Game News Tim Cain is dead

[Naked Ninja]

Oh yeah, F4 (or woteva) would have gone to Mr Moneybags with the proven track record for commercial success, but in the mean time just one more flawed master piece, and a Fallout master piece no less, would be better than no more, no?

Except that scenario is a daydream. No one bought them the license and they didn't prove themselves enough to earn it. They couldn't even keep afloat.

It wasn't Beth who failed you, it was Troika. Their incompetence lead to their company falling apart. I read about their history. Apparently they were in crunch time through 80% of the development of Vampire.

I'm sure that sounds really heroic, to an outsider. But I work in software, I've done the crunch time, and even if you don't believe me there are studies that have been done, after about 2 weeks your productivity and quality of work is less than normal working hours. 4 years of that? Horrible time mismanagement. Whatever they took from Interplay, I'm sorry because I know this makes me sound like an asshole, project management skills weren't it.

Troika failed you. And as much as you wish that alternate scenario was true don't go blaming Bethesda for the fact that it isn't by tearing down and spitting on every single thing they say at every opportunity you get. They didn't steal Fallout. Troika just failed. This is the reality of the thing. This kind of ranting doesn't smear Beths rep, it smears the people who rant. You just end up looking like petty jackasses. What is the point, really?

 

[Shagnak]

Oh yeah, F4 (or woteva) would have gone to Mr Moneybags with the proven track record for commercial success, but in the mean time just one more flawed master piece, and a Fallout master piece no less, would be better than no more, no?

Except that scenario is a daydream. <blah>

Well, whatever. I was just commenting specifically on that "alternate path of history" you posited and why that wouldn't be as bad a thing as you make it sound.

The other, ermm...condescending, stuff wasn't necessary.

 

[Naked Ninja]

I'm sorry if it came off as condescending, the general opinion is that I'm a Betheasda weasel and an idiot for saying these things, so I may get unnecessarily sharp.

I wasn't trying to make it sound bad. I was trying to illustrate how it is a pipe dream and one that would have led back to this exact same point anyway. And that I don't think it is fair to blame Beth because that pipe dream never came to pass.

 

[Claw]

That's a nice concept, quite a few maybes, but nice.

That's a cute reply, except for the fact that "maybe" had squat to do with the point that the analogy is invalid. Trokia wasn't dead at that time, there is no maybe about that. Everything else is secondary.


PS: And there even was only a single maybe, even. You should stop talking and stick with what you're good at.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Trokia wasn't dead at that time, there is no maybe about that. Everything else is secondary.

Perhaps if Pete had been talking about Troika instead of Interplay you'd be correct. But he wasn't. So the analogy is valid, no matter how much you want to transfer it to mean Troika/Tim Cain. Fail.

PS: And there even was only a single maybe, even.

It was such a clutching at straws though that it was worth at least 3 maybes, plus 1 more for being incredibly unlikely to have happened.

 

[dagorkan]

Here, have some mice.

 

[MF]

It was such a clutching at straws though that it was worth at least 3 maybes, plus 1 more for being incredibly unlikely to have happened.

It's really sad how you keep viewing a semi-intelligent discourse as a game where you can score points for being 'right'. I don't want to go into an essay on meta-discussions, but you should really consider the reason behind your urge to discuss topics like this.

There is also the matter of determining who is right and who is wrong. It's not really important, unless someone brings up a fact that needs verifying. You clearly have a different opinion on Fallout than most people here do. That's fine. I, for one, don't agree with seeing Tim Cain as the prime progenitor of Fallout, given the fact that the art direction and setting are more important to me than the mechanics. I consider Boyarski to be just as important, if not more so, than Cain, especially considering what he did with Arcanum. I'd model my house to the victorian Steam-punk setting that he fleshed out there. Now, both Boyarski and Cain were part of Troika. Can you see why I would rather have Troika make the game? From what I've seen so far in the Bethesda screenshots, I don't really like the art direction. It's not as focused and some things feel out of place.

I'm not saying you should revert to my point of view, I'm just wondering if you can shift paradigms enough to understand why I'm disappointed with Bethesda doing Fallout 3.

 

[hiver]

- sniped-
don't go blaming Bethesda for the fact that it isn't by tearing down and spitting on every single thing they say at every opportunity you get.

So what can we say then? What would be allowed? There are clearly many design decisions that are stupid even on to themselves and i would dislike them in any kind of game.
If i criticize them am i just ranting because i hate bethesda?

 

[Claw]

Perhaps if Pete had been talking about Troika instead of Interplay you'd be correct. But he wasn't. So the analogy is valid, no matter how much you want to transfer it to mean Troika/Tim Cain. Fail.

I merely responded to what you said. Maybe you shouldn't have mentioned Troika in the context if you didn't want a rebuttal. Ninja Fail.

It was such a clutching at straws though that it was worth at least 3 maybes, plus 1 more for being incredibly unlikely to have happened.

You say something like that and dare accusing others of clutching at straws at the same time? That kind of thing earned you a weasel tag, remember?

 

[Calis]

Somebody remix this to go with the thread title

 

[DarkUnderlord]

What I mostly agree with is his original point of dissmissing peoples opinions that act like bile spewing rabid lunatics. Who wouldn't what to ignore that.

You guys may have had a chance to help steer the development of the game, but you fucked it up.

Bethesda were ever going to listen to the fans? The Fallout fans have been asking for an isometric viewpoint and turn-based combat ever since Fallout 2. Bethesda were never going to do that (it'd be a little hard to do on Oblivion's engine). Given the information that's been released has been worked on for a long time, any complaints anyone makes about the decisions Bethesda has made so far aren't going to be changed either. Toaster guns, nuclear exploding cars, radiation safe phone booths and Orcs? I'm sorry but fans were never going to steer the development of anything. Hell it was even said quite clearly that the fans "didn't want a Morrowind / Oblivion with Guns". Bethesda used to say they weren't doing that once upon a time. Now, they've come out and said that's precisely what they're doing and "isn't it great?".

You tell me what Bethesda would ever have "listened to the fans" about, even if the fans had been full of nothing but praise.

and yet neither Interplay nor the people behind Fallout matter?

Of course they matter. And it's great that they are alive and kicking in some form. If we took the entity known as DarkUnderlord, cut it up into 15 pieces and somehow kept those pieces alive yet separate from each other, using Frankenstein-like science, could we then conclude DU as an entity is alive? No. You've got a gutted, pitiful husk of the former Interplay and many of the core members behind Fallout scattered to the winds, the closest thing that resembled them (Troika) liquidated. You got nothing.

Nothing? Not true. Let's run with the analogy but instead of 15 random pieces, let's say they're things like Legs, Arms, Brains, Face, Heart, Lungs etc... If you really wanted to identify the core, the really important pieces, you'd find there's a big difference between having the Legs and Arms vs the Brain and Face. Your problem appears to be your hang-up over the title of a news item because you can't accept that certain core people are pretty much responsible for a lot of what made Fallout, Fallout. You even acknowledge yourself that certain pieces aren't as important as others, practically writing off the entire art department with your comment:

I don't care if the art team lead hasn't played it. Retro 50s sci-fi meets post apoc, wow, that will be hard for any competent artist to figure out.

Mind you, given Oblivion, I'm wondering if Bethesda's art department really are all that competent.

All I'm saying is, quite simply, that the same way George Lucas "embodies" the creation of Star Wars (and hence is used in Pete's analogy), Tim Cain has the same status with Fallout. And that's not just by me. That's anywhere you care to look for info about Tim Cain.

... and for the record:

• NMA: How did you feel when you knew that you [Troika] lost the race for the Fallout license?
  
  Leonard Boyarsky: Like someone kicked me in the nuts and then kidnapped one of my daughters. Okay, maybe that’s a bit too harsh, but I was upset. As I said in a previous interview (on DAC), we always felt like Fallout was ours, and it was just a technicality that Interplay owned it. I always thought we’d end up working on it again, and when the opportunity seemed to present itself again, I got overexcited and figured the universe was realigning itself to deliver Fallout back to us. Sadly for us, it looks like we won’t be getting the opportunity to further the Fallout universe in line with our original vision.

