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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Bethesda Licenses Fallout Franchise, To Make Fallout 3 272

Posted by simoniker from the a-nuclear-pox-on-thee-all dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to an official press release, Bethesda will now develop and publish a brand-new version of Fallout 3, after the company 'licensed the rights to the Fallout [videogame] franchise from Interplay... with the option to develop and publish additional sequels.' Interplay, who is presumably licensing out its IP due to recent financial difficulties, is keeping the rights to its theoretical Fallout MMO concept, however, and this new attempt at Fallout 3 from the Morrowind developers doesn't look to be using code/assets from the previously half-completed Black Isle version."
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Bethesda Licenses Fallout Franchise, To Make Fallout 3 More

Bethesda Licenses Fallout Franchise, To Make Fallout 3

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  • Cool (Score:4, Interesting)

    by carrus85 ( 727188 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:43PM (#9680728)
    Heh, that is cool. It would be nice to see what exactly they are going to do with Fallout, considering what a good job they did with morrowind.

    • Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)

      by incubusnb ( 621572 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:54PM (#9680840) Homepage Journal
      i'm totally excited about this, Bethesda knows how to make a completely open-ended game with hundreds of things to do at any given location, and they know how to make a compleytely in-depth storyline

      IMO, the Fallout License is in good hands

    • Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)

      by unclethursday ( 664807 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:08PM (#9680974)
      I haven't tried Morrowind on the PC... but the Xbox version was buggy as hell; and the re-release GOTY edition didn't fix any of the damn bugs, either.

      Maybe they do good on the PC, but I'm not a huge fan of their work, being as all of the games they have released on the Xbox (and I never played any of their stuff before Morrowind on the Xbox) have been buggy glitchfests so far (problems with frames in Pirates of the Carribien? Bethesda's offical 'fix'? Leave the game on, sitting in 1 spot, for 45 minutes to let the game fully cache! Pathetic.)

      I'll have to check out their PC versions, but they're batting 1000 with the crapfest on the Xbox.

      • Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)

        by prockcore ( 543967 )
        I haven't tried Morrowind on the PC... but the Xbox version was buggy as hell; and the re-release GOTY edition didn't fix any of the damn bugs, either.

        Morrowind on the PC (GOTY-edition) is probably the most buggy piece of software this side of Temple of Elemental Evil.

        It crashes all the time.. either dumps to the desktop or reboots XP.

        • Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Lightwarrior ( 73124 )
          > Morrowind on the PC (GOTY-edition) is probably the most buggy piece of software this side of Temple of Elemental Evil.

          That's simply untrue. I have had absolutely ZERO problems with Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon. Have you applied official patches? Attempted to contact tech support?

          Are you sure it's not your computer? Between myself and everyone I know who has played the game, we've experienced nothing like you describe.

          ToEE, on the other hand, has bugs because its publisher REMOVED CONTENT d

      • Heres some help (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12, 2004 @09:57PM (#9682203)
        Yes, the PC version is just as buggy, however, there is one great man who solves all that.

        http://www.baldurdash.org/TESMW/TESMW.html
        (nea r 3000 bug fixes, have fun)

        (And yes, its the same guy who fixed all the BG1+2 bugs as well.)

      • Re:Cool (Score:4, Funny)

        by CrazyGringo ( 672487 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @02:48AM (#9683571)
        I've never been much of an RPG gamer, but I happened to get Morrowind bundled in with my new video card a few months ago. I'd never heard of it before, but I decided to try it out since, hey, it's free. Don't let it get you too. I went to check the mail yesterday and I suddenly felt like Gollum emerging from the dark. I shrieked, "the yellow face, it burns ussss!" and shook my fist at the sun before I realized what I was doing.

      • Re:Cool (Score:3, Interesting)

        by parkanoid ( 573952 )
        Fuck the XBOX. Seriously. Nothing good has come from parallel Xbox/PC development, especially sequel development (see Deux Ex).

    • Oh jeez I hope you are being sarcastic (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:10PM (#9680989)
      Morrowing, the ultimate non-linear cRPG ... you can go anywhere, do anything the game allows you AND NONE OF IT IS INTERESTING.

