Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This broke on Friday, but RPS were dividing and conquering across the world, requiring Kadayi – cheers! – to bring it to our attention. In short, Gamasutra reports that the coldness between Interplay (Original Fallout IP holders) and Bethesda (Purchaser of the Fallout IP) has crossed into an actual legal suit. However, it isn’t about the MMO situation, as described in the link. It’s to prevent any further distribution of the compilation Fallout Trilogy’s sales via Digital Download companies causing “immediate, substantial, and irreparable harm”. Do read the whole thing, and a little industry thought below…
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Confused squinting at legal dispute time! We’ve known for a while that Fallout 1/2 publishers Interplay had clung onto rights for a Fallout MMO as part of their skin-saving deal to flog the Fallout 3 license to Bethesda, and a few months back the reborn publisher had coolly revealed they have one ‘Project V13‘ in the pipeline. Deal done, right? Apparently not. Bethesda may now dispute Interplay’s right to make Fallout Online…
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Rejoice, for there is suddenly and magically a crapton of information about the cancelled Interplay Fallout game. No, not Van Buren – the other cancelled Interplay Fallout game. What, eh, etc? Okay. Back before Bethesda’s take on Fallout split PC gamers down the middle, Interplay caused similar controversy by side-stepping the series into the action-RPG curio Brotherhood of Steel on Playstation 2 (which, confusingly, was itself an entirely different game to Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel that hit PC a few years earlier).

While fairly (and justifiably) reviled by Fallout fans at the time, you could argue it was a little closer to the world of the original two Fallouts than the recent Fallout 3 was. Hence, the leak of a design document for a never-made sequel to BoS is a pretty big deal for Fallout veterans. And hey, probably for new Fallout fans too.
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It’s a big week for venerable download service Gametap. Yesterday, they announced they’d be merging with euro-rival Metaboli (though most likely at the expense of hosting indie-ish fare, apparently), and today they’re offering up the original Fallout for no-pennies. Which is bad news for the nascent GoG, who intend on flogging the game for actual money, but at least their version doesn’t involve that icky Gametap downloader bloatware thingy. Yes, it’s a game a lot of people own already. Yes, Gametap’s DRMy stuff means you don’t get a perfect, untouched digital copy to keep forever and ever. But: free. One of history’s finest RPGs, free. Go! Give yourself an excuse to complain the old ways were best.

Well, we’re all presuming the reborn Interplay’s secret project is a Fallout MMO, as there’s plenty of proof out there and nobody’s denied it yet.

Yesterday the new Interplay website opened up, and with it came a mention of “Project V13,” the working title for a ‘next generation’ MMO. No details whatsoever on that, but what is scintillating is the announcement that they’ve hired Chris Taylor to work on it. Not Gas-Powered Games’ Chris Taylor – who perhaps shouldn’t be allowed near any kind of roleplaying game again after the disappointing mess that was Space Siege – but the other Chris Taylor, a key member of the original Fallout/Fallout 2 team.
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We’re not far off Fallout 3 release day, which means now’s a fine time to revisit the first two games in the revered RPG series – whether it’s to bring yourself up to speed with what went before, or to better prepare yourself to gripe that Bethesda have done terrible things to your childhood.

If you are pondering reinstalling one of the old dears, I can strongly recommend NMA chap Mash’s excellent High Resolution Patch.
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We briefly mentioned Good Old Games yesterday, but if you’ve not heard of it then… well, suffice to say, if you’re the kind of fellow who reads this site regularly, then GoG’s mooted catalogue of classic game downloads is going to make you a very excited wee PCophile.

The retrocentric digi-store, offering DRM-free, cheapie downloads of the likes of Fallout, Sacrifice and Operation Flashpoint, isn’t starting up until September, but we thought we’d better chuck a few questions about the site’s origins and intentions at the folks behind it – CD Projekt, who you’re probably most familiar with for last year’s divisive RPG The Witcher. Now, they’re potential saviours of olden games…
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A quick follow-up to the scurrilous speculation a little while back that Interplay was about to resuscitate most of its major franchises. Actually, they are. “The company will leverage its portfolio of gaming properties by creating sequels to some of its most successful games, including Earthworm Jim, Dark Alliance, Descent, and MDK,” says robot-press-releaseman right here. They’re also setting up a new in-house development studio to get all this done. Exciting!
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Odd timing, this – on the same day that Obsidian, a company formed from the ashes of Black Isle, finally step out of Bioware’s shadow and announce their own game, we also see the return of Black Isle’s much-troubled owners, Interplay.

Interplay.com now hosts this excited image:

and a Coming Soon message. See the full pic here. Going left to right, we’ve got MDK, Earthworm Jim, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, and apparently the browny-green bit underneath the Interplay logo is concept art from Fallout Online. Edit – and Descent on the far left.
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More rumour-mumblings from within the home of Bethesda, ZeniMax Media, regarding a forthcoming MMO.

CVG reports (good luck Firefox users!) that ZeniMax Online have licensed Simutronics‘ MMO HeroEngine (the same one BioWare have picked up for their forthcoming super-secret (ohmygodit’ssoobviouslystarwars) MMO).

This is being linked to the story from earlier this month regarding Bethesda’s registering of the domain, elderscrollsonline.com, and thus speculation that an Elder Scrolls MMO is on its way.

However, it might not be that simple. In this month’s PC Gamer (print version), The Spy reports that there’s speculation it could be an attempt at preparing for the Fallout MMO rights landing in their laps. In a peculiar deal, Interplay only has a loose grip on the option to make an online version of the Fallout universe, and if investors aren’t convinced they can do it, the rights will leap over to Bethesda. Is Bethesda preparing a net for the post-apocalyptic world?

Which would you rather see? An Oblivion-style MMO, or have their attentions turned to bringing the Fallout universe online?