Bethesda have the Fallout license because they had more money, not love. Hmmm... Maybe Troika should've blamed piracy for their failure.

They all sound like "breaking the formula" to me.

Because you don't understand the difference between breaking the formula and failing to execute the forumla well. I explained it above.

If the formula is to mix in 1 egg, add flour, add another egg, add milk, mix and bake for 45 minutes and you add the 2 eggs first and you only bake it for 15 minutes or you do anything else that's off the formula, you broke it. You're arguing semantics.

Do you know where plot comes from? Nope, didn't think so. It comes from having some nice lore, a story.

Except that Hellgate's "Templars working in the background throughout history to protect humanity" was enough of a back story seed to result in decent in game storyline if they'd actually hired a competent writer. Easily. You've got the entire wealth of the Templars and Freemasons history to tap into. Any 3rd year varsity student could have pulled a spiel about mysticism and deviltry during the Crusades out of their ass in an afternoon. Hellgate had a sufficient base, it failed in the execution. It's not the only thing failing here.

I love this arrogant, full of yourself nature you have. By the way, it sounds like hiring competent people would be part of the formula to me. Seems like they broke that when they hired an ex-IGN retard to do all the writing and the community management. Wow, that's almost an epic break on the original formula.

If you'd actually played the game, you'd know that the original Diablo was heavily criticised because it didn't have much of a plot or story and that they fixed it in Diablo II.

Played the game plenty, loved the backlore, blizzard are champs in that department. But I'm an exception, I doubt the majority actually read the manual. Links to this "D1 heavily criticised for lack of plot" proof please. Most action RPGers were there for the looting and leveling.

Finding links to things from 1998 is a little hard but for what little remains:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_%28 ... l_response ("if you consider plot to be a highly important part of your RPGs, and can't play any RPGs without a solid plot, stay away.")
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/diablo ("Despite the rather pale storyline")

A lot of the reviews at the time mentioned the lack of plot.

If that depth from the plot doesn't matter, then why would "non-existant plot" be a reason for Hellgate: London's failure?

Because in Hellgate there is no sense of direction or goal.

Which means the plot :shock horror: matters, despite your protestations otherwise.

That was raised because you keep going on about this entity and insisting that none of the people behind Fallout mattered and that all of them had to stay at Interplay in order for some comparison to be made between George Lucas and Tim Cain.

No, it was raised because you're trying to be tricky and convince people that Beth swooped in and stole a license that was "going to be used, real soon!". No.

My argument has always been that the key people behind Fallout are more important than the company. You insist that it's not only that, all the people have to be there (except apparently, the Lead Artist, they only need to be competent) AND those people have to stay at the same company. That argument is quite simply absurd. You say yourself that you can actually get away without certain people, provided their replacements are competent. The company is nothing more than a name. That means that certain people ARE fundamentally important to the development of a game. The same way that George Lucas would be fundamentally important to any Star Wars films. Provided he's surrounded with competent people to replace the others who would have, quite naturally, moved on.

Bethesda doesn't have a single key person from Fallout and yet those people are still around. Now Pete reckons they're dead, when in actuality, the only reason Bethesda got the license was because they had more money than those very same people and then said they weren't interested in working with them:

We never, ever bid on Fallout. One major publisher mentioned Interplay was shopping it around and would be interested in us developing it for them, but they dropped it as too expensive when they found out the asking price (not ours, Interplay's). We never had our own money, and were just beginning to toy with the idea of independent funding near the end of our life as a business - which was after Beth had already gotten Fallout.

I did approach Bethesda about us working with them on Fallout, but they were uninterested. Instead of flaiming them for this however, think about it from their point of view: who among us would want to pay a huge amount of money for a license and then turn it over to someone else? I'm assuming they paid the $$ because they wanted to make a Fallout game, end of story.

So it's more like George Lucas is still alive, he wanted his original IP back but some other mob got there first and then when George asked if he could help, they told him to piss off. Just like Kharn said in the news post.

I'm saying an indie who makes a game whether or not they make money out of it, is vastly different to a multi-million dollar studio which needs to make several million a year just to pay employee salaries. Bethesda didn't buy Fallout on a whim. It was a business decision. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you'll get out of your "but they're doing it for love!".

A business decision? No shit. Every game that gets made is based on a "business decision".

Which means "love" plays second fiddle. It doesn't matter how much Bethesda "love" Fallout, they need it to make money. That's business. So when Todd Howard says:

Duck and Cover: Whilst every fan tends to have a different idea of what precisely Fallout 3 should be, there are a few things that most of us are unified on. Are you aware of the strong desires for turn-based combat and the classic 3/4 top-down viewpoint? Do you think pure turn-based combat in an RPG is viable in today's market?

Todd Howard: Yes, of course we've heard many of the old-school fans regarding the view and combat resolution. What's viable today? Certainly turn-based combat limits your audience to a small number, but I do find that audiences will come if your game is good enough and the presentation is superb. Ultimately we'll do what we think will be the most fun.

Love be damned, business comes first. Who's making decisions out of "love"?

Naked Ninja on page 2, where he shows his love for Bethesda:

If I don't jump aboard the Beth hate train I must love them, right? Fail.

Uhhh... No. You've jumped on the Beth love train. You're arrogant "it's what I would've done" attitude (and just how many games is it that you've made now?) and insistance that it's all about love, show that quite clearly.

The sad truth? Very few Bethesda developers have actually played Fallout - and that's according to their own interviews

I wonder if the tea lady has played it? If she hasn't more fuel for your fiery hatred! Sorry, we're talking decision makers and designers here.

You mean like how Tim Cain was? He's not dead either, by the way.

Paraphrased: "Todd's a genious. I love him to bits."

Is cheap shots all you have left?

Oh please, taking the moral high ground only works if you haven't been making your own cheap shots all throughout this thread.

Hang on... a minute ago, wasn't it because they loved Fallout? How does "we love Fallout, money's got nothing to do with it" become "we love all the money Fallout is going to make us!"?

Where do you get this crap, because it isn't from my posts? How is it hard to imagine that Bethesda loves the license, believes they can make a commercially successful game based on it and then in turn convinced their publishers of this fact? It is possible to be passionate about material and be convinced it can make you a large profit. And then to convince your financiers of this fact. But you only want to believe Bethesda capable of the money part. Bias.

FACT: If Bethesda didn't believe they could make money out of Fallout, they never would've gone anywhere near it. Love or no love. It doesn't matter how much Bethesda love Fallout. They need to make sales and that always comes first. They can preach about how much they love Fallout all they like but it is irrelevant to any of the decisions they've made.

Given that, what do you think the real reason is Bethesda aren't making another single-player fantasy-themed RPG, at a time when they're working on their own multi-player fantasy-themed RPG?

This is the Interplay which made such wonderful business decisions that it collapsed from within right?

That was back before Herve Cain took over. That was back when Interplay were at the top of their game. That other single-player fantasy-themed RPG was Baldur's Gate.

At least you seam capable to understand our little dilemma here if you try really hard. If Fallout formula didn't worked so well as people wished for the mainstream then why not improve the formula instead of throw half of it away and replace it by something familiar to Oblivion players. Design by commission and marketing data is not compatible with making a Fallout game.

What an amusingly contradictory statement. So if the game failed in the mass market (you'd realize this by analyzing marketing data) you should not then go and design based on feedback provided by marketing data? The criterion you use to judge success of a game shouldn't be used to design the game hey?

"Fallout: Made #4 on the list of top games of all time produced by PC Gamer in 2001. It made #5 on the IGN list of the top 25 PC games of all time (IGN's list), and is usually placed in similar lists. It also won the award of "RPG of the Year" from GameSpot, and has since been inducted into their "Greatest Games of All Time" list."

"Oblivion: To Be Advised."

Time will tell.

 

[Blind Eye]

Edit: DU posted while I was writing this. I'm going to let it stand as is because I do belive you could have influenced the development. You just have to try to figure out the devs and pick your battles. /end edit.



You guys sure like arguing about fantasy scenarios. The reality is that it wouldn't matter who made the game, you mostly wouldn't have liked it anyway.