      Id rather have a small world with a lot of detail than Morrowind.

      If they use isometric view and allow turn based combat it will be fallout 3, otherwise it will be just another franchise butchered beyond recognition.
      • Wow. If only I had some mod points... My thoughts exactly. Morrowind sure is perty though. Maybe Bethesda would have been happier making a Myst sequel.

      • Re:Oh jeez I hope you are being sarcastic (Score:5, Interesting)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:26PM (#9681119) Homepage Journal
        most of it was interesting with the right frame of mind.

        you know, if you followed any of the plots.

      • Re:Oh jeez I hope you are being sarcastic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @08:40PM (#9681681)
        > Id rather have a small world with a lot of detail than Morrowind.

        What you are describing is called "gameworld density" If the world is larger, you need to INCREASE the number of interesting things, places, etc, to *maintain* the same density.

        That's why smaller worlds tend to be better. It is much easier to see "the holes", and fill them in.

        Cheers

        --
        "When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets, it's hard.
        I AM not there. My name is not I WAS".

        "When you live in the future with it's problems and fears, it's hard.
        I AM not there. My name is not I WILL BE."

        "When you live in this moment, it is not hard.
        I AM here. My name is I AM."

        - Paraphrasing by Helen Mallicoat

      • Re:Oh jeez I hope you are being sarcastic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Guuge ( 719028 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @10:00PM (#9682228)
        Id rather have a small world with a lot of detail than Morrowind.

        Morrowind does have a small world with a lot of detail compared to its predecessor, Daggerfall. You should have seen that game - massive expanses of *nothing*, hundreds of different towns and cities all made from the same building blocks, randomly generated dungeons ridiculously illogical in their layout. Daggerfall was also infamously buggy.

        If you want a detailed world, then Bethesda is definitely heading in the right direction. But I'd be concerned about bugs; that company doesn't have such a good track record.

      • Re:Oh jeez I hope you are being sarcastic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by grumpygrodyguy ( 603716 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @06:06AM (#9684155)
        Morrowing, the ultimate non-linear cRPG ... you can go anywhere, do anything the game allows you AND NONE OF IT IS INTERESTING.

        Id rather have a small world with a lot of detail than Morrowind.

        Not to spit hairs here, but I really think you've got it wrong. Yes morrowind was agonizingly tedious and flat out boring compared to its prequels like daggerfall and arena. But the problem wasn't the games openendedness, it was the absolutely bland quest/leveling system. I.e. the world was pretty good, but the gameplay sucked.

        Bethsoft made the tragic mistake of creating an absolutely vast game world(good), while creating a linear quest system within the world. It is so boring, questing is almost literally like running errands. You talk to someone, they give you a job...you run around and find something/kill someone and return to them. Every quest is like this, and you have to do each quest in order.

        It's a terrible example of how gameplay structure was completely ignored. The reason arena and daggerfall were fun was because the world was very open-ended...and there was no imposed gameplay.

        Ack, anyway I'm ranthing...let's just say that I'm glad fallout 3 is being made...but I'm depressed that it's bethsoft doing the writing. The sad thing is that all the morrowind sales have given them confidence that they are doing things right...they'll probably just clone morrowind and copy/paste to Fallout 3...just like they did with Pirates of the Carribean *sigh*.
      • 1) Morrowind was boring to you? I guess you're not an "explorer" type. And how could you handle Fallout, then? Especially Fallout 2 with it's pages of crappy dialogue and endless grid squares of terrain?

        2) Small worlds suck--Morrowind was goddamn PACKED with detail as far as I was concerned--down to the fact that you could harvest crap off of damn near any plant.

        3) I don't think you can really say that "If the game doesn't have exactly the same engine type, it's butchery"...compare Metroid and Metro
    • Good job my ass; sure, the game was massive, but unless you had the fog turned down so you couldn't see more than 20 feet in any direction, achieving decent FPS was impossible. With each patch, it got slower and slower, then there's the loading times.

