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Fallout - Brotherhood of Steel Interview at HomeLan
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Author Thread
Saint_Proverbius
Head Merchant
Head Merchant




Joined: 08 Dec 2001
Posts: 61
Location: Shady Sands
   

quote:
Originally posted by Dhruin
@Saint_Proverbius, why is this game such a big deal? You've made comments on at least 4 sites...if you don't like it, don't buy it. Why make such a point about it?


Because it's a generally bad idea for Fallout as a franchise. There have been stronger franchises that have bit the dust because the Powers That Be have decided it'd be a smashing idea to exploit the name until the franchise was literally unviable. This is especially the case where the original genre the franchise started out in has no titles in production, or if they are, their development is suberceded by the production of the spin offs.

That make sense, or do you want a couple of pages on the subject?

On a related note, though. I'm hardly alone on this. Even the French gaming magazine Joystick blasted Fallout Enforcer's development in their April issue, and I suspect they're just the first on the subject:

quote:
Originally posted by Joystick
Radioactive in his head

Oh, at last official news of the next Fallout. Oh, it will be produce at Vivendi and Interplay. The name will be Brotherhood of Steel and it will be a third person view game, taking place after the 1st chapter of the series. The player will have again to fight against a strange plot which aim to transform the still alive mankind to mutants. By the way it's designed to be release only on PS2 and Xbox. But don't start to cry because on the boards, one of the developers dared to say, "...we found the last Fallout was too much tactical and had not enough action in it" Yes buddy, that's it, think we are suckers...


Fallout is a respected license, even though Interplay doesn't see it as such. They just see it as a name they can invoke periodically to slap on a crappy game in order to make said game sell a little better. Fallout Tactics originally had nothing to do with Fallout, until Interplay decided that the game should be a Fallout title. It was originally entitled, Chimera, and was fairly different from what was shipped.

I remember when Fallout Tactics was announced, many people said the same thing, "Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe it'll be good." Fallout Tactics even started with a better concept, a squad level tactical game set in Fallout's universe is a far cry better than a third person console shooter.

Anyone actually think Fallout Tactics was good for the franchise? After all, it's fraught with discontinuity about the setting with everything from the weapons in it, location problems, plot problems, and so forth. So, when it comes time, if there ever is a time, to make Fallout 3, what do you go with? Fallout and Fallout 2 would be the best choice, but we have the law of diminished returns working against that every time a spin off with a radical new take on the setting pops up.
Post Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:05 pm
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Hexy
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 28 Jun 2002
Posts: 621
   

quote:
Originally posted by Saint_Proverbius

Fallout is a respected license, even though Interplay doesn't see it as such. They just see it as a name they can invoke periodically to slap on a crappy game in order to make said game sell a little better. Fallout Tactics originally had nothing to do with Fallout, until Interplay decided that the game should be a Fallout title. It was originally entitled, Chimera , and was fairly different from what was shipped.



Isn't it so, that Fallout is a respected license by a relatively small community? Hmmm... maybe that's why Interplay want to experiment with it.
Post Sun Apr 06, 2003 7:26 pm
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hoyp
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 02 Oct 2002
Posts: 501
   

c'mon people,



It's just a GAME!

@Saint_Proverbius

What the hell is wrong with you?
Your not gonna die if you don't get the "right" fallout 3.
Post Sun Apr 06, 2003 8:25 pm
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Korplem
Swashbuckler
Swashbuckler




Joined: 23 Dec 2002
Posts: 853
Location: Pearl Harbor, HI
   

Hoyp is right... its just a game. And since you probley wont be playing it theres no real reason to complain about it.
_________________
If soot stains your tunic, dye it black. This is vengeance.

-The Prince of Nothing
Post Sun Apr 06, 2003 9:28 pm
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Stranger In A Strange Land




Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia
   

@Guest, Hitler? Are you kidding?

@Saint_Proverbius, I appreciate the intelligent response - at least I understand your passion although I'm not sure I agree. I guess I don't really see it as a "franchise". To me, this implies an intent to create an ongoing series and I'm not sure this is really the case.

I thought Fallout Tactics was a reasonable game and I quite enjoyed the Fallout connection, even if it wasn't "pure". I don't see that it inherently diminishes a future Fallout. I didn't know it wasn't developed as "Fallout Tactics", but then again, Baldurs Gate wasn't originally designed as a D&D licence.

