like and how the game runs on my comp. I wanna take different choices and see different outcomes. If they made a quality area like that I'm sure most people here would buy the game.

But then, they probably can't make quality areas so better not release a demo. Better to take the word of journalists.

 

[MetalCraze]

I like this very much.

I don't know if that was sarcasm or not but the feature seems fair. Balancing it is another issue and Beth might very well get it wrong (God knows they did before), but the feature is fair.

the radar that shows you where you have to shoot to hit your enemy and the number of enemies you can see -on a radar- which is dependable on perception and not on a radar itself? except obvious dumbing down -compared even to oblivion- it doesn't seem too logical as a part of the gameplay mechanics. really you see more enemies on a radar because of a big perception? wtf?
considering that this is bethesda we may never know how much (more) out of place this feature will be.

 

[TheLostOne]

I like this very much.

I don't know if that was sarcasm or not but the feature seems fair. Balancing it is another issue and Beth might very well get it wrong (God knows they did before), but the feature is fair.

the radar that shows you where you have to shoot to hit your enemy and the number of enemies you can see -on a radar- which is dependable on perception and not on a radar itself? besides obvious dumbing down -compared to oblivion- it doesn't seem too logical as a part of the gameplay mechanics. really you see more enemies on a radar because of a big perception? wtf?
considering that this is bethesda we may never know how much (more) out of place this feature will be.

Dude, I know english isn't your first language, but sometimes I wonder if it's just that your thoughts are really this convoluted.

 

[MetalCraze]

you can say it's a little bit of both if that will make you feel better about yourself, nitpicker.