Why you ask.

Because no publisher is going to give someone millions of dollars to make a top/down (iso) TBC RPG (remember I said RPG) in todays market.

Lets go with your Troika fantasy scenario.

Publisher gets the licence and gives Troika the money to make the game. What do publishers in modern day game development, with millions of dollars on the line do? They like to stick their hands into the cookie jar. They say: Hey we gave you all this money to make a game and we want to make sure your doing it right. Our market research, and focus grougs show that First Person is the only way to go...it adds to the IMMERSUNN. It's also got to be real time....but we'll allow you to add a pause feature if you insist. We also want super cool, extra bitchin nuclear sploooosuns. What do you mean that's not the kind of game you want to make??? Well fine...we'll just yank your funding, cut our losses and shut down development. Have a nice day.

OR

Call from publisher: Hey guys, we know your only two and a half years into development, but we've had to make some changes and shift things around a little in our deployment stratagy. So were going to need you to plug up all the holes, put out all the fires, and squash as many bugs as you can. The game goes GOLD in two months. (Obsidian anyone)?

So potentially it could have ended up a worse situation than the one you find yourselfs in now. Likely? probably not. Possible? yes.

But lets get back to my original point. (Are you excited? I know I am.)

You guys wouldn't have liked the game no matter who made it.

Prove it you say.....OK.

Most of you (please provide you own adjective)...mine was going to be fuckers or bastards, couldn't decide...but that may seem a bit harsh even for the codex....

Anyway: Most of you didn't even like the direction Van buren was headed in. Remember all the bitching, whinning and complaining that sparked? Ya you remember. You guys should have realised right then...............We're fucked.

The best you could have hoped for after that was damage control. But you fucked that up too. Spiting bile and venom all over every scrap of info released, causing the developers to completely ignor you opinions. You should have been playing the deplomacey game. Stroke their ego's, make them think you are no board with what they are doing, then try to manipulate them and the their fans into thinking your ideas are good ones.

Talking super mutants? Ya you could have got that.

Groin shots? Ya you may have been able to get that too, if you played your cards right.

The list goes on and on. You guys know how to play the game. Just take a look at the AoD boards. That's how you influence development. Cardtrick should have been voted your Ambassador to Bethesda. He's a fuckkin genius. Its called CONSTRUCTIVE critisism. What does Vince do when someone provides constructive critisism that may fit into the game world. He takes it into consideration. What does Vince do when somebody acts like an asshole on his boards, and wants him to add or change features to the game that don't fit into it . He politley (or not so politley) tells them to fuck off, and go find a game that has the features that they are looking for. Basically exactly what beth did, by cutting off all contact with the fan base. Because if no matter what you say is going to be viewed, by a very vocal minority as wrong, then don't say anything.

You wanted to waste your time argueing about ISO/TB. Something you knew that beth (or probably any other AAA development company) was never going to do.

You had your chance and you blew it. Ahh hind site how we love ye.

I only bring this to your attention for future projects that might intrest you. With a good enough stratagy, the hive mind could be very influential if it wanted to be. Will you end up with the perfect codexian game? NO, but you might end up with a game that has aspects to it that you find worthwhile enough to buy and play.

Do I understand why your so pissed off. Ya mostly.

Do I understand your reaction to the situation your in. No not really. (reality check)

You guys could have been a very powerful force. Keep that in hivemind for next time.

TTFN

 

[Gnidrologist]

1/10

 

[Blind Eye]

Gnidrologist 0/10. What's the matter? Too much truth for you?

 

[NiM82]

Hah, if you honestly think big developers give a fuck what anyone other than their investors and marketing division think (in terms of design/gameplay), your living in cloud cookoo land. Look how Betheda treated the TES fans, most of whom liked Morrowind, with Oblivion. Did we, the big community who kept their games alive, get any say? No. Just like the Fallout fans we got the silent treatment... even the big pro Beth TES hubs got ignored. As is happening with F3, they unveiled the game 'they' wanted to make, releasing snippets to the big media and ignoring the fans completly. Most fans had no idea what the game was really like till they forked out.

The TES community couldn't have been any better behaved, the modding community and the guys in the Lore section proposed lots of cool, workable, ideas, with no axe to grind whatsoever. They got ignored, as did the people who raised legit complaints about the early screen shots (that's no jungle!). Heck they wouldn't even reorganise their forums - a lot of fans wanted a proper subforum for modding, with diff cats, instead of the chaotic jumble it is.

The only way we, the gamers, can influence game development is to either: Make/support our own homebrew games, vote with our wallet, or band together & buy shares in devs/pubs and hope there's some guys here who have a few few million to throw into the kitty (for great justice). The former are doable, the latter? Er.. no. Entertaining the fantasy for a second though, in the case of ZeniMax we couldn't even have bought in - they aren't publicly traded, iirc.

In summary: There's nothing we could've done to change anything by sitting on the fence and being diplomatic, or sucking copious amount of cock. By mostly being cynical bastards though (and creating drama), we have at least had some lulz out of this ordeal.

 

[Blind Eye]

Ya your right. There was nothing you could do to make any substantial and meaningful changes to the game. That's not what I was saying. As I said earlyer, you were fucked from the word go. So I guess it doesn't matter how you act. Fucked is Fucked.

 

[blup]

As I said earlyer, you were fucked from the word go. So I guess it doesn't matter how you act. Fucked is Fucked.

That about sums up dealing with Bethesda.

I agree with you 100%

 

[Naked Ninja]

@ Hiver :

There are clearly many design decisions that are stupid even on to themselves and i would dislike them in any kind of game.
If i criticize them am i just ranting because i hate bethesda?

Nope, that doesn't bother me. See, objectivity.

@ MF :

You clearly have a different opinion on Fallout than most people here do

My opinion on Fallout has nothing to do with it. I like Fallout in concept, so much so that I went and played both of them. Something just doesn't grab me. So I remain neutral. I plan to take another go at it, when I get time. And complete The Witcher.

Can you see why I would rather have Troika make the game?

Of course I can. Did I not say I loved Vampire and found Oblivion mediocre? I would take more games from the people who did Vampire over Oblivion any day of the week.

I'm not saying you should revert to my point of view, I'm just wondering if you can shift paradigms enough to understand why I'm disappointed with Bethesda doing Fallout 3.

You've phrased yourself clearly and without much belligerence, so I'm trying not to say this in a belligerent manner, please take it as such. Can you try to shift paradigms to one where you don't consider disappointment enough of a justification to, at every opportunity that arises, tear a group of people/individual down? It just goes on and on, the programmers at Beth are dumb, the artists are dumb, their motivations are barely concealed lies, Pete's photo keeps getting wheeled out, the hitler references, etc etc, forum thread after forum thread of the same thing. This is not intelligent discourse matey, it's a pack of hyenas tearing up a carcass.

Here's a quote from that blog of Briosfreak that DU linked in his latest Fallout post :

with all the “Call of Duty and Wagner” style music replacing Mark Morgan’s atmospheric tracks. He also says he is going to “piss on the composers mouth” after hearing that nonsense. Ouch.

I'm not pointing fingers at Briosfreak or anyone but this is the kind of comment that flies off at every turn with anything surrounding this game. It's just way overboard.


I'm not the first one to consider it overboard :

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=21514&highlight=common+decency+pete+hines

(Although I do seem to have been in that argument as well. Why do I bother with this, it's all so pointless? I must like punishing myself. Or arguing. Thats it. I like to argue. A character flaw of mine.) :


@ DU :

The Fallout fans have been asking for an isometric viewpoint and turn-based combat ever since Fallout 2.

Your group of fallout fans wants that, it doesn't mean every fan does, or even that the majority does. It just means the group you represent does. And you're interpreting "listen to feedback" with "do everything we say bitch". They would do what developers always do, listen to feedback but still make a judgment call. Doesn't mean you couldn't have influenced them. At one time Todd Howard seems to have been willing to do interviews with DAC, so that is something.

Bethesda were never going to do that (it'd be a little hard to do on Oblivion's engine)

You are mistaken.Turn based on a game engine is pretty trivial. You're looking at a day or so to get the basics in place and slightly longer to get it polished.

