Well, on other stuff too, but that’s the most headline-worthy. After getting hands on with Fallout 3 last month I had ten minutes or so to chat with Bethesda’s VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines which I’ve finally transcribed. In it, I ask why they’re not initially supporting mods and mention the conspiracy theory that they’re sidestepping them to increase demand for downloadable content. Plus stuff on violence, misapprehensions and 100-post+ comment threads.
RPS: I’ve just had an hour or so with Fallout 3. In fact, lots of journalists now have now had that sort of time with the game. What are they going to miss? What apprehensions do you have?
Pete Hines: First of all, we’re just throwing a character at you which we’ve picked for you. Part of the fun is getting to create your own character, and deciding what sort of person you want to be in the world. And then being given a reasonable chance to explore that character. Going to explore lots of parts of the world, to get quests and see them out to their completion, to get a chance to roleplay – am I a good guy, a bad guy or a neutral guy? All that stuff is not stuff you can do for a half hour or even an hour. We have had some guys who’ve played the game for five hours, who get a bit more of a sense of that… but as far as general apprehensions, right now all my apprehensions are about finishing the game and getting it out there. We’re certainly not at a stage where if someone said “I’d like it a lot better if you could do THIS” … well, that ship has sailed. We’re not a stage where we’re adding new content or making big changes. We are shipping the game and getting all the bugs out and balancing here and there, but nothing major.
RPS: Sorry – I meant more misapprehensions. Stuff which people are going to misread which you don’t think would be a problem if they played more
Hines: A lot of folks who haven’t got a chance to play the game still ask about is the RPG aspect of it – in terms of the quests. Is there dialogue? I mean, a lot of what we’ve shown so far has been combat. It makes it seem a combat heavy game. Part of that is because it’s easy to show. It’s very hard to give someone the payoff for playing a quest when you’re showing it at a trade show or giving a 20 minute demo. It’s too hard to present and have it come off right. People still have some of those concerns, but we have had folk who have gone in and played the game for much longer and their feedback on those aspect of the game are very positive. So if you take them at their word, hopefully their misapprehensions have been cleared up.
RPS: Playing it something struck me. It really manages to be both horrific and quite comic. And that exact mix is something that’s not exactly thick on the ground anymore. [I'm not quite sure what I was getting at here, by the way. I suspect I meant deliberately mixing the two. There's a difference between violence that is comic and comedy violence. Gears of War is actually done with a straight face. There's a smirk with Fallout 3 - Ed]
Hines: I think we’ve tried to do both of those things – the violence and the sheer destruction with some of the dark humour.
RPS: I suppose what I mean that unlike common conceptions, modern games are actually less violent than they were a few years ago. The apex of modeling violence was Soldier of Fortune 2, and nothing’s come near since. People backed off. Even actually supposedly extremely violent games don’t actually show much. Conversely, Fallout 3 feels a little out of time in that it actually does show stuff.
Hines: Not only has violence changed, but violence in games – in terms of what you get away with on the screen has changed because the visual fidelity went up so much. We joke about back in the day, when Bethesda started making Elder Scroll stuff, back in 94-95-96… you put a nipple on the screen, it was a two pixel thing. You couldn’t tell what the hell it was if you stared at the screen all day. Now, if you put a woman on the screen and show her bare breasts it’s significantly more realistic. It’s got bump-mapping and specular lighting and skin-shaders… it does heighten the experience more than it used to ten years ago. And I think violence is the same thing – the technology brings it to life in a much more visceral way than it ever could have before, simply because of all the technology. On the flip side, you see stuff where people are careful of how they introduce it. Gears of War is a very violent game. You chainsaw guys in half and there’s no mistaking you’ve just chainsawed someone in half. But they do it in a way which has an aesthetic and a design quality which makes it not horrific, even though it’s an incredible looking game, they still manage to pull it off without being disturbing. I think a lot of times you have to be really careful about not crossing that line. The disturbing one. There’s a difference between the violence of storming the beach at Normandy in Saving Private Ryan and Kill Bill. One is funny, one is not. I think everybody gets the difference between the two.
RPS: Getting more technical – care to talk about the mod situation?
Folk probably took for granted that every time we make a game, there’s a mod tool. We explained to folk that it takes a lot of time and effort to get that tool ready for release, and it’s not on our schedule right now. We need to get the game done and out. It’s not to say we won’t do it. It’s that right now we have an enormous amount of work to do, for three platforms and all these different languages to get it out around the wall. Right now, we can’t say definitively “there will be mod tools, and here is when they’ll be out”. That work remains to be done.
RPS: There’s a Conspiracy Theory that would suggest that you’re removing the mod tools to make downloadable content more attractive. As in, if you get extra value for free, why buy the official stuff?