The fundamental difference is that I agree with J.E. Sawyer - I don't mind the game evolving. I don't suppose we'll agree on that .
Post Mon Apr 07, 2003 12:18 am
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POOPERSCOOPER
Guest






hey
   

quote:
Originally posted by Dhruin
The fundamental difference is that I agree with J.E. Sawyer - I don't mind the game evolving. I don't suppose we'll agree on that .


How the hell does a game evolve when it goes from RPG to 3rd person action game? The people who bring the relative "it's just a game" argument, should stop comming to a GAME website to get the latest info.

Perhaps, there are people who enjoy Fallout and hate to see the license being destroyed?
Post Mon Apr 07, 2003 12:43 am
 
Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Stranger In A Strange Land




Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia
   

I wasn't talking about Fallout evolving into Enforcer but rather Saint_Proverbius' comment that (I'm paraphrasing) changes to the Fallout world would inevitably effect a future Fallout 3.

quote:
Originally posted by POOPERSCOOPER
Perhaps, there are people who enjoy Fallout and hate to see the license being destroyed?


That's fair enough. I just don't see why it destroys a theorectical Fallout 3. Does Starcraft: Ghost automatically diminish a possible Starcraft II ? A dozen crappy Star Wars games mean Jedi: Academy can't be any good?

It's my guess that at the heart of most of this is the use of RT combat in these spin-offs and (therefore) in F3. I loved Fallout but it wasn't the combat (actually I thought the combat was average), rather the world and quality of the writing and the freedom. I know that's heresy, but RT in F3 won't be the end of the world for me if it's done well.
Post Mon Apr 07, 2003 8:58 am
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Saint_Proverbius
Head Merchant
Head Merchant




Joined: 08 Dec 2001
Posts: 61
Location: Shady Sands
   

quote:
Originally posted by Hexy
Isn't it so, that Fallout is a respected license by a relatively small community? Hmmm... maybe that's why Interplay want to experiment with it.


I'm not so sure it's just a small community that's interested in Fallout as a CRPG. After all, even on the mainstream gaming sites, there are many people speaking out about this being a bad thing.

quote:
Originally posted by hoyp
It's just a GAME!

@Saint_Proverbius
What the hell is wrong with you?
Your not gonna die if you don't get the "right" fallout 3.


1.) For someone who keeps saying, It's just a game, you're spending a heck of a lot of time replying to me about it. If that's all it is, then I'll turn around the query to you, why do you care so much that I care? You're not going to die if I don't stop replying!

2.) Secondly, I wonder how much uproar would have been generated by people who enjoy and appreciate Lord of the Rings if Peter Jackson's interpretation of Sam and Frodo's friendship was that they were actually having a homosexual affair. When you have an established franchise, like Fallout or Lord of the Rings or anything which a fairly decent amount of people enjoy, and you decide it's cool to take that franchise and make a radical departure from that's canon of that franchise, you're going to end up with a lot of pissed off people. It shouldn't be much of a mystery to anyone as to why that happens.

3.) Are you ever going to come up with a sensible argument? "It's just a GAME!" is hardly an argument of any sort. It's be like yelling, "It's just WATER!" at people complaining about flood damage to their home.

quote:
Originally posted by Dhruin
Saint_Proverbius, I appreciate the intelligent response - at least I understand your passion although I'm not sure I agree. I guess I don't really see it as a "franchise". To me, this implies an intent to create an ongoing series and I'm not sure this is really the case.


Well, that depends on what you mean by series. Interplay's already established they're wanting to churn out things with the Fallout name slapped on them in the hopes they'll sell more copies of said title. Also, Herve Caen, Interplay CEO, stated on April 2nd that his goal for the company to make money will be leveraging franchises in hopes of bringing in more revenue to the company. They already sold Hunter's license to Vivendi, so more of that to come.

Of course, this is short term thinking at best, since a good franchise is hard to come by. You'd think Interplay would know this, since they've done a fantastic job of making flops lately. Make a few flops or poor titles with a good franchise, and you're spelling doom for that franchise. X-Com is a good example of a franchise wiped out by the release of a successive series of failed titles and spin offs, but hopefully Firaxis can ressurrect it if they're willing to do so and get a publisher to sign off on an X-Com title.

quote:
I thought Fallout Tactics was a reasonable game and I quite enjoyed the Fallout connection, even if it wasn't "pure". I don't see that it inherently diminishes a future Fallout. I didn't know it wasn't developed as "Fallout Tactics", but then again, Baldurs Gate wasn't originally designed as a D&D licence.