I'm sorry but fans were never going to steer the development of anything.

Considering how good a job you guys do at excluding yourself from the party I'd say there is no doubt of that.

All I'm saying is, quite simply, that the same way George Lucas "embodies" the creation of Star Wars (and hence is used in Pete's analogy), Tim Cain has the same status with Fallout.

That argument might work if Pete were talking about individuals. But he isn't. He is comparing someone or something to Peter Jackson in that analogy too. Who is he comparing, himself? Todd Howard? I don't think so. He is comparing Bethesda, a company made up of many individuals, with Peter Jackson. And he is comparing Interplay, a company made up of many individuals, to George Lucas.

and for the record: ...

You quote Leonard but ignore when he says this, further down :

Instead of flaiming them for this however, think about it from their point of view: who among us would want to pay a huge amount of money for a license and then turn it over to someone else? I'm assuming they paid the $$ because they wanted to make a Fallout game, end of story.

Looks like he clearly anticipated you lads getting enraged. And attempted to cut you off at the pass by stating he genuinely believed they paid because they really wanted to make a Fallout game. He even says "end of story", like he knows you're about to argue. Seems he failed however.

I love this arrogant, full of yourself nature you have.

I thought you might. Like recognizes like and all that. Don't get all queer on me now though.

By the way, it sounds like hiring competent people would be part of the formula to me.

Part of a game design formula or part of a business strategy?

Finding links to things from 1998 is a little hard but for what little remains:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_%28 ... l_response ("if you consider plot to be a highly important part of your RPGs, and can't play any RPGs without a solid plot, stay away.")
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/diablo ("Despite the rather pale storyline")

"Heavily" criticized? A line or two in the middle of a series of glowing reviews counts as heavily criticized?

Which means the plot :shock horror: matters, despite your protestations otherwise.

Did I say it didn't matter? I just said your claim that "Hellgate failed because it didn't have the same depth of lore as Diablo" was false. You still need to provide proof otherwise.

Bethesda doesn't have a single key person from Fallout and yet those people are still around. Now Pete reckons they're dead, when in actuality,

You put words in Petes mouth again. Pete isn't comparing himself, a single person to Peter Jackson anymore than he is comparing Tim Cain to George Lucas. In both cases he is referring to a company. His analogy works.

So it's more like George Lucas is still alive, he wanted his original IP back but some other mob got there first and then when George asked if he could help, they told him to piss off.

Like I said, you will quote Leonard but aren't willing to listen to the final line of his :

I did approach Bethesda about us working with them on Fallout, but they were uninterested. Instead of flaiming them for this however, think about it from their point of view: who among us would want to pay a huge amount of money for a license and then turn it over to someone else? I'm assuming they paid the $$ because they wanted to make a Fallout game, end of story.

Sounds like a rather decent, likable fellow who was able to handle his disappointment with equilibrium and fairness.

Which means "love" plays second fiddle. It doesn't matter how much Bethesda "love" Fallout, they need it to make money. That's business.

Same would have applied to Troika. No matter how much they considered it their baby.

Love be damned, business comes first. Who's making decisions out of "love"?

You're ignoring the point where the questioner sets the man up for his response and now you're shooting him down for it.

Do you think pure turn-based combat in an RPG is viable in today's market?

So they ask him about the commercial viability of a feature which is, most people agree, a bit old school and less likely to appeal to the mass market. Almost every designer on the planet, your Tim Cain included, would then admit that turn based limits your audience to a smaller market.

Todd's response :

Yes, of course we've heard many of the old-school fans regarding the view and combat resolution. What's viable today? Certainly turn-based combat limits your audience to a small number, but I do find that audiences will come if your game is good enough and the presentation is superb.

So he then goes and says that turn based will decrease the probable market, which is exactly what they asked him to comment on, but you want to make out like he is some calculating business man first and foremost for stating that?

He goes on to say :

Ultimately we'll do what we think will be the most fun.

Sounds like he's motivated by what he thinks makes a game enjoyable for all the players. A perfectly reasonable sentiment, even if you disagree with his judgment on what is most fun, yes?

You're arrogant "it's what I would've done" attitude

Offsetting risky ventures with proven profitable ones is proof of arrogance? I stick by my statement, it is smart and it is what I would have done.

FACT: If Bethesda didn't believe they could make money out of Fallout, they never would've gone anywhere near it. Love or no love.

FACT : If Troika didn't believe they could make money out of Fallout, they never would've gone anywhere near it. Love or no love.

As demonstrated above, that statement works for any company so it really proves nothing.

That was back when Interplay were at the top of their game. That other single-player fantasy-themed RPG was Baldur's Gate.

Nice. Still doesn't prove it a universal law. Not enough evidence there.

"Fallout: Made #4 on the list of top games of all time produced by PC Gamer in 2001. It made #5 on the IGN list of the top 25 PC games of all time (IGN's list), and is usually placed in similar lists. It also won the award of "RPG of the Year" from GameSpot, and has since been inducted into their "Greatest Games of All Time" list."

And critics loved Psychonauts. A lot. Complete commercial flop though. I wasn't arguing how much critics loved it, I was talking about the amount of revenue it generated for the company in comparison to other games of the time. As far as I'm aware it wasn't a massive hit.

Also, I'm not defending Oblivion, I'm defending the sentiment behind Pete Hines statement. So the comparison between those two games was unnecessary.

 

[tunguska]

Zenimax-Bethesda only care about one thing: $$$. If only they would just admit to it I wouldn't hate them so much. They are liars. And deserve nothing but scorn from anyone who cares about quality CRPGs. Or maybe I am just pissed because they stopped making games for anyone over the age of 10. Either way die Zenimax die! [lights torch].

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Can you try to shift paradigms to one where you don't consider disappointment enough of a justification to, at every opportunity that arises, tear a group of people/individual down?

Tear apart? For what, interpreting Pete Hines statement in pretty much the only way that it can be interpreted (I note you seem to be the only one here saying otherwise) and apparently we're, according to you, "batshit fucking crazy" for reaching that conclusion. Most people think Pete said something stupid, except you. If Pete meant Interplay is dead, I'd like to hear him say it instead of using stupid analogies.

It just goes on and on, the programmers at Beth are dumb, the artists are dumb, their motivations are barely concealed lies, Pete's photo keeps getting wheeled out, the hitler references, etc etc, forum thread after forum thread of the same thing. This is not intelligent discourse matey, it's a pack of hyenas tearing up a carcass.

I didn't know you saw Fallout 3 that way. In fact, I think you're the first to infer that it's a carcass and thus, the dead, rotting, decaying remains of something that was once decent. That's a bit harsh NN, I'm really tired of all this hate you have. You should lighten up and show a little more respect!

Here's a quote from that blog of Briosfreak that DU linked in his latest Fallout post :

with all the “Call of Duty and Wagner” style music replacing Mark Morgan’s atmospheric tracks. He also says he is going to “piss on the composers mouth” after hearing that nonsense. Ouch.

I'm not pointing fingers at Briosfreak or anyone but this is the kind of comment that flies off at every turn with anything surrounding this game. It's just way overboard.

So how would you propose we control all the Fallout fans in France? I'm thinking an invasion oughta do it.

(Although I do seem to have been in that argument as well. Why do I bother with this, it's all so pointless? I must like punishing myself. Or arguing. Thats it. I like to argue. A character flaw of mine.)

Just give up.

The Fallout fans have been asking for an isometric viewpoint and turn-based combat ever since Fallout 2.

Your group of fallout fans wants that, it doesn't mean every fan does, or even that the majority does.

Statistics plz. Particularly about the majority of what fans want. First you'll have to prove their fans, then prove what they want, k? And what you said above about "liking the concept" doesn't qualify you as a fan so people like that will have to be excluded in your analysis. Report on my desk by next Monday will be fine, thanks.

It just means the group you represent does.