Hines: That’s a good theory, by the way. And probably on some level it would work… but from our standpoint, whenever we do an Elder Scrolls game and release those mod tools, it takes a ton of work and effort. This is a bigger undertaking for us, and one we’ve not yet scheduled for. Is that to say it’ll never come out? No, I’ll never say that. If we have the time, we’d absolutely like to put them out. As we’ve seen with Oblivion and Morrowind those things definitely create a sense of community and there’s tonnes of people out there modding. We have our own little blog we run from Bethesda, and every week we’re out there interviewing people from our mod community – so it’s clearly something we support, something we take interest in and something we place value in and spend a lot of time highlighting good mods. It’s just the tools take time. They don’t magically appear. Someone’s got to write help files for what all the scripts do, and get it released as a consumer product. Because it’s not in that state otherwise. Developers will make do with anything.
Another Journalist Interjecting: Also, it’s part of a PC world, which is not part of the console world which is a bigger part of the business than it might have been previously.
Hines: That’s the other thing. Yes, the PC mod community does help extend the life of a product by the number of people who are still playing it, but as we’ve seen in Oblivion, there’s still people who are playing it on the 360 in the tens of thousands two and a half years later. In insane numbers. For two years in a row we were still in the top 10 most played Xbox games in the year, with zero user-mods. So yes, I definitely think it helps extend the community – but it’s not the only thing out there. The games themselves also do lend themselves to be continuously played and replayed. So yes, it’s a good conspiracy theory, but has nothing to do with the facts. It’s just a case of “Who the hell is going to do this?” as everyone is working on getting the game done right now.
RPS: At RPS we tend to joke about certain subjects which we can post almost anything about and end up with 100 post comment threads. Bioshock, Piracy and… Fallout 3. It’s already the most controversial game of the year, and it hasn’t been released. What’s it like in the middle of it? It must be fascinating to watch. I know you ignore it, but…
Hines: I don’t think “Ignore it” is the right word. We’re aware of it and we certainly listen to it, but it’s also What Should We do about it? What do you do about the guy who says that your company is a travesty and you suck and you should not be making Fallout? Should I quit and go home? Okay… everyone is entitled to an opinion, but all we can really do is keep our heads down and work on the game, and make it the best game possible. We can’t go on an individual by individual basis and try and convince people of anything. The average gamer sees through that stuff in a minute. They have their own opinions. They’re very strongly held. The best we can do is present our game, and what it is which we think we do well and why it is – you, Joe Consumer – whether you play one game a year or fifty games a year might want to play Fallout 3. And hopefully convince them to go look for more information and decide for themselves that it’s something they want to play.
Related Stories:
I’m going to hop onto the judging-fallout-3-based-on-my-personal-issues-with-Oblivion bandwagon with the following spate of opining.
Now I have played Oblivion a fair old bit, both modded and unmodded, and like many people I both love and hate it. With the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda has created a world with a huge amount of depth in it’s regions, mythology and history. It’s hard not to feel though that with Oblivion they spent a great deal of time building the physical components of a world based around all this, and then completely failed to integrate the setting into the quests and plotline. Playing the game as an RPG consists of a series of generic chores for completely lifeless NPCs, and it takes the right mood and an almost aggresive RP stance and interest in the ingame “books” to really feel involved with the setting at all.
While some of the quests had there moments, the quality of story based mods such as Blood & Mud and The Lost Spires really draws into focus what was possible within that environment.
Largely irrelevant rant over, I guess what I’m trying to say is I really hope that the story, sidequests, and – most importantly – the characters in Fallout 3 are actually engaging and really make use of the Fallout setting.
I would also like to say bollocks to anybody who has pretensions of being a “real” gamer who has no interest in the slow-motion gore. Exploding heads following successful headshots will NEVER get old. Fact.
@Josh: Well. until just now I had no idea they weren’t releasing the mod tools.
I am willing to bet that within a month after release, a construction set WILL be available
@noom: I would also like to say bollocks to anybody who has pretensions of being a “real” gamer who has no interest in the slow-motion gore. Exploding heads following successful headshots will NEVER get old. Fact.
THANK you
“We’re certainly not at a stage where if someone said “I’d like it a lot better if you could do THIS” … well, that ship has sailed”
It seemed like that ship sailed when they got the licence.
After the billionth time, gore is just gore, and a constant slo-mo mechanic can easily make it an irritating event to have to sit through time and again. But I guess I’m clearly not enough of a gamer to appreciate such things.
Of course, I also feel it’s a moot point since I expect Bethesda will allow that to be toggled.