I seriously doubt anyone would even know what Baldur's Gate even was if it weren't D&D. I also have to agree with the folks over at IGN when they wrote that Baldur's Gate's success was bad for the genre.

quote:
The fundamental difference is that I agree with J.E. Sawyer - I don't mind the game evolving. I don't suppose we'll agree on that


Going from a CRPG designed to explore the ethics of a post nuclear, pulp sci-fi setting to a third person shooter isn't evolution. It's quite the opposite.

quote:
That's fair enough. I just don't see why it destroys a theorectical Fallout 3. Does Starcraft: Ghost automatically diminish a possible Starcraft II ? A dozen crappy Star Wars games mean Jedi: Academy can't be any good?


The difference between Starcraft: Ghost and Fallout Enforcer is that the same basic teams are there for sharing what the setting of the game is. The people who designed the setting of Fallout aren't around at Interplay to say, "Geez, that's totally wrong there." Also, Blizzard has enough creative pull with Vivendi to do what they want, which also isn't the case with Herve Caen's Interplay.

quote:
It's my guess that at the heart of most of this is the use of RT combat in these spin-offs and (therefore) in F3. I loved Fallout but it wasn't the combat (actually I thought the combat was average), rather the world and quality of the writing and the freedom. I know that's heresy, but RT in F3 won't be the end of the world for me if it's done well .


Well, Fallout was also designed to emulate a table top PnP game play system, to make it feel like moving your little miniture around in combat within a set of rules. That's why it was done using the hex grid system, like many table top PnP RPGs use. Adding that was extra work for the artists and the programmers, but it was done to create a feeling. That's not something you can handle with real time.

Furthermore, ranged combat and real time is fairly tricky to do well, especially if they want to keep the same view point as the originals. It's a problem of the interface, since it's tricky to nail anything with a decent AI that moves at a decent speed in real time with a projectile. Then again, you can automate combat like Dungeon Siege and Fallout Tactics did, so that the computer does all the target picking and firing for you, but that's a rather hollow experience.

Of course, there's also the problem of real time combat and using a To Hit system as well, since you're going to be dealing with visible projectiles with travel times, such as the plasma bolt or laser bolt. You fire the weapon, the computer determines that your character is going to hit the enemy, then the enemy moves perpendicular to the axis of travel of the projectile, which means some fudging has to happen now to make sure the visible projectile intercepts the target which is going to be hit. Fallout Tactics actually had this issue, and a number of complaints by people who were wondering why plasma bolts went through the walls they were running behind to hit them.

I could go on and on about the issues and problems of real time combat, including how the system moves a lot of the character stat control to the player, or how you can do much more in the way of tactics with turn based, or that animations tend to restrict many rules and things you may want to include but can't because of animation timing, but I'll leave that for another time.
Post Mon Apr 07, 2003 11:18 pm
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Guest







   

well, looks like this topic has straghtened itself out, so maybe instead of calling people 'losers', folks will realize that people enjoy a certain style of enterntainment, and it's understandable that they are upset over the decline of the said style.

heh, I'm not sure what would happen if Star Treck was turned into a vampire/sex/dectecive story, or something stupid like that, but the fans wouldn't be pleased... this is the same thing.

pick your favorite enterntainment and imagine it being turned into its anti-thesis, how would 'ya feel? of course, it's not life-threatening, or anything, but really, you'd be pissed.

as for the combat, name me one good deep single player CRPG with satisfying and tactical real-time combat? all infinity engine games are 'phase-based' and, are in fact based turn-based DnD, so that won't work, either.

you gotta understand that 'turn-based' is not some 'old-fashioned style', it's a necessity when you play in a virtual environment. you don't have the adequate senses, the visibility, the control of your character that you do in real-life. especially with a party. how do you flank people, do criticals, choose weapons...? you can't, so you must automate at which point it turns from fun into a screen-saver, like NWN. click on the monster, make some tea, come back, click again... boring.

if you think that Fallout fans are a gaming 'fringe', you are wrong, every gaming forum I've been to Fallout (together with Planescape, BG, and others) are cited as 'classic' example of a CRPG.

bah, I've written too much, but do people who enjoy these types of games not deserve developers attention? why does everything has to be pegged into some marketing idea (often wrong) of what's popular? aren't we 'losers' also a market?