Which is a funny thing. Are you asking me to start speaking for a group of people that we erm... don't actually represent? Of course the group we represent wants these things. That group just happens to be the same group that run the two longest running Fallout fan sites in existence (NMA and DAC). There's a reason NMA comes up as number #3 when you google Fallout. All the Polish fan-sites in that network have also talked about turn-based combat and the isometric viewpoint. Why should I represent someone else (nice to know too that I, as an individual, can represent all these people so maybe you've learned something in all of this)?

And you're interpreting "listen to feedback" with "do everything we say bitch". They would do what developers always do, listen to feedback but still make a judgment call. Doesn't mean you couldn't have influenced them. At one time Todd Howard seems to have been willing to do interviews with DAC, so that is something.

Pretty sure he still is. At least, DAC keeps getting stuff from them. Seems our attitude hasn't mattered to them so much.

But tell me, what are we supposed to have influenced? They wouldn't change viewpoint or combat? They've created VATS which appears to be turning into some kind of bastardised FPS hybrid. They're making weapons which the fans are criticising, the game is filled with Orcs and now the music is being questioned (though it was questioned when they had that sample up on the teaser page about a year back). What's left for us to influence? The colour of the wallpaper they use in your Vault bedroom? Yeah, I'll have blue thanks. Seems like all we get to influence are the things that don't actually matter.

Bethesda were never going to do that (it'd be a little hard to do on Oblivion's engine)

You are mistaken.Turn based on a game engine is pretty trivial. You're looking at a day or so to get the basics in place and slightly longer to get it polished.

For the record my comment also included adding in a working isometric viewpoint. And I doubt it'd take "a day". I know, I know, you're a God-like indie who can apparently make your combat system in a day but this is Bethesda. They did make Oblivion and Morrowind and the combat in both of those wasn't highly regarded. By the way, just out of interest, how long do you reckon it'd take to add in mounted combat... A day and a half? Seems Bethesda couldn't do that either.

I'm sorry but fans were never going to steer the development of anything.

Considering how good a job you guys do at excluding yourself from the party I'd say there is no doubt of that.

We did a bunch of stuff with Bethesda early on, including that DAC interview. The result? A bunch of stuff we didn't really want. Wow, that sure is a lot of influence we're wielding! Seems to me that if we can't influence Bethesda by saying everything they do sucks, then I doubt we could influence Bethesda anymore by saying everything they're doing sucks but saying it in the nicest way possible. They've already made these decisions by the time we hear about them. They're not going to change their minds after they've spent months of development time on them.

All I'm saying is, quite simply, that the same way George Lucas "embodies" the creation of Star Wars (and hence is used in Pete's analogy), Tim Cain has the same status with Fallout.

That argument might work if Pete were talking about individuals. But he isn't. He is comparing someone or something to Peter Jackson in that analogy too. Who is he comparing, himself? Todd Howard? I don't think so. He is comparing Bethesda, a company made up of many individuals, with Peter Jackson. And he is comparing Interplay, a company made up of many individuals, to George Lucas.

Actually Interplay had precisely one individual, that being Herve Cain, when Bethesda bought the Fallout license and from what Pete says, it must've been a scene reminiscent of Weekend at Bernie's. I wonder who was pulling the strings. Pete or Todd?

The fact is, there are only two ways you can interpret Pete's analogy. Either the first is your method (which appears to be a method chosen by the very few, I dunno maybe they're all lurking rooting you on), that being of course, that George Lucas represents Interplay. That seems to ignore a couple of things. For one thing, George Lucas is known as pretty much "the creator of Star Wars", that license that's so loved in Pete's analogy. Apparently (or at least, according to fan legend), George needs to personally approve everything and anything Star Wars before it sees the light of day. There are even some rumours that this extends into his death (that upon his death, no-one else can ever make any Star Wars things for as long as the rights continue). That's probably a load of crud but the point is, George Lucas is "the man who created Star Wars". He wrote and directed most of the Star Wars movies. Sure, there were other writers and other directors but George had final say. George is "the creator", the "original guy" and at least while he's alive, nobody ain't ever touching Star Wars without his permission. In other words, he has to die.

Now upon his death, fans would mourn a lot. Fans would be like "Oh shit, George is dead, that's really terrible" and the Star Wars license would look to be over. But who, who could possibly come along and save the Star Wars license and make another great film trilogy that's really awesome (ignoring of course, George's own bastardised attempt at the prequels)? Peter Jackson, the guy who took Tolkein's vision and made Lord of the Rings. At least, that's according to Pete Hines. Now Peter had people behind him too. Other Directors, good actors etc... but just so long as you have that key individual, and hire competent other people, you just might be able to make a worthy sequel.

Now here's the problem. If George Lucas = Interplay, then he's saying that Interplay are the creators of Fallout. In other words, it's not the people behind Fallout that mattered. It's not the Producer (Tim Cain) or the Lead Programmer (also Tim Cain) or the Art Director (Leonard Boyarsky) or the Lead Artists (Leonard Boyarsky and Jason D Anderson) or the original game design team (Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, Jason D Anderson, Christopher Taylor [who's making board games now I understand], Jason Taylor [who went on to join Hellgate: London], R. Scott Campbell [who also worked on Fallout 2]) or even the original Producer (Thomas R Decker) or additional programmers (like Mark Harrison) or artists (like Sharon Shellman). Pete right there is saying "Interplay is more important than all these people" probably to the point that if Interplay still had enough money to hire monkeys to do their coding, he'd consider them "alive and well". That right there, for Pete to discount all those people, is dumb. Really, really dumb. It also doesn't make any sense because we know the entity known as "Interplay" had to have people behind it to make the game and we're smart enough to know that those people are more important than the name of the company. It's those people that created Fallout, not Interplay.

He's also saying Interplay, a company that Bethesda have an active deal with, is dead. Which probably isn't a smart thing for a PR guy to say. In fact, that'd also be dumb. Fans can say it, sure but it's not generally advised for your PR guys to bad mouth people you're still doing deals with. Yes, Pete, the King of PR is openly declaring Interplay, the company they're dealing with, dead.

Which leaves us with our alternative (and the method apparently chosen by Fallout fans unanimously across the globe), that Pete meant the people behind Fallout. That when Pete goes on to say things like "I'm not the guy who did the originals, but it means so much to me" he means he's been talking about the guys who did make the originals. That is, those people. Those "George Lucas's". Now in a perfect world, those people would still be at Interplay but of course, we're in the real world and we know that people move on. You can't keep everyone around but you and I Naked Ninja, we know that so long as you have those key people, all you need is some competent replacements and all is well. Enter: Tim Cain. Enter: Troika.

What did Troika have? 3 of the original design team that created the concept. The Lead Programmer, the Art Director, two out of the three Lead Artists, the Producer, an assistant programmer and an assistant artist. Troika had the single most Fallout talent in any single place. And, better yet, they were known for it. Google any Arcanum review you care and you'll find one statement repeated again and again and again: "From the makers of Fallout..."

Everybody knew it. The fans knew it. The non-fans were told it. Troika. That right there? They were the makers of Fallout. Not Interplay. Not some name on a business certificate. The people. The people behind the game. Tim Cain was even "best known as the designer of Fallout" (for the record, Tim once said that Chris Taylor's contributions were heavily under-valued).

So when Pete's in his interview and he's talking about the creators, the "original guys", the people who made something, the people who took an idea and really defined it and he's talking about Fallout? Then he's talking about the creators of Fallout. And sorry son but that's not Interplay. It doesn't matter how you try and spin it, they're the original guys, they're not dead, they offered to work with Bethesda, Bethesda weren't interested. If Bethesda really did just want to make their own Fallout game, why not say that? Why infer that the original creators of the licensed material are dead?

The truth is, Pete just has a wonderful way of coming up with new fundamentally stupid things to say in almost every interview he does. Stick around long enough and you'll see that for yourself.

and for the record: ...

You quote Leonard but ignore when he says this, further down :

Why wouldn't I ignore it? The point I was making was that Troika (consisting of what even you consider to be most of the creators of Fallout), asked Bethesda if they wanted to work with them. Bethesda said no. Now Pete's trying to spin it in any way he can other than the truth.

By the way, you seem to have ignored what Todd Howard said in his interview on DAC:

Finally, is there anything else you'd like to add, or say to the community in general and Duck and Cover's readers?