And I basically concur with what RichPowers said. Although there’s still plenty of leeway for Bethesda to impress me on this one
In the end though, I’m far less interested in Fallout 3 than I used to be, it’s pretty much a “wait and see” on this end, and hope that reviewers don’t get too hyped to overlook things like a dull gameworld or broken mechanics. Sorry if that comes off as harsh, but I really feel that Oblivion got it’s review scores more from hype than the reality of the end product.
Still, I suppose I’m glad that I’ve got the Witcher EE and King’s Bounty in the meantime for my RPG fix.
I’m a bit worried since Oblivion requires at least 200 billion mods to be even remotely playable, but I do feel that people overreact. The question is whether fallout 3 will be good or brilliant… not a bad place to be.
It’s a shame a franchise so deeply rooted in the PC is being made to pander to consoles. Makes me wonder if in 5 years we’ll be playing STALKER: Brotherhood of Steel??
FYI the random encounters got pretty bloody irritating by the end of fallout (walk 8 steps towards the edge of the boundary; wait hours for all 200 radscorpions to hobble after you one by one; walk 8 more steps; repeat) so vats will be a somewhat bittersweet addition
I can’t wait to pirate this game.
This is going to be a short reply because almost all of what I could say has been said elsewhere and in a more eloquent way than I could manage. Well done, chaps!
First thing to say I suppose is: Hooray! I get to save money because I can tick one game off the Christmas releases. I’ll just wait until they collapse under consumer demand (and pick the game up on budget), like EA did!
The next point iis: No mods, are they mad? Anyone who knows the history of gaming knows all about Bethesda, and that their last half-decent game was Daggerfall, and that they haven’t made anything remotely as interesting by themselves since, and that their two flagship products post that (Morrowind and Oblivion) needed mods to keep them afloat, because Beth’s patching process left MUCH to be desired.
A few pointed out that the Everyman (I love saying that) will buy Fallout 3 because it appeals to the Joe Sociopath blood-obsessed gamer, and it’ll hit nicely upon their desires for big compensatory guns and gore. Fair point. However, the game is named Fallout 3. If Beth are relying on the Everyman for sales, isn’t that a bit foolhardy?
I can’t help but wonder if, at release, whether they’ll do something amusing like rename it to Fallout: Vault Warrior or something, taking the number out of it.
From what I’ve learned from some of my family (the darker elements, at least) and a couple of my acquaintances is that numbers scare them. A number means there’s been a previous game or film that’s come before, and they’ll feel obligated to look into that because otherwise they won’t understand the current iteration, because that’s obviously what numbers are for – at least by their sentiment.
So why does Beth seem to be screwing themselves over six ways from Sunday? Who are you trying to market this game at, Beth?
Lolguns indicates the kiddy sociopaths of today’s gaming.
The sequel number scares off the above.
Promises to uphold Fallout 3 attracts the fans.
Fans know the history of gaming and about Beth, Beth say there won’t be mods, fans are put off.
I don’t know, I can just see this game being a flop as far as sales are concerned.
It won’t be a flop, as it will sell bucket loads on consoles and those guys will eat it up like oblivion and then herald the doom of pc gaming and dumbing down from fellow AIM like myself.
huzzah.
I too will not be buying this. After buying Crysis Warhead and Witcher EE I’m too dry for this very questionable quality release in the upcoming deluge.
Somehow, I missed the first two fall out titles despite a long history of gaming since 80’s. So if this lives up to some legacy status of the previous versions is rather lost on me, except in that a great deal of you seemed to enjoy the hell out of them, thus, hope to enjoy this new one as well. Same here. But more because it’s Bethesda, it’s a great new direction for them, and so far the videos all look great.
I played Oblivion first time without mods. And then again, later with mods. It would have never happened again with out them, and it was *such* a better experience the second time around. Being Replayable on a PC *means* being creative enough to either find something new each time, or being able to alter it somehow from the first experience.
It seems very likely with or without the release of an SDK, the same will occur. A nice run though, a long pregnant period of time while people either hack their own or Bethesda releases an SDK (lots of developers do this long after release, don’t rule it out completely). Then a second run through with mods, promising to be a much better experience.
The alternative though, is that the game ends up being crap from the start, much like Clear Sky, and the only salvation that turns it around are the intervention of some superb mods. So I really hope they don’t make it difficult to mod, even without an SDK for all our sakes.
It’s not like we need OFFICIAL mod tools to actually modify the game.. Just because Morrowind and Oblivion came with “baby’s first SDK” doesn’t mean there will be no mods for FO3, quite the contrary.
Totally agree. Fire the bethsoft animators. Seriously, how can they look at their character animation and think “Fuckyeah, NEXT-GEN”?
Any mook with a couple of weeks training could do as good. As an animator, it’s embarassing to watch.