personally, I've given up on large franchises/companies and totally support small unknown developers that still make games for fun, not (only) for money. and, it's cool I've found out about a lot of the new upcoming games in the 'old school' style recently from unknown developers.
Post Tue Apr 08, 2003 12:53 am
 
hoyp
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 02 Oct 2002
Posts: 501
   

@ Saint_Proverbius,

"1.) For someone who keeps saying, It's just a game , you're spending a heck of a lot of time replying to me about it. If that's all it is, then I'll turn around the query to you, why do you care so much that I care? You're not going to die if I don't stop replying! "

hmmm.....

If you still don't know why i replied, check this out:

"hoyp wrote:
Stop acting like a bunch of losers.

Saint Proverbius
Sure, if you promise to stop being a moron ."

" 3.) Are you ever going to come up with a sensible argument? "It's just a GAME!" is hardly an argument of any sort. It's be like yelling, "It's just WATER!" at people complaining about flood damage to their home. "

Why do you take things this seriously?

look, I'm sorry if I annoyed you.
Post Tue Apr 08, 2003 2:38 am
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KIA
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 04 Apr 2003
Posts: 3
Told you a thousand times not to exaggerate...
   

This probably doesn't need saying, but THIS IS A GAME. It is NOT a despotic ruler conquoring nations by force of arms, enslaving their population and executing millions of people - living, breathing, loving, laughing people - who he didn't happen to like. In fact, it's nowhere near that. Nobody's life will be lost because of this game. Nope, not even one. So... GET A GRIP! I'm just as disappointed as you that Interplay is allocating their resources to what might be a pile of dung. Or it might not be. So what? Express your disappointment with logic, reason, even passion, but don't attempt to make comparisons which are completely inappropriate. They make your argument weaker, not stronger and people who use their minds to make decisions - like Interplay - will reject your unsupportable position out of hand. If you really feel strongly, organize a letter-writing campaign or take some other concrete action to make a difference. Don't post puerile exaggerations.
Post Tue Apr 08, 2003 3:48 pm
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Exitium
Guest






You're just so f**king smart, aren't you?
   

quote:
Originally posted by Dhruin
I wasn't talking about Fallout evolving into Enforcer but rather Saint_Proverbius' comment that (I'm paraphrasing) changes to the Fallout world would inevitably effect a future Fallout 3.

That's fair enough. I just don't see why it destroys a theorectical Fallout 3. Does Starcraft: Ghost automatically diminish a possible Starcraft II ? A dozen crappy Star Wars games mean Jedi: Academy can't be any good?



How can you even compare Blizzard and LucasArts to Interplay? Unlike those two companies, Interplay doesn't have their kind of resources to throw around and make a dozen or so Fallout games. They only have enough resources to make one really good game or three or so really crappy games.

They're opting for the three or so really crappy games approach - proof of marketing at its poorest.

If Fallout BOS fails as a commercial title (likely) and as a successor to the Fallout series (even more likely), it will almost undoubtedly be the death knell for the franchise.

quote:

It's my guess that at the heart of most of this is the use of RT combat in these spin-offs and (therefore) in F3. I loved Fallout but it wasn't the combat (actually I thought the combat was average), rather the world and quality of the writing and the freedom.



Of which the writers of FOBOS have neither the talent nor the understanding of the universe to write for. It'd be one thing if they had Tim Cain or J.E. Sawyer, or (Saint would disagree with me) even Chris Avellone to write the storyline, as they would understand what the Fallout universe is about - but they don't. They have a bunch of hacks doing it and they aren't doing it right at all. Thongs in an irradiated wasteland? Figure that one out.

quote:

I know that's heresy, but RT in F3 won't be the end of the world for me if it's done well.


You should be worried about the writing.
Post Tue Apr 08, 2003 4:54 pm
 
Exitium
Guest






   

quote:
Originally posted by hoyp
@ Saint_Proverbius,
Why do you take things this seriously?

look, I'm sorry if I annoyed you.


You're such a troll. Take your words elsewhere.
Post Tue Apr 08, 2003 5:01 pm
 
Guest







   

quote:
Originally posted by hoyp

look, I'm sorry if I annoyed you.


Annoyed US, go back to your troll cave where you belong.
Post Tue Apr 08, 2003 8:25 pm
 


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