Interview RPG Codex Retrospective Interview: Leonard Boyarsky on Fallout, Interplay and Troika

[hiver]

When playing a game, why would you care about how it was developed or how revolutionary it once was? Either it's fun or it isn't.

There wasn't anything special about specifically the combat system, except for how often it could be skipped. I loved the game overall but was bored with the fighting part of it back then too.
No tactical depth to be found, just attack over and over, take cover behind corners and use stimpacks. Then watch the annoyingly slow moving enemy animations, and occasionally some death animations too which are actually the best part of the combat experience.

It wasnt revolutionary. You need to know things because you look like a dumbass if you dont.
It is fun, more fun then 99% of modern games. And probably all of them - combined.
Youre opinion is worth shit.

You could go hand to hand, you could go melee, you could go one handed, two handed, energy, heavy weapons and throwing. Fast shooting or targeted shooting.

If youre a fucking dumbass who "figured out" an exploit (that works only in some cases) of standing behind the corner ...and then intentionally played that way all the freaking time - then your a dumbass. A simpleton.
We know, we played it more than you, we heard it all before.

Fuck you and youre retarded bad taste and inability to enjoy animations. I never spead them up once.

Go and suck a dick. Because thats the only tactical depth you can find.

 

[Johannes]

When playing a game, why would you care about how it was developed or how revolutionary it once was? Either it's fun or it isn't.

There wasn't anything special about specifically the combat system, except for how often it could be skipped. I loved the game overall but was bored with the fighting part of it back then too.
No tactical depth to be found, just attack over and over, take cover behind corners and use stimpacks. Then watch the annoyingly slow moving enemy animations, and occasionally some death animations too which are actually the best part of the combat experience.

It wasnt revolutionary. You need to know things because you look like a dumbass if you dont.

Yea, it wasn't. That's what I said.
And sure is nice to know things, I agree.

It is fun, more fun then 99% of modern games. And probably all of them - combined.
Youre opinion is worth shit.

ok

You could go hand to hand, you could go melee, you could go one handed, two handed, energy, heavy weapons and throwing. Fast shooting or targeted shooting.

If youre a fucking dumbass who "figured out" an exploit (that works only in some cases) of standing behind the corner ...and then intentionally played that way all the freaking time - then your a dumbass. A simpleton.
We know, we played it more than you, we heard it all before.

Moving around, including behind corners, is pretty much the ONLY tactical part of the game. Sure you could always stand out in the open but that'd just make the game more simplistic. As far as choosing weapons go, that's not a tactical choice. Use the best weapon of whichever skill you tagged, then use the attack with the best damage expectation, it's a no-brainer.

Fuck you and youre retarded bad taste and inability to enjoy animations. I never spead them up once.

You like animations? Then I think I know a game just up your alley, it's got a lot of those

 

[hiver]

When playing a game, why would you care about how it was developed or how revolutionary it once was? Either it's fun or it isn't.

It wasnt revolutionary.

Yea, it wasn't. That's what I said.

I didnt mention that word at all and then - You replied with it. Saying that it was once revolutionary.

You like animations? Then I think I know a game just up your alley, it's got a lot of those

ass defect? why am i not surprised...


you can go away now.

 

[FeelTheRads]

hiver, you're a hopeless moron, who barely sounds more than 14 years old. Give it up. You suck.

 

[4too]

Full Empty



@ DwavenFood perhaps *full empty* is the insatiable capacity for all things FO.
Too much info, I associate 'insatiable' with this porn post mark …

Pardon my emotional attachments.






@ hiver perhaps this detail of FO construction has been discussed before, AND I didn't ^get it^ 100% until this interview.

By 100%, I mean immediate visualization of the game play / conversations with talking heads and the auxiliary NPC's.

Flash back.

Flash back.

Ignites latent passion paths in the memory maze. {Including the play through when the Gun Runner equipped Blades clean house in Adytum, my posse didn't reap the the exp points bonanza! }

Pardon my emotional attachments.

Talking to anything that moved (picking up everything not nailed down), has been a 'feature' of RPG exploration,
so the narrative tuning by Leonard B. et al blended in for me.
Information spread over many NPC's.
Mostly seamless.




4too

 

[hiver]

hiver, im a hopeless moron, who barely sounds more than 14 years old. I give up. I suck.

fixed.

 

[Surf Solar]

I have to agree that Fallouts combat was fun, but over time it gets too tedious and a bit simplistic. You don't even need to be an "exploiter" to simply find out that critical eyeshots are the way to go (if you dont play a big gunner or have the fast shot trait) and there is little to do outside of this scheme. No reason to call someone names for stating this, IMO.

 

[villain of the story]

Feels good to see that I've set off a chain reaction

 

[hiver]

@ hiver perhaps this detail of FO construction has been discussed before, AND I didn't ^get it^ 100% until this interview.

By 100%, I mean immediate visualization of the game play / conversations with talking heads and the auxiliary NPC's.