@fanciestofpants
No disrespect meant, fancy, but how familiar are you with the systems behind the modding of Beth-engine games? I can tell you now (and for a fact) that without the SDK, it would’ve been exponentially more difficult to mod Oblivion.
The thing is, not every game has an “open architecture”. What I mean by this is that not every game is like, say… World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online, where one can write a few lines of text in notepad, drop it in, and then have it work. Some games have very closed off architectures, but SDKs help us get around that.
An SDK means that about eight months of community work, starting off with figuring out how to unpack files, then working out the scripts, providing documentation for the API, building map editors, creating tools for the import and export of content, et cetera, et cetera, is done for us. Now that work is only a matter of days for Beth, because these are the tools they’re using themselves, they just have to retrofit them for community use.
But without an SDK, all of this has to be figured out and built from scratch. This means that without an SDK it could be a good year or so before mods of any complexity are released.
As an example, look at Spore. Spore has only just gotten to the point of unpacking files and editing very basic script values (though these edits can make the game exponentially better). They got lucky though because the system that Spore uses for packing its files is almost exactly the same as what the Sims 2 uses, and only minor changes were needed. So there’s a month’s work they saved there.
And even considering that, the modders are still only beginning to figure out what different values do. What happens when an integer or a float is changed here or there, and that’s hardly complex, that’s changing internal options. Now I’ve already said I love the options changing that exists for Spore and how much better it makes the game, this is absolutely true, but it’s hardly complex.
And here’s the fun part: Spore doesn’t really need that much complex modding because it was pretty decent from the get-go, all it really needed was some heavy rebalancing. Bethesda’s games though tend to be real fixer-uppers, and it can take a texture pack, lots of animation work, and some major game mechanic changes before their games can be fun to play. This is evidenced by how many people have already said this.
I’ll once again stress here that without an SDK, these kinds of complex mods won’t be seen until the community has built the tools that Bethesda coculd’ve just given them. And building those tools, starting with the unpackers and working all the way up, is going to take a long time. So my point here is: Don’t hold out any hopes, it’s going to be a year before we see the kinds of mods that will fix Fallout 3.
And even from the screenshots and videos, anyone can see that there are things that need fixing, to turn a decidedly average game into an enjoyable experience.
It’s funny, a while back I introduced a friend to the PC version of Oblivion. He’d only played it previously on console, and he found it an average experience, not a brilliant RPG but something to pass the time. He got bored of it quickly, slotting it into the “nothing special” region of gaming. So I introduced him to Oblivion Modded – and his opinion changed.
I had the basics, rebalancing mods, and things that entirely changed the game, things that added new quests, changed mechanics, added new game mechanics, improved the graphics, improved the World from both aesthetic and technical visual angles, and so on, and so on. He was enthralled.
His console version’s pretty much been designated to the bin. Whereas the PC version became his favourite version very quickly, and only because of the mods. Going from a subpar RPG to a real fantasy gaming experience.
And that’s what modders do, given the tools to do so.
I think Bethesda is really shooting themselves in the foot with this, because without that SDK, it’s going to be so much harder to do anything. The mods we get might not even be any better than the “mods” which existed for the PC version of Fable, considerring how closed off the game might be. Now there is something to consider.
@Esha
Wasn’t meaning to make it sound like modding sans official SDK would be easy, by any means. I’ve been modding since the first doom and I’m fully aware of the benefits of a door being left open by the developers. I even modded for Morrowind and Oblivion(weapons and armor mostly), so I have a bit of know-how when it comes to bethsoft things(Side note; things like animation were difficult to change even WITH offical tools, changing the animations in oblivion was a serious undertaking).
I was just trying to counter the thought that if there are no offical tools, there will be no mods, which is ludicrous. They will take time, surely, but they will come.
Also, modified as it is, FO3 still uses the same engine oblivion did and I’m willing to put money on many of the scripts and functions being the same. That’s going to make some difference, particularly for people moving from TES IV modding.
What everyone said. Bethesda would be KRAZY not to release tools. For one, it would enable the inevitable Unofficial Patch – the one for Oblivion fixed 2,000 bugs.
P.
@fancy
I’m just going to call you fancy forevermore now.
Anyway, that post gives me confidence in what you have to say, a great amount thereof in fact.
My worry though is that they’re purposefully going to change things just to put us back to Day One. Why would they do that? The same reason they’re not allowing for mods in the first place: DLC for monies.
What I was getting at really is that it’s going to be so easy for them to elect to use methods which would make the lives of modders more difficult. And because we’ve always had an SDK, there are no methods for unpacking even, so we already have a setback to consider.
We could force our foot inside the door just to find that they’ve changed everything around to make things more difficult.