    • Re:Cool (Score:2, Insightful)

      by iamplupp ( 728943 )
      you cant compare fallout to morrowind, they are completele different kinds of games. what made fallout so great, imho, was the brilliant dialogue (with lots of different options, which /really/ made a difference) and the well thought out NPCs. morrowind is a great game too but i really dont want to see fallout 3 "morrowind style"

      • Re:Cool (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Korpo ( 558173 )

        what made fallout so great, imho, was the brilliant dialogue (with lots of different options, which /really/ made a difference) and the well thought out NPCs. morrowind is a great game too but i really dont want to see fallout 3 "morrowind style"

        Well spoken!

        I love the Fallout games (1 and 2, that is, not the ripoff tactical game). I want a new plot, not a new engine... If this becomes all 3D-actiony, at least make it pausible in combat, or make a turn-style combat, where you can chose your party's acti

  • more more more (Score:4, Insightful)

    by andy_fish ( 557104 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:46PM (#9680759)
    THANK GOD. We Fallout fans just want more Fallout. Not some crazy hypothetical MMO that will probably not even be fun (assuming they even finish it before they go bankrupt)
    • I think I can sum up everything you're feeling any every other fallout fan is feeling with one word.

      *dance*

      Seriously knowing this is on track I'm completely forgetting about Doom 3 and Half-life 2. What's so great about Fallout? Well finding an exploded whale carcass in the desert with a flowerpot next to it is a good start. Having your ear bitten off in a boxing match is also nice. Don't forget about the knights searching for the holy grail (who yes, have a holy hand grenade on them). Not only
      • All of those things made the real Fallout games great. But what are the odds that Bethesda is going to make Fallout 3 anything like that. Without the writers, designers, and programmers who made the first two great, doesn't it seem likely that Fallout 3 is just going to be another generic RPG? The Fallout games had a certain magic that no other RPG has managed to capture.

        And if Bethesda decides to program Fallout 3 with a console port in mind, you can kiss that magic goodbye.
    • Let's just hope they go back to Fallout/Fallout 2 for inspiration and ignore Fallout Tactics completely.

      I honestly did not like Tactics at all.

  • It's about time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pluvius ( 734915 ) <pluvius3@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:48PM (#9680774) Journal
    I'd have rather seen Obsidian Entertainment pick it up, but Bethesda should do a good job with it.

    Rob

  • Bethesda? Not my first pick, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:48PM (#9680776) Journal
    I really wanted to see someboyd like Obsidian get their hands on Fallout III, since they already had a lot of the talent from Black Isles. I'm not going to get too excited with Bethesda behind the wheel. They've never disappointed me (in fact, they've uusally exceeded my expectations) in the Elderscrolls series, but I don't know how well they can shift from that to Fallout. Morrowind had great story behind it, and the open-endedness was above and beyond either of the Fallout games. I hope they can keep that level of depth, but fit it into the coarser feel of Fallout. Then the gameplay... When Black Isle had talked about making Fallout 3 real-time, a lot of people on the messageboards were upset, and wanted them to keep a system simmilar to the first two Fallout games. Especially after Brotherhood of Steel, I don't see many fans -myself included- of the series being very open to a shift to first-person like Morrowind. Especially with the sort of weapons that Fallout is based on, it'd be a very fine line between RPG and FPS.
    • Especially after Brotherhood of Steel, I don't see many fans -myself included- of the series being very open to a shift to first-person like Morrowind. Especially with the sort of weapons that Fallout is based on, it'd be a very fine line between RPG and FPS.

      You mean you don't like the idea of something with the gameplay of Half-Life and the expansiveness of Morrowind? I'd buy three copies of a game like that.

      Rob

      • Re:Bethesda? Not my first pick, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:27PM (#9681126)
        I'd rather have another game like Fallout 1 and 2 then some wacky RPG/FPS hybrid. There's plenty of first person games out there, but isometric views are becoming all too rare for my taste. At the very least they should allow turn-based combat. Without that, Fallout is dead to me. :-(
        • Turn based is great for pulling some really cool combat maneuvers. With a hunting rifle and keeping that f'n tribal NPC safely away, I was able to take out the slaver compound at level 5 in Fallout 2. I'm sure most turn based players have intriguing battles that would have been frustrating blowouts under any other system. Unfortunately, turn based combat takes way too long. The best system I've played is "real time with pause & queue" which I experienced in Xcom Apocalypse. The gameplay saved an ot
        • While I think real-time combat would feel strange in Fallout, the focus on this issue is surprising to me. I'm much more worried that Bethesda will fail at recreating the same atmosphere that Fallout 1 & 2 had (sometimes I reinstall them just so I can see the intro movies again), or that they won't get Ron Perlman (I think that's the guy, right?) to voice the narrator.