Keep it up, keep posting. We really do read most of it. Frankly, we do get uncomfortable talking about things that are still a moving target, and really don't want to say something is or isn't in the game until we're playing a working version we think is great. We've said stuff prematurely in the past on our other games, and it really bit us in the end. I know everyone wants to know everything now, but it's going to be a while and when we have stuff we think is ready to show, everyone will see it.

Thanks Todd, we will keep it up!

Instead of flaiming them for this however, think about it from their point of view: who among us would want to pay a huge amount of money for a license and then turn it over to someone else? I'm assuming they paid the $$ because they wanted to make a Fallout game, end of story.

Looks like he clearly anticipated you lads getting enraged. And attempted to cut you off at the pass by stating he genuinely believed they paid because they really wanted to make a Fallout game. He even says "end of story", like he knows you're about to argue. Seems he failed however.

So why haven't Bethesda said that? Ok sure, they talk about love but what's this "and all the original guys are dead too" business? Why do we need that? What point does that serve other than for Pete to spin Bethesda in a good light (which, incidentally, is the job he's explicitly paid for)?

By the way, it sounds like hiring competent people would be part of the formula to me.

Part of a game design formula or part of a business strategy?

Arguing semantics again? Who would've guessed.

"Heavily" criticized? A line or two in the middle of a series of glowing reviews counts as heavily criticized?

As I said there was more around at the time and yes, in an 8/10 review, that's pretty heavy these days.

Which means the plot :shock horror: matters, despite your protestations otherwise.

Did I say it didn't matter?

You kept going on and on about how you're the only one whoever reads the manual because, you know, that's where all the lore is! God forbid it form an important part of the plot.

Bethesda doesn't have a single key person from Fallout and yet those people are still around. Now Pete reckons they're dead, when in actuality,

You put words in Petes mouth again. Pete isn't comparing himself, a single person to Peter Jackson anymore than he is comparing Tim Cain to George Lucas. In both cases he is referring to a company. His analogy works.

Nope. Pete's talking about "the original guys", the creators. The same way George Lucas created and is credited with creating Star Wars. He doesn't mean Interplay, not by a long shot. Or if he does, then he's severely retarded (which may not be all that surprising, given the photo of him floating about the place).

So it's more like George Lucas is still alive, he wanted his original IP back but some other mob got there first and then when George asked if he could help, they told him to piss off.

Like I said, you will quote Leonard but aren't willing to listen to the final line of his :

I did approach Bethesda about us working with them on Fallout, but they were uninterested. Instead of flaiming them for this however, think about it from their point of view: who among us would want to pay a huge amount of money for a license and then turn it over to someone else? I'm assuming they paid the $$ because they wanted to make a Fallout game, end of story.

Sounds like a rather decent, likable fellow who was able to handle his disappointment with equilibrium and fairness.

"Because they wanted to make a Fallout game". So wait, wasn't it because somebody died? If Leonard's right (and you seem to think he is, given you've quoted him twice now), why didn't Bethesda just say that? Why this whole "It's like George Lucas died" spin? Why not just say "Yeah, we got the license and it's cool." Why even infer the desire to work with the original guys? Why the unnecessary spin and revisionist history from PR Pete?

Which means "love" plays second fiddle. It doesn't matter how much Bethesda "love" Fallout, they need it to make money. That's business.

Same would have applied to Troika. No matter how much they considered it their baby.

Oh, I don't know about that. Troika would've made decisions that fit the game. Take this classic quote from Tim Cain about turn-based combat for example:

Q: Right off the bat, I have to ask why in a genre with the likes of Neverwinter Nights and Planescape: Torment did you decide to take The Temple of Elemental Evil away from real-time and into turn-based?

[Tim Cain] I am a little confused. D&D is a turn-based system, so I didn't take ToEE anywhere. I am more surprised that you don`t wonder why the developers of those other games felt compelled to license a game system and then rewrite many of its rules to cover a mode of play that it was never intended to support. I wanted to make a computer game based on D&D, not some hybrid system that I invented myself.

Sounds like a man with conviction right there. Not someone who has a history of bullshitting people.

Love be damned, business comes first. Who's making decisions out of "love"?

You're ignoring the point where the questioner sets the man up for his response and now you're shooting him down for it.

Are you kidding me? Todd says "What's viable today? Certainly turn-based combat limits your audience to a small number, but I do find that audiences will come if your game is good enough and the presentation is superb." Seems to me like Todd couldn't make a superb enough turn-based game. You know, one the audiences would've come to.

Ultimately we'll do what we think will be the most fun.

Sounds like he's motivated by what he thinks makes a game enjoyable for all the players.

You mean by dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator and the 5 minute attention span audience which will in turn, guarantee higher sales? Sure, that sounds like loads of fun! I mean, it's not like we've been critiscising Bethesda for targetting the lowest common denominator before.

... or do you reckon they mean "fun" like when they said "Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things" and how it turned out they literally did mean just "running around and killing things"? Yeah, sorry Naked Ninja but the rest of us have been subjected to Bethesda's PR bullshit for years all through-out Morrowind and Oblivion. And you're surprised we don't believe everything they say and salivate on every word? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

You're arrogant "it's what I would've done" attitude

Offsetting risky ventures with proven profitable ones is proof of arrogance? I stick by my statement, it is smart and it is what I would have done.

The attitude I refer to is more than that. It's like earlier where you said you could make a turn-based game "in a day". As I said before, that's really cute coming from Indie who hasn't finished his game yet, talking about a company who are notorious for shitty combat.

FACT: If Bethesda didn't believe they could make money out of Fallout, they never would've gone anywhere near it. Love or no love.

FACT : If Troika didn't believe they could make money out of Fallout, they never would've gone anywhere near it. Love or no love.

Nah it was the publisher that let them down there. As Leon said, they thought the stars were aligning and then they got "kicked in the guts".

"Fallout: Made #4 on the list of top games of all time produced by PC Gamer in 2001. It made #5 on the IGN list of the top 25 PC games of all time (IGN's list), and is usually placed in similar lists. It also won the award of "RPG of the Year" from GameSpot, and has since been inducted into their "Greatest Games of All Time" list."

And critics loved Psychonauts. A lot. Complete commercial flop though. I wasn't arguing how much critics loved it, I was talking about the amount of revenue it generated for the company in comparison to other games of the time. As far as I'm aware it wasn't a massive hit.

It wasn't a "massive" hit ala Diablo but it sold well enough to warrant a sequel (the "quick let's get this out the door in 10 months and capitalise on this as much as possible" type of sequel) and 2 dodgy action focussed spin-offs (which both flopped and I suppose just goes to show what changing the formula does to you). For all intents and purposes though, the game was a success.

 

[DefJam101]

Somebody remix this to go with the thread title

Look earlier in the thread-

 

[Naked Ninja]

interpreting Pete Hines statement in pretty much the only way that it can be interpreted (I note you seem to be the only one here saying otherwise)

There is a difference between "only way" and "only way interpreted by the codex".

batshit fucking crazy" for reaching that conclusion.

No, you're just batshit fucking crazy in general.

Most people think Pete said something stupid, except you.

Most of the Codex, not most people.

If Pete meant Interplay is dead, I'd like to hear him say it instead of using stupid analogies.

Most people don't take analogies so literally.

Statistics plz. Particularly about the majority of what fans want. First you'll have to prove their fans, then prove what they want, k?

You are the one who made the assertion, the burden of proof is on you my man.

That group just happens to be the same group that run the two longest running Fallout fan sites in existence (NMA and DAC).

Luckily these things are measured in fan site age then. Wait, they aren't. Lots of people don't give a shit about hanging around 10 year old fan sites. Or fan sites at all.

Why should I represent someone else

When you say "Fallout fans want" instead of "some fallout fans want" you're implying you know the opinion of and speak for all of the fans.

They wouldn't change viewpoint or combat?

Is that all there is to Fallout? Or even the most important bits?