From what I hear, the DLC didn’t sell very well because there were already mods which did similar things or better, and that generally the mods players made were of a higher quality than what Bethesda released even after the game’s release. And let’s not forget the aforementioned unofficial patch. That must’ve hurt their professional pride no end.
So modding has hurt their professional pride and their pocket. And now we’re seeing the brunt of that.
The thing is… once we have unpackers, how much of what’s inside will be what we know? Is Bethesda simply going to leave the game as easy to mod then? Because if that’s the case then a hacked up and retrofitted Oblivion SDK might even work with Fallout. But I don’t think they’re going to let that happen.
What I see here is Bethesda saying that they don’t want us to mod their game, and they might’ve gone to lengths to ensure that’s the case.
And if this causes serious setbacks for the community, just how strong is the community going to be? Are people really going to stick with it and create tools for a company that shafted them after always having provided those tools?
There are just so many variables…
I really wish I could have the faith that you do that mods will arrive any time soon. I fear that mods are a long, long way away for Fallout, and that’s post release, if they ever turn up at all.
I guess I’m just cynical. But I have my fears, just as you have your hopes.
Just trying to install the Oblivion mods has given me hours and hours of pleasure.
@ Jakson Breen
Eh, yeah but Brian Fargo produced Wasteland and Fallout. If anything he made a spiritual successor to his own game.
Anyways, a CS hurts pc dlc sales so it is something to consider. I kinda like Hine’s pugnacious responses.
They’re so.. delicious.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pissed at Bethsoft for not making the mod tools a priority, to put it bluntly, they are all that has kept them afloat as a AAA company for the last 9 years.
Without mods, Bethsoft wouldn’t be where they are now, and althought they have undeniably supported the mod community in the past, they are acting a tad Blasé about it right now.
See the problem is, bethsoft honestly believes that their (last two, at least) games have stood on their own with great merit as awesome games. To the gaming community that actually loves both oblivion and morrowind, we saw them more as an excellent basis and framework per se.
And whats more, unlike the majority of software out there, we were given comprehensive tools to fix the dodgy bits(many many dodgy bits). This is why they have stood the test of time(for some, mind you).
Bethsoft need to fully understand this, which they clearly don’t. Replaying Oblivion several times sans-mods is not fun. I defy anyone to tell me otherwise with a straight face.
I do believe that the bethsoft modding community will doggedly mod with tools or without, but they shouldn’t HAVE too.
Basically, when a mod community springs up around a game it really allows the potential of the game and it’s engine to shine through, sometimes taking in completely unexpected directions. Even when a game is seemingly unsalvageable, as long as the core is there’s sometimes a way to see it through.
For Esha’s friend that game was Oblivion. For me, that game was actually Resident Evil 4 PC. Anyone who’s familiar with that sorry tale knows it was one of the most poor ports ever made. The modding community managed to change it from this:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o28/subedii/UnpatchedRE4.jpg
To this:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o28/subedii/DepthofField1.jpg
That’s with no SDK and no help from the devs, it took them a shed load of work to do, but I honestly feel that RE4 PC is perhaps one of the best, if not THE best version available now.
If I’m honest, I don’t expect Fallout 3 to be anything special on release. But like the previous games from Bethesda, there’s the potential for awesome things, if they’ll just let it happen.
Unfortunately, this interview just solidifies in my mind that I shouldn’t expect them to let it happen.
That RE4 mod looks pretty good. I’m playing it on the Wii – it’s about the only game I’ve played at length on that format – and while it’s fun, the lack of anti-aliasing means that on a large TV, you could drive a truck through the jaggies.
Currently I’m playing Morrowind; I never managed to get into it before as it’s a slow-burner, but with a bit of patient and a lot of mods, I’m finally into it. Some of the graphics-enhancing mods are fantastic, especially the Morrowind Graphics Extender. Rather than being surrounded by a pea-souper fog, you can now see for miles and miles, with properr shader-enhanced DX9 water. The latest version even adds animated grass to the game.
P.
Quite frankly, the only incentive to buy this upon release was to get the Vault Boy figurine. Funny, I’m starting to see how it might become a stigma of sorts. Plus over 30 squid for a “rpg game” featuring omnipresent explosive-rigged car wrecks, pointless slowmo/jap-crpg camerawork and laughable quests, just to get a nostalgia-tickling trinket seems a tad silly no(?)
Vanilla Fallout 3 by Bethesda has never been an issue. No matter how opinion-cautious one might have been, the recent previews sadly reflect the very first whines of the rabid fandom (not entirely unexpectedly IMHO).
The real question one should be asking really is, how long before this apparently fake Fallout namesake gets modded enough to earn it? It might just be a good enough platform.