Flash back.

Flash back.


Pardon my emotional attachments.

Talking to anything that moved (picking up everything not nailed down), has been a 'feature' of RPG exploration,
so the narrative tuning by Leonard B. et al blended in for me.
Information spread over many NPC's.
Mostly seamless.


4too

Oh...pardoned... hundred times over

4too... you bring a smile to my face.

Talking heads ... now that is a stunt even more then you think.
Let Tim tell you how it was done.
at around 32:00



Enjoy the hour.

and have something for the next day.

The Origins of Fallout - Part 1
(As best as I can remember it)
Written by R. Scott Campbell,

http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=60785

Happy exploration.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Villain of the Story, do you always brofist all sides of an argument?

Seems like an enjoyabe challenge for real life: support and encourage both sides of any argument you encounter during the next 24 hours. If it turns physical, take both sides.

 

[villain of the story]

Just trying to provide an incentive to keep the apetastic shittrowing going.

 

[Morgan Ramsay]

And we understand that he doesn't want to be a CEO anymore, just a designer. So if Tim Cain and Jason forms a crowd-funded company...

Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson weren't businessmen. They paid little to no attention to the business side of Troika, so technically, the CEO position was always vacant. They never hired anyone to manage the business, so they had to accept whatever terms their publishers gave them. Instead of thinking about how to grow the company, they were focused on developing great games within grossly optimistic timelines and with limited resources. For example, Arcanum was developed by only 12 people and Temple ultimately had a 20-month schedule. None of the cofounders are interested in starting a business again. Although Tim hasn't ruled out developing games on his own, he recently left Carbine and returned to his old team from Interplay at Obsidian, where he's happy.

TinCan was involved with the following five games: Fallout, Fallout 2, Arcanum, TOEE, Bloodlines.

Tim wasn't involved with Vampire until two years into development. He contributed to the project as a programmer, not a designer; he worked on outstanding bugs as well as AI and file compression issues.

Also, Vampire was shipped in an incomplete state, not because of the competencies of the developers but because of the resources that were made available to them. Fallout was a simpler game, developed over the course of 3.5 years, whereas Vampire had only a three-year development cycle. During that time, Activision pushed for changes to reduce complexity. Activision wanted Vampire to be ready to go as soon as Half-Life 2 was released. While Valve gave themselves more time to wrap up development on Half-Life 2, the Vampire project was frozen. Activision would not commit any more resources, and then shipped the game in that state at the same time as Half-Life 2.

 

[felipepepe]

^ Tim Cain detected?

 

[villain of the story]

Him or another ex-Troika. Do tell us more, dubh or I'm rephrasing this in a sensationalist format and sending it to all gaming outlets: Tim Cain speaks on Troika years: "BOBBY KOTICK IS A FAT PIECE OF SHIT WHO BACKSTABBED US!", "ATARI RATIONED US EXPIRED FOOD FOR TOEE INSTEAD OF PAYING FOR OUR MILESTONES!", "ACTIVISION BRIBED OTHER PUBLISHERS TO REJECT OUR PITCHES!".

Quoting the message for archiving purpose.

And we understand that he doesn't want to be a CEO anymore, just a designer. So if Tim Cain and Jason forms a crowd-funded company...

Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson weren't businessmen. They paid little to no attention to the business side of Troika, so technically, the CEO position was always vacant. They never hired anyone to manage the business, so they had to accept whatever terms their publishers gave them. Instead of thinking about how to grow the company, they were focused on developing great games within grossly optimistic timelines and with limited resources. For example, Arcanum was developed by only 12 people and Temple ultimately had a 20-month schedule. None of the cofounders are interested in starting a business again. Although Tim hasn't ruled out developing games on his own, he recently left Carbine and returned to his old team from Interplay at Obsidian, where he's happy.

TinCan was involved with the following five games: Fallout, Fallout 2, Arcanum, TOEE, Bloodlines.

Tim wasn't involved with Vampire until two years into development. He contributed to the project as a programmer, not a designer; he worked on outstanding bugs as well as AI and file compression issues.

Also, Vampire was shipped in an incomplete state, not because of the competencies of the developers but because of the resources that were made available to them. Fallout was a simpler game, developed over the course of 3.5 years, whereas Vampire had only a three-year development cycle. During that time, Activision pushed for changes to reduce complexity. Activision wanted Vampire to be ready to go as soon as Half-Life 2 was released. While Valve gave themselves more time to wrap up development on Half-Life 2, the Vampire project was frozen. Activision would not commit any more resources, and then shipped the game in that state at the same time as Half-Life 2.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

No, he's the author of the book "Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play" and did some in-depth interviews with Tim etc.. However, that kind of insider knowledge is greatly appreciated.

 

[hiver]

Indeed.

And fuck Activision, i hope their balls fall off and they all get eaten by fire ants.

 

[Canus]

Miss Bee that is a damn fine intro paragraph, particularly for a non-native English speaker.