          Even the idea that it might be 3D doesn't bother me that much. The cutscenes weren't in isometric view, and what could be better than le

      • Maybe not quite Half-Life, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by AgentTim3 ( 447311 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @08:33PM (#9681626) Journal
        Half-Life is a little too far down the scale of pure twitchiness and reflexes vs. strategic thinking and planning.

        But people should NOT bash the first-person perspective at all. Done right, it really allows for more impressive graphics, and it doesn't all have to be about how fast you can click.

        I've been playing City of Heroes lately, which takes place in a very futuristic city with incredibly nice graphics. The best part is by scrolling the mouse wheel you can move the camera back away from your character into a wide 3rd-person view, or all the way in to a 1st-person. You get to control it. I'd have no problem with something like that.

        As to the combat system, City of Heroes is real-time, but every weapon has a limiting recharge time, so no matter how fast you click you have to wait X amount of time for those brass knuckles to cycle, or X+5 for your Red Ryder BB gun. It's first (or 3rd) person, but not a shooter. It's an RPG.

        I'd love to play a Fallout game in a system like that. Hopefully they'll do a good job!
        • Half-Life is a little too far down the scale of pure twitchiness and reflexes vs. strategic thinking and planning.

          OK then, Rainbow Six.

          I don't see Fallout 3 having Morrowind-style FPRPG gameplay; as mentioned earlier, Fallout's weapons are too unsuited for it. Having a recharge cycle of a number of seconds per attack for a machine gun just doesn't make any sense unless the player is detached from the game (e.g. third-person view, turn-based).

          Rob
          • ever fire a real assualt rifle. You'd hit nothing but your own skull is you just help the trigger down. Most weapons, you take aim, you fire, you find cover and repeat. So in a way a turn based on firearms would be semi-accurate. The only way you can just sit and hold the trigger down is if the machine gun was mounted. Even then you have to contend with over heating. For instance, a A-10 warthog has a main cannon that can provide a little more instantanous thrust then it's engines and can only fire in short
            • I realize that you can't really fire a gun constantly; most FPSes keep you from doing so already through recoil effects. But trying to use a Morrowind-like system would cause the pauses in shooting to be much longer than the split-second time between three-round bursts, which would severely damage your suspension of disbelief. Now I could see using skill levels to determine the rate of fire or the reload time (Deus Ex does stuff like that, for example), but it would still be much more like an FPS than Mor
              • reload time is one, aiming is another. Maybe have fire before a certain guage is full simply miss often. Inventive game designers will find a way to justify it. Maybe future fire arms are charged. a rail gun might need to charge a capacitor. So you get a 10-20 projectile burt then 2-3s or waiting. Perhaps electronics upgrades will minimize this (Gun customization). Hell I could problably build a game ont his concept.
    • They do have experience with strategy games, check out their Magic and Mayhem series. I bought and thoroughly enjoyed both titles. Of course my personal favorite would have been the guys over at Nival Interactive [nival.com]. They have done such an awsome job with their spiritual sucessor to X-Com, Silent Storm [nival.com] that I would have loved a Fallout game from them.
    • Think Deus Ex (first person RPG, sorta) in a Fallout world. What's not to like?

    • I dunno, I'd kind of like both, actually. I really enjoyed F1 & 2, but the thought of camping the respawn points with a Bozar is almost too good to resist.

  • There goes the Mac version... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by warpmoon ( 654097 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:48PM (#9680780)
    It's not like any of Bethesda's other games have been released in Mac versions. :(
  • The market does seem to be saturated with crap, but how wrong could they possible make [gamerstemple.com] it [amazon.com]?