The local council called, someone needs to pick up all the dollies lying by these prams. ;)
@Shaun
No matter how you write it, “QQ moar” is still a canned internet line… and those defy the notion of human sentience and make me sad. :p
I am sure this game is going to be a masterpiece of non-brilliant and clumsy design.
Everything will be poorly thought, unexceptional, with a small hint of lame permeating everything.
Of course this game is not goint to be 100 % shit, but really I think that every idea and mechanism in this game will be done with hamfists and poor thought.
For example, look at the “Every part of the body pops in a mist of blood”. That shit doesn’t make any kind of sense.
Or listen to the music in the video when you fight monstars. What shit is that? Fallout had some musics in that style, but it was completely different during combat and exploration. That shit didn’t make any sense in the context of in game action. Keep that shit for cutscenes and the credits goddammit.
I am betting real money on this!
“Of course this game is not going to be 100 % shit, but really I think that every idea and mechanism in this game will be done with hamfists and poor thought.”
Yep and more yep. Just look at the videos they released.
We’re going to get some very pretty normal-mapped environment assets, nice draw distances, decent day/night lighting cycles, some nicely detailed armor and weapons, a very robust character editor and that ‘whoa this is big’ expansive exploration feeling.
Unfortunately we’re also going to get stilted, immersion-breaking animations, uninspired dialogue dished out by frozen NPCs, limited good/evil dialogue responses, repetitive MMO-inspired ‘kill this person/monster and FedEx quests that have surprisingly few ways of being solved, Diablo-style ‘combine two attributes’ styled loot, copy and pasted dungeons, monsters with zero UI that run directly at you while you backpedal and shoot ‘combat’, endlessly twitching/sliding ragdoll physics, overused bloom… and of course – no shadows (!?).
The same problems with Oblivion. That’s what ‘Oblivion with guns’ means. It means a reskinning of the previous game to carefully preserve all of the bugs, faults and problems of the previous game/engine because… well making a new engine to fix all those issues would hurt their bottom line.
I’ve been a big FO fan since F02, and since went back and played F01. I’ve also been playing TES games since Arena.
First off, from the videos I’d say that “Oblivion with Guns” is not quite fair. It looks more like Oblivion and Fallout had a baby. Now, Oblivion sucked, I can say that. Even with Mods, it was a shitty game with no personality whatsoever. However, Morrowind and Daggerfall were both awesome, groundbreaking games that oozed personality. Oblivion on the other hand made Fable look like it was set in a new, exciting and interesting gameplay setting.
Some of the things I’ve read about F03 have given me hope that the folks at BethSoft have learned from some of their misktakes, for one, they are using twice as many voice actors for half as many characters. That by itself is good news. Second, they’ve eliminated most instances of “Leveled” creatures (thanks god!).
Now, I’m not saying that they’ve got it all right. Obviously, every character animator at BethSoft needs to be fired, and possibly dipped in the Vats. And some of the “softening” that has gone on in response to (or anticipation of) controversy destroys some of the Fallout franchise values.
But I think everyone is getting too worked up about the lack of Construction Set with release. I’m sure that they will have one released in good time (despite the effect it will have on their DLC sales). And as soon as they do, someone can mod in the Child-killer perk and make kids killable, and everything will be allllllll-right.
This interview with Pete was conducted awhile back. As we already mentioned a few times, including a fan interview, mod tools are something we’d love to see happen. If/when we’re able to get them out, we’ll let everyone know.
I think not releasing mod tools is can be easily explained. After Oblivion was released first mods that came out was to remove underwear so ESRB rating was changed from T to M which meant less money for Bethesda.
Except that this game is already rated M, and with all the brainpans exploding into fine mist in slow motion, it’s not surprising.
“This interview with Pete was conducted awhile back. As we already mentioned a few times, including a fan interview, mod tools are something we’d love to see happen. If/when we’re able to get them out, we’ll let everyone know.”
Be sure to let us know, so we can stop delaying our purchase.
Pretty much it for me too. My enthusiasm for Fallout 3 being so similar to Oblivion was the idea of the mods that dedicated Fallout fans could bring to bear. I’ve been looking forward to see what kind of vaults people could come up with since the game was announced!
Until the equivalent mod tools (with OR without documentation) that made Oblivion so great on the PC are released, I can’t buy this. Would like to see if I can fashion my idealized vault to explore, and see what people think of it.
The only two mods I ‘d consider essential for making Oblivion more playable are the ones improving interface and the one that minimizes or eliminate the world-scaling as the character grows stronger.
As Fallout3 doesn’t suffer with either of those problems, I don’t mind if the the modding tools come out later.
I also think, that not releasing modding tools early on, makes the game-rating situation a lot more manageable in the first few months which are so important for the sales numbers.
