Bethesda has come under fire from many an obsessed Fallout lunatic, accused of ruining the game by daring to take it in a new and interesting direction. Anything that isn't exactly like the Fallout of yesteryear is treachery and should be destroyed. Well, Bethesda has wisely chosen to ignore the lunatic fringe, instead concentrating on its own vision for the Fallout IP and waiting for opinions from those playing the game, not those who refuse to play it because they're too busy pretending to be fans of the series.
"You have to take feedback from the people who are actually playing the game," explained Bethesda's Pete Hines, who also had this to say when asked how much input his team had taken from fans:
"Not much. When you're designing a game, you have this group of people on the inside who are working on it every day and who know everything about the decisions that are being made. You don't just take a chunk of that, throw it out to the community and say, 'We don't know how this question works, so let's ask the fans.' You're working and changing every day - it's a constant, fluid process. It's not like we say, 'Okay, everything is done now, let's see what they say then go back and change it.'
We're big believers in playing the game, putting things in and then letting folks see how it feels, as opposed to 'Oh, that sounds terrible!' It turns out that ideas that sound terrible, when slightly tweaked, can be f**king awesome in the game. And it's sometimes the case that awesome-sounding ideas will suck when you actually put them in. You're never a slave to how something is written on paper - you put it in the game an play it. You have to take feedback from the people who are actually playing the game."
Sounds like a good plan. Let's face it, if Bethesda had listened to "fans," we'd have a carbon copy of the very first Fallout game. Then people would complain that Bethesda had done nothing new.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
2:39 PM on 09.03.2008
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I've been a Fallout fan for longer than I can remember now, anything in the isometric view would have been perfect admittedly - but that is the exact reason Interplay went bye-bye, nobody is going to buy a game like that bar a very small nieche audience.
Morrowind, Oblivion, both seem nieche games on the surface, however I know from my experience in sales that despite those initial impressions they are played by all sorts of players, from casual shooter, to hardcore sports fan.
A combination of the Elder Scrolls style and the truly amazing Fallout setting can only be a success, and will appeal to a much larger audience than that which the Elder Scrolls had. First because it will be an immediate purchase for any Elder Scrolls or RPG fan, but with the addition of guns it will also appeal more to the less expected audience.
Yes, it will upset some of the more obsessive fans. But, I bet people were peeved when they killed off Uriel Septim. People were mad when they played MGS2 as Raiden. People were sceptical of GTA making the transition to 3D.
There's always going to be people who cuddle their metaphoric teddy-bear of memory in the corner, who can't accept change. There's always going to be elitists who nobody can please, and Bethesda were completely right to ignore them. The series needs new fans.
Can't please all the people all the time.
Like fringe on clothing...they're meant to be cut off and tossed away as useless.
then game sells and everything is alright except that oblivion was worst than the previous elder's scrolls games.
Then they do shivering isles and i forgive them .
I will wait to play the game , but i think that bethesda can find a center between what the fans want and what a "gears of war fan" wants....
I'm willing to give it a chance because I thought Oblivion was pretty good.
(I know, I suck right? Fuck you)
I love the Fall Out 2 (and tactics from what I can remember) and I am damn excited to try this game out as, so far, I like the ideas behind it and where they went with it.
Some people just would have liked a sequel that was based more on the predecessors (minus graphics) than on Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. It's totally awesome that it's possible to play the game as a straight up FPS without ever realising it's really supposed to be an RPG right? It's great that despite the initial denials of Fallout 3 being Oblivion with guns this is how it is essentially being talked about by Bethesda now (including, according to several sites the same things that underwhelmed with that game).
I guess it's more amusing to ignore all the more constructive criticism that's been written about the game and just mention the smaller number of people who have convinced themselves that the only good Fallout is a carbon copy of the first two.
The games themselves are unintuitive and hard as balls(A wide-open world to explore isn't that fun if absolutely everything in it fucking obliterates you in seconds).
Besides that, the visuals are boring as hell, and no I don't mean ZOMG NO BUMP MAPPING AND SHINY SURFACES. I mean for all it's highly-touted retro-futuristic/art-deco style, the majority of the games is just the same tiled brown one story building or tiled bunker environment. Add a shitty isometric perspective that blocks everything and these games are about as immersive as Wii Music.
I tried to love them, I really did. I am however, looking foward to Fallout 3 with a fervor that would drive me to eviscerate baby seals if it would speed up the release date.
followed by
"Now this door is locked so we'll have to use our lock picking skill"
Of course all criticism must be by rabid fanboys who just want a carbon copy of the original fallout because there's no way that Fallout 3 isn't ball licking perfect is there Jim?
Also it's FAR from just those people who have complaints about Fallout 3. The color pallet and in general graphics are really lacking (I can forgive a nuclear wasteland being all grey and brown. But why the fuck was the inside of Tennpenny Tower entirely mustard!?), the gore looks retarded, character models fall apart way too easily and the ragdolls are unnatural, and that whole qurestline about blowing up the town was retardedly played out. Dude tells you to blow up the town in public, in front of the bar patrons, you tinker with the unexploded unclear bomb in front of everybody without anybody caring, and then you blow up a nuke only a short distance away in a nearby pristinely kept tower that is remarkably undamaged despite an atomic bomb going off nearby.
Fallout 3's got a lot of promise but there are plenty of complaints and issues to be had thus far.
Sensational title => Jim Sterling
and I never miss!
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Aw shit, who am I kidding? GOTY! 11/10!
that is all.
Also, people who complain about games that they haven't played themselves are lame, punctuation-hating basement dwellers. As Jetsetlemming already proved.
Yes that is exactly what I said.
There was gore in the original Fallout's. A lot of it.
I'll be happy with this new direction for the series as long as they keep the trademark dark humor intact.
Honestly no mutants allowed is useful for finding out the latest on the game that will be GOTY if you ignore some of their comments on how Bethesda raped their mothers. And for downloading mods like the restoration pack and original copies of the game so peopel like me who are desperate to get their fix on the fallotu world can play the original two.
Only thing I can complain about is the lack of child killing. Which if they had in prey (and I didnt like it in a horror setting0 why cant they have it in fallout?
http://lookongames.blogspot.com/2008/09/lol.html
Click on the pic to enlarge, u have scroll down a bit.
If someone started making a game and left all choices in the hands of fans, it would be the most ridiculous game on the planet.
fudge them all
gimme my Fallout3