For the record my comment also included adding in a working isometric viewpoint

FPS camera's are already bound to the players tranformation matrix, it's a matter of moving the camera up and rotating it. 10 minutes. If you want it to not always center on the player that is a little bit of code to keep it X distance from the ground and make it so when he leaves one side of the bounding volume it shifts in that direction by Y units (They already have a decoupled camera judging by the editor). 1 hour if you need to figure the math. Making the roofs of buildings disappear as you enter them is harder, requires separating the building model into two parts, a body and a roof, then placing a trigger volume in the door which hides and reveals the roof as the player crosses it. You could hack something in an hour, code wise, but it would be a bit of a pain to edit and do many buildings. Couple hours to automate it it properly if you know the collision code or have a portalling system already.

And I doubt it'd take "a day".

I said a day for the basics. You're really overestimating what it takes to implement, codewise. Any game which can pause already has the ability to disable actors, you're looking at adding some round robin turn management code and event callbacks for actors to notify when they are done with their turn and the next one gets a go. It would take an hour. The longer part is for the player's turn, disabling their control of their avatar, certain GUI options, calculating the cost of moving somewhere (I'm assuming you already have a path finding grid, just count nodes travelled to get somewhere to get move cost).Whenever an actor went hostile you'd activate the round robin turn manager and you'd disable it when no hostile actors were left alive.

You could easily have a very simple turn based system in a day. It would take longer to get all the fine aspects in, point expenditure for every action, get the AI to handle its turns intelligently etc, but yeah, easy.

They did make Oblivion and Morrowind and the combat in both of those wasn't highly regarded.

There is a lot of difference between design and code. From the combat viewpoint in those 2 games you're looking at collision detection, animation systems, AI routines, ability callbacks. The code work required to implement those features is not related to how well they played in game.

By the way, just out of interest, how long do you reckon it'd take to add in mounted combat

A while, a couple weeks maybe. The animation is the real bitch, the mount and rider needs to be synced up, the collision stuff needs to happen properly with the horse collision mesh there and the physics of the horse moving etc. But it requires a lot of animation. And from a game design perspective you seriously don't want to add it in if you don't have the entire combat system balanced around it, it would be as overpowering as levitation was in MW.

Actually Interplay had precisely one individual...<long>... If Bethesda really did just want to make their own Fallout game, why not say that? Why infer that the original creators of the licensed material are dead?

You know you don't have to take analogies literally right? I sincerely doubt Pete meant actual rigor mortis was occurring. Like I said before you guys are taking it way too literally for the purpose of getting indignant.

Stick around long enough and you'll see that for yourself.

Oh yes, I've stuck around long enough to see plenty of silliness.

Why wouldn't I ignore it? The point I was making was that Troika (consisting of what even you consider to be most of the creators of Fallout), asked Bethesda if they wanted to work with them. Bethesda said no. Now Pete's trying to spin it in any way he can other than the truth.

And the point I was making was that one of the dudes from Troika, the very guys you are defending, didn't think Bethesda's motives particularly villainous. Maybe you should listen to him.

Thanks Todd, we will keep it up!

Got anything more recent than 3 years ago? Mr SmileyFacedDude also used to post here.

So why haven't Bethesda said that? Ok sure, they talk about love but what's this "and all the original guys are dead too" business?

Perhaps he didn't take into account the "batshit fucking crazy" factor? But I like the way you have translated his analogy into him explicitly saying "and all the original guys are dead!". Analogy. Not literal.

Arguing semantics again?

You think the difference between a game design and business plan is semantics?

You kept going on and on about how you're the only one whoever reads the manual because, you know, that's where all the lore is! God forbid it form an important part of the plot.

You're barely coherent with this one. I'm just saying.

So wait, wasn't it because somebody died?

I dunno, maybe we should call CSI? This sounds like a job for forensics.

Why even infer the desire to work with the original guys?

Wait, what?

Oh, I don't know about that.

You don't know that they would have needed it to make money for them?

Troika would've made decisions that fit the game.

Oh right, you're bringing it round to talking about the turn based combat again. I take it they still would have needed it to make money, combat model aside, yes?

Sounds like a man with conviction right there. Not someone who has a history of bullshitting people.

:True Patriot:

Seems to me like Todd couldn't make a superb enough turn-based game. You know, one the audiences would've come to.

Couldn't or chose not to? I hear he likes real time. Perhaps he didn't think turn based was the heart and soul of what made Fallout Fallout and would like to see the world from the ground, and combat in real time? Maybe...

It's like earlier where you said you could make a turn-based game "in a day". As I said before, that's really cute coming from Indie who hasn't finished his game yet, talking about a company who are notorious for shitty combat.

I said I could add the fundamentals of a turn based system to an engine, assuming I knew the engine, in a day. Not make an entire turn based game from scratch in a day. And I re-iterate, combat design isn't the same as coding the features which make that design possible. You can't judge one by the other.

Also, I'm glad you find me cute but I've already said I'm not that way inclined. Cut it out.

It wasn't a "massive" hit ala Diablo but it sold well enough.

Well enough? Well then, this whole "They did it for all the money it would make them!" is a bit improbable, don't you think, for a company that has the success of Oblivion behind it?

 

[Gnidrologist]

Tim Cain's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
Tim Cain's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
He'll fly his astral plane,
Takes you trips around the bay,
Brings you back the same day,
Tim Cain. Tim Cain.

Tim Cain's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
Tim Cain's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
He'll fly his astral plane,
Takes you trips around the bay,
Brings you back the same day,
Tim Cain. Tim Cain.

Along the coast you'll hear them boast
About a light they say that shines so clear.
So raise your glass, we'll drink a toast
To the little man who sells you thrills along the pier.

He'll take you up, he'll bring you down,
He'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground.
He flies so high, he swoops so low,
He knows exactly which way he's gonna go.
Tim Cain. Tim Cain.

He'll take you up, he'll bring you down,
He'll plant your feet back on the ground.
He'll fly so high, he'll swoop so low.
Tim Cain.

He'll fly his astral plane.
He'll take you trips around the bay.
He'll bring you back the same day.
Tim Cain. Tim Cain.
Tim Cain. Tim Cain.
Tim Cain.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

interpreting Pete Hines statement in pretty much the only way that it can be interpreted (I note you seem to be the only one here saying otherwise)

There is a difference between "only way" and "only way interpreted by the codex".

... and how NMA saw it.
... and how someone at GameSpot saw it.
... and a bit at RockPaperShotgun.
... and that's about it for topics about that news item.

So at the very least, you need to widen "only the Codex" to "only the Fallout fans".

... and you're still the only one who has a problem with the Tim Cain / George Lucas thing.

Most people think Pete said something stupid, except you.

Most of the Codex, not most people.

... and NMA
... and...

Really, you're not just reading the Codex are you?

If Pete meant Interplay is dead, I'd like to hear him say it instead of using stupid analogies.

Most people don't take analogies so literally.

So he meant Interplay were still alive? Haven't you just spent the last 5 pages whinging that "Pete meant Interplay, not Tim Cain"?

The Fallout fans have been asking for an isometric viewpoint and turn-based combat ever since Fallout 2.

Your group of fallout fans wants that, it doesn't mean every fan does, or even that the majority does.

Statistics plz. Particularly about the majority of what fans want. First you'll have to prove their fans, then prove what they want, k?

You are the one who made the assertion, the burden of proof is on you my man.

Happy reading.

That group just happens to be the same group that run the two longest running Fallout fan sites in existence (NMA and DAC).

Luckily these things are measured in fan site age then. Wait, they aren't. Lots of people don't give a shit about hanging around 10 year old fan sites. Or fan sites at all.

Good thinking we're talking about fans then and not just "people".

• A fan, aficionado or supporter is someone who has an intense, occasionally overwhelming liking of a sporting club, person, group of persons, company, product, work of art, idea, or trend. Fans of a particular thing constitute its fanbase or fandom. They may start a fan club, hold fan conventions, create fanzines, write fan mail, or engage in similar activities.

Why should I represent someone else

When you say "Fallout fans want" instead of "some fallout fans want" you're implying you know the opinion of and speak for all of the fans.