Finally, as a Fallout1 and Fallout2 fan and someone who attended the Fallout2 release party thrown by Black Isle Studios in Costa Mesa, I can’t wait to play Bethesda’s take on Fallout3 and to exprience SPECIAL/skills/perks/dialogue system one more time. They got the artwork and atmosphere just right, judging by the trailer. It’s my most anticipated game of the year.
It is funny/sad the number of xbox/ps3 players who still post on the official Oblivion mod forum asking if you can use mods on the xbox. And it would be interesting to find out what percentage of PC Oblivion players don’t use mods.
From the sound of it, there will be mod tools in the future. The biggest thing is that they’ve committed to a release date so every coder / tester is verifying that the game is done so they can get it out the door. At this stage adding mod tools is very much a back burner thing because it would be a much bigger issue if they missed their release or the release itself was very buggy / unstable.
@ Ragnar, from ages ago:
Fallout wasn’t called Wasteland 2 becasue Interplay couldn’t buy the license to call it that. Bethesda could buy the license to call it Fallout 3, so they did.
Ill say this. I will not buy FO3 without mod tools either from Beth or from fans. Ive released 37 mods for Oblivion including the very first mod ever released for the game. Theres no way I could still have anything to do with it if it wasnt for mods. I walked away from the game for a long time because I was so fed up with the lack of what could be done and when OBSE started comin around and file formats were figured out and exporters/importers made I started with it again and really enjoyed it. But for me vanilla OB was unplayable.
From what Ive seen of FO3 itll be no different than OB was when it was released only this time there wont be a CS released a few days before the game.
look out! Ninjas!: There is a very good reason why Interplay would not buy the Wasteland license, and that is because Wasteland was made by Interplay in the first place, you ignorant git :D
What worriesme about no SDK is the simple fact (and gamers forget this) that both Morrowind and Oblivion had dozens (if not 100’s of mods that FIXED things! Now you could argue that Bethesda didn’t have to fix something if it had already been fixed by a mod, but would they have fixed those things if there had been no mods? I think not! So to the extent that OPblivion are made playable and much more fun with mods, and that generates word of mouth, I worry that Fallout 3 will be seen as bugged and will sell less because Bethesda is not known for supporting titles with multiple patches and yet no modder will be able to fix the bugs for them.
Three points to show the above:
1) I put up a vid for an Oblivion mod called Martigen’ Monster Mod. I put it up last year, 2 years after the release of the game on PC. It has had 50,000 views and many comments showing people are still buying this game BECAUSE OF mods!
2) A mod came out early on called OLDBlivion.exe. It allowed 1.0 shader cards toplay the game.It had over ONE MILLION DOWNLOADS! How many people would have just got rid of their copy or not bought it if it wasn’t for this mod?
3) When you look at the official mods that came out, they were not 1% as imaginative as the free mods, which means over the medium term we will see fewer sales as less ‘excitememt’ will be genrated. Mods that are created where there is no SDK generally require a game restart, so do not take off. Hence modding for MTW2 and STALKER is only 1% as prominant as generally all major mods needs a game restart.
Oblivion STILL sells of the back of mods. Sodoes Morrowind to a degree (a new mod allows for ditant land to be seen and to have DX9 type features – and there are many mods to upgrade textures/meshes/AI, etc!) – without the SDK I see Fallout 3 on PC being a much smaller medium/long term hit, and that doesn’t bode well for future PC versions and PC gaming generally. After all, one of the major features of PC gaming is the modding capability! Take that away and why not buy the game for console?
Speculation should never be a soul purchasing factor. I love how the internet community fails at this every time. Saying at this point “I’m not even going to give it a chance based on the history or the game play or the company” is sad. I have thoroughly enjoyed Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series as well as the old Fallout games from Interplay (except Fallout Tactics, what garbage.) Unless you are making games yourself I believe your powers of speculation don’t account for much. That is why the developers don’t do more interviews because everyone is so critical of what they haven’t even played yet. Get a life and quit hassling developers before the market collapses just like the eighties.
As a fan, this is the first time I’ve ever been offended by something BethSoft has released as an official statement.
Saying that BethSoft fans have “taken the CS for granted” is a really ignorant and arrogant statement from Mr. Hines.
As a 360 player, I would have never bought either ES game for the PC if that kit didn’t exist. More so, I wouldn’t still be playing both Morrowind and Oblivion if there wasn’t mods to keep things spicy.
If Bethesda releases DLC content before a construction set, we’ll know they were full of it, when Pete said they wouldn’t have time to make one.
Here here Blaxar
@Meat Circus
You are a fucking cunt dude.