Well, you're clearly not a fan. So who are you speaking for? The people who don't care enough that they've played Fallout but care enough that they'll hang around a forum talking about what Pete Hines did or didn't mean? You should start a club for that.

They wouldn't change viewpoint or combat?

Is that all there is to Fallout? Or even the most important bits?

Nope, but that's all we're talking about. I think someone in this thread said something about not taking analogies too seriously. I think there's a list somewhere on NMA if you want.

For the record my comment also included adding in a working isometric viewpoint

FPS camera's are already bound to the players tranformation matrix, it's a matter of moving the camera up and rotating it. 10 minutes. If you want it to not always center on the player that is a little bit of code to keep it X distance from the ground and make it so when he leaves one side of the bounding volume it shifts in that direction by Y units (They already have a decoupled camera judging by the editor). 1 hour if you need to figure the math. Making the roofs of buildings disappear as you enter them is harder, requires separating the building model into two parts, a body and a roof, then placing a trigger volume in the door which hides and reveals the roof as the player crosses it. You could hack something in an hour, code wise, but it would be a bit of a pain to edit and do many buildings. Couple hours to automate it it properly if you know the collision code or have a portalling system already.

Ahh... Yes. We're back to the "adding in this stuff is trivial and can be done quickly because I'm an Indie who still hasn't finished my only game yet" only now with the added twist that apparently, it does take a significant amount of time and investment to do "beyond the basics". You'll remember we started down this path because I said "Bethesda were never going to do that [make a turn-based, isometric game] (it'd be a little hard to do on Oblivion's engine)". Sounds like it'll take quite a long time to do, which means it's definitely in the category of "a little hard".

And I doubt it'd take "a day".

I said a day for the basics.

... and I'm talking about a fully-fledged, turn-based combat system and an isometric viewpoint in Oblivion's engine. An engine designed to load several individual cells and handle combat in an FPS view. Who mentioned anything about basics?

You're really overestimating what it takes to implement, codewise. Any game which can pause already has the ability to disable actors, you're looking at adding some round robin turn management code and event callbacks for actors to notify when they are done with their turn and the next one gets a go. It would take an hour. The longer part is for the player's turn, disabling their control of their avatar, certain GUI options, calculating the cost of moving somewhere (I'm assuming you already have a path finding grid, just count nodes travelled to get somewhere to get move cost).Whenever an actor went hostile you'd activate the round robin turn manager and you'd disable it when no hostile actors were left alive.

Yeah and I suppose making a real-time FPS engine would only take a day too? That must be why a new version of Doom is released every week by id Software. Oh wait, no it's not because you're talking out of your ass again. I'm surprised you even need more than a single programmer for games. The way you're talking, a single guy can make all you need. Then just "tweak it". I wonder why Bethesda has so many developers, maybe they do suck at making games?

By the way, just out of interest, how long do you reckon it'd take to add in mounted combat

A while, a couple weeks maybe. The animation is the real bitch, the mount and rider needs to be synced up, the collision stuff needs to happen properly with the horse collision mesh there and the physics of the horse moving etc. But it requires a lot of animation. And from a game design perspective you seriously don't want to add it in if you don't have the entire combat system balanced around it, it would be as overpowering as levitation was in MW.

Oh I see, so adding in turn-based combat only takes a day and because it's "just the basics" yet when we start adding in Mounted Combat, suddenly we need all those animations that seemed to be missing from your "TB combat in 1 day" example.

Actually Interplay had precisely one individual...<long>... If Bethesda really did just want to make their own Fallout game, why not say that? Why infer that the original creators of the licensed material are dead?

You know you don't have to take analogies literally right?

... and you know you shouldn't be taking quite everything I say literally either, right? Replace "dead" with "not around", "unavailable", really, choose whatever similar word you like. Troika, the creators of Fallout (which everyone knows), were still around. Pete referred to the creators in an analogy. He implied they weren't around. They were.

The truth is, Pete just has a wonderful way of coming up with new fundamentally stupid things to say in almost every interview he does. Stick around long enough and you'll see that for yourself.

Oh yes, I've stuck around long enough to see plenty of silliness.

Hey, I'm glad we agree on something. Pete sure can be silly, can't he?

Why wouldn't I ignore it? The point I was making was that Troika (consisting of what even you consider to be most of the creators of Fallout), asked Bethesda if they wanted to work with them. Bethesda said no. Now Pete's trying to spin it in any way he can other than the truth.

And the point I was making was that one of the dudes from Troika, the very guys you are defending, didn't think Bethesda's motives particularly villainous. Maybe you should listen to him.

Villanious? So making money is evil now? All I want is for Bethesda to stop with the PR spin.

Thanks Todd, we will keep it up!

Got anything more recent than 3 years ago?

Yep. How's 4 days ago for you?

Q: If Bethesda decided to remake Pac-Man, there would be a huge amount of attention, because of your track record, so with something like Fallout, with an existing fan base, was there a lot of additional pressure there to keep them happy?

Pete Hines: Well, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We don't take on something like Fallout 3, and everything that it means – I don't have to explain to most folks what Fallout is, it's beloved and revered by a lot of people, and it's a pretty big undertaking.

So we have a lot of pressure on ourselves not only doing the next Fallout game, but also we did pretty well on Oblivion, so the next follow-up to that, [ie Fallout 3], is always going to be under a pretty big microscope and have a lot to live up to.

So I don't think that the size or fanaticism of the fanbase is a problem, I'd rather have that than have a bunch of people not care about what it is we're doing. We'd much rather see the passion, it means a lot to us.

See? Even Pete wubs us! Seems the only person with a problem here is you. Oh and Twinfalls.

By the way, have you got anything more recent than Leon's 3 year old comment? I think Todd knew full-well what he was in for when he said what he did. It's why "what do you think of the fans" is a regular question in Fallout 3 interviews.

Mr SmileyFacedDude also used to post here.

Until he was directed not to because we criticised Oblivion. Fallout 3 had nothing to do with it.

Arguing semantics again?

You think the difference between a game design and business plan is semantics?

When you're talking about a formula for a successful computer game? Yes. "Hire good people" would be one chapter in a long, long book.

Why even infer the desire to work with the original guys?

Wait, what?

What do you think he means when he says "we're not the original guys" and uses the "it's like if George Lucas died tomorrow" analogy? Pete felt he had to kill George off to make his analogy work. The original creator is no longer around and it's a terrible thing and here we are, coming in to save the day! Pity the original creators were still around at the time, huh?

Troika would've made decisions that fit the game.

Oh right, you're bringing it round to talking about the turn based combat again. I take it they still would have needed it to make money, combat model aside, yes?

Of course, it's why Arcanum had real-time combat (the publisher quite literally pressured them into it). But Troika's focus was always on designing an awesome game. They couldn't quite get the code right mind you but even he knew turn-based games sell less, and yet they still made ToEE. Sure, maybe it lead to their downfall but it also lead to some awesome combat.

Sounds like a man with conviction right there. Not someone who has a history of bullshitting people.

:True Patriot:

Indeed.

Seems to me like Todd couldn't make a superb enough turn-based game. You know, one the audiences would've come to.

Couldn't or chose not to? I hear he likes real time. Perhaps he didn't think turn based was the heart and soul of what made Fallout Fallout and would like to see the world from the ground, and combat in real time? Maybe...

Which is why the fans have such a problem with Bethesda. They make generic, "dumbed down" mainstream titles aimed at the lowest common denominator. They're not award winning games that people remember for years to come, it's trash most people forget about when they're done.

It wasn't a "massive" hit ala Diablo but it sold well enough.

Well enough? Well then, this whole "They did it for all the money it would make them!" is a bit improbable, don't you think, for a company that has the success of Oblivion behind it?

They're making it an FPS with real-time combat for all the money it will make them. They may "love" Fallout enough to buy the license but they don't love it enough to take a risk on it. They love it enough to slap it's name on the box and use it to attempt to push as many copies out the door as possible. That's not "love", that's marrying an imported Russian bride because she has nice tits.

 

[hiver]

hey, lets look where did they go to... mhhmm..

skip, skip, skip, skip, nice song Gnidrologist, skip, skip, skip.
Mkay.