Ah, a game without mod tools. Those were the days. I’m not sure how many posters here are old enough to remember it, but eleven years ago, a strategy game was released that should have redefined them. It was easily moddable, and yet included no tools to do so. Eleven years later, modders are still discovering the secrets locked in the engine. All of it done with nothing more than a hearty ‘Go for it.’ No official tools, no SDK. And the mods are so numerous as to be uncountable.
Baldur’s Gate 2. A game that did define RPG’s. And I’ll say it’s an unpleasant experience at best, even with large amounts of developer asisstance.
Freelancer? Even with an SDK, it’s still not an easy game to work with. Things that should work perfectly often don’t work at all. So once more it’s up to the modders to do the work, to find out what works and what doesn’t.
Now to the game itself. First of all, to the camera guys: It’s been stated in at least two places I’ve seen that the camera slow-mo is only on a critical hit. Second to the purist’s: Aren’t there still some babies with candy? Stop trying to ruin our fun, because you can’t accept another point of view.
I’ve seen too many people hear the words ‘First Person’ and go ‘Oh no it’s become a shooter.’ No, it’s just made the combat less tedious. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the old style of combat, still do, but it could get majorly boring waiting for everyone to act. As for backing up and shooting? If you ever faced Death Claws in the earlier games, you know that if you DON’T back up and shoot, you have to pick your face up off the floor.
I haven’t seen enough of the dialogue to form an opinion on it, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. As for it being an Oblivion clone, that’s the same as saying Gears of War is a clone of Unreal Tournament because they both use the Unreal Engine.
Fallout has a cult following. Why? Not because they are bad games. But because people formed a snap judgement. Or because it appeals to a niche demographic. So don’t accost Bethesda for selling to a niche audience.
Calling them out on enemies being too strong or too weak in Oblivion is as retarded as saying that the Enclave is too strong in the beginning of Fallout 2, or that the Super Mutants are too tough when you’re Vault Fresh in Fallout 1. Even in our world, going somewhere you shouldn’t be will get you killed. Thankfully though, they were wise enough to leave the realism where it belongs. In Tom Clancy games.
All that said, remember something. Forcing a game, even a sequel to try and stand above those that came before, or rating it incomparison to them is a sure way to make a game doomed. Let this game stand on it’s own merits. Throw out the preconcieved notions and opinions and let the game stand on it’s own.
Well now this is a interesting thread line to start with. Oblivion one of the best PC Driving Mod games out there. And now with just finishing the main stream story of Fallout 3 in about 3 days. Mind you with tons of side things to do still. I’m left thinking there has to be a modding community drooling and slavering like A Ghoul in the wasteland metro. For a solid set of modding tools for this game.
Now all i’m asking really here is that you don’t catagorize us with the console gamers. We are a different breed a different animal then they are. Im sure you have many things to consider the platforms and such you have released this amazing title on. But by releasing mod tools your only really helping yourselves in the long run. Think about this that bethesda has had a string of high quality rpg’s with solid modding communities that not only will wait outside in the dead of a Canadian winter for Official Expansions at midnight for the doors to open at there local entertainment retailer. As well as will play all downloadable modded content. The only true gamer is one that jockies all aspects of a game. And leaving our beloved modding community high and dry for such an amazing title as Fallout 3 only discredits your company as well as the entire industry as a whole. We just want what bethesda has always done for us before. I gave up on other companies Blizzard, Flagship (before they closed down), EA (besides Warhammer of course). Don’t make me resort to playing Rockstar games just cause there still moddable to high hell. That will be all sorry for the ranting and the improper punctuation.
When you look at games with construction sets, you get plenty of mods where you do not need to restart (Oblivion). When you get games with no SDK you invariably get mods that practically always demand a restart (Medieval II Total War, STALKER. I admit that some of this is due to how the game/SDK is written, but nevertheless, it is those games that come with SDK’s (Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights) that get the huge number of mods generally.
Founds some mod info here:
Fallout 3 mods
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/
center for Fallout 3 mods
Go to http://www.fallout3nexus.com you can download Mods and addons weapons skins and more…
;) have fun
I want to cry… i want to scream… please please please please please please Bethesda… please give us a construction set.
I red some comments around there and, well… Why the hell Bethesda WOULD NOT release SDK? To be honestly I bought FO3 ONLY because I knewed there gonna be 333K plug-ins. I didnt even looked at game quality (it’s perfect), didn’t watched E3 teasers and didn’t red some stupid PC-magazines. I just went to a shop and bought.
Morrowind became immortal because of community with their plug-ins. Oblivion became immortal because of the comunity with their plug-ins. Morrowind became immortal because of community with their plug-ins. I hope I made myself clear. FO3 has a very strong base for plug-ins, stronger than a Super-Mutant.
IMO: I dont think, that Bethesda will kill it’s own child, by not release official SDK.
Totally agree Mike!