  • Fallout accelerated storyline to the extreme (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YetAnotherName ( 168064 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:50PM (#9680800) Homepage
    You knew you were in for a treat when you fired up Fallout: the kitschy black and white TV airing 50's style media slowly zoomed back and back and back, all to an optimistic tune, revealing finally a desolate cityscape devestated by nuclear war.

    The game certainly took a number of popular concepts in the bleak future of a post-nuclear holocaust, but it did it with such style that you could ignore many of the familiar sci-fi memes. It was just a heck of a lot of fun to play, to discover what actions would lead to widescale changes in what were the remnants of California.

    Although by the time Fallout 2 came out there were vast advances in graphics and sound, the game didn't take advantage of them, re-using the same engine from before. And that was OK, actually, because while others pushed for so much in 3D goroud shaded volumetric fullbrights with translucent starbright shadows and supercharged texels, the folks at Interplay concentrated on story. (OK, they threw in some excellent voice talent, too.) And it, too, was a damn good game.

    I wonder what directions Bethesda will take with the franchise.

  • Bugs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ElMiguel ( 117685 )
    I hope it's not as buggy as Fallout and Fallout 2. I really liked the concept behind those games, but I couldn't get myself to finish them because every time I tried, I got too angry at the BIG OBVIOUS HONKIN' BUGS they had, and abandoned.

    • Re:Bugs (Score:3, Funny)

      by psetzer ( 714543 )
      I dunno, but the bugs didn't seem to last too long under the wrath of several of my guys with AK-47s in Tactics. That big momma one took a bit more work. Remember: Shoot first, and let God sort 'em out.
    • Much as I like the game, I'd have to say I'm more worried it'd turn out as buggy as Morrowind. With Morrowind, if you're computer doesn't fit a rather narrow set of specifications, you'll need to really screw around in the .ini files to get it to run without constantly crashing to the desktop. I've only had Fallout crash on me once in all the years I played it.

  • PA: The Truth Comes Out (Score:5, Funny)

    by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:52PM (#9680820)
    Click me, you 'tard! [penny-arcade.com]

    • Re:PA: The Truth Comes Out (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Sunspire ( 784352 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:29PM (#9681144)
      I'm just happy someone else than Interplay is picking up Fallout, it's a truly great series. But Interplay really is something, they have (had) several strong franchises and golden opportunities that they've completely squandered time and time again.

      Let's see, I can't even remember how many there's been... Descent and the excellent Descent: Freespace licenses come to mind. Ran those into the ground pretty spectacularly. Then there's Fallout of course. Interplay published the first Baldur's Gate, then botched that up completely [penny-arcade.com], can't blame Bioware for not wanting to have anything to do with these guys anymore. Black Isle, now that was an innovative game house. Brought us Fallout and one of the greatest CRPG ever, Planescape: Torment. What does Interplay do? Shut the lot down. Well, at least we got Obsidian and Troika out of that wreckage. Didn't they have the Lord of the Rings license back in the day too? Now that's a license to print money, but somehow they managed to mess that up too.

      At the moment they're just hogging licenses, they should sell the lot on Ebay and maybe we could get some respectable game companies like Obsidian or Bioware to give us some decent games.

  • All right! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:52PM (#9680822)
    Fallout where you can fall through the floor!

  • Back to play... (Score:4, Funny)

    by DrCode ( 95839 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:53PM (#9680829)
    I still have to get through Wasteland.
    • Wow, some one played the game that the Fallout series is based from!!
      play wastland all the way though, its worth it.
      I did, even though i had to cheat to do it.
      course, i was 11 at the time!
  • Interplay has had some really nasty financial troubles [spong.com] in the last year as well as coming up with a wacky idea to create a Fallout MMORPG.

    It's not certain that Fallout 3 is the same as this MMORPG. In fact, I'd seriously doubt it given Bethesda Software's past games. More likely it'll be a fairly open Morrowind-style game, though that's a big guess on my part.

    Finally, if Interplay does go under and the Fallout license is sold, this doesn't bode well for future plans. The next license holder may not

    • RTFA! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 )
      Bethesda is developing Fallout 3. Interplay is developing the Fallout MMORPG. Therefore, it is certain that Fallout 3 is not the Fallout MMORPG.

      • Unless... (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        ... Bethesda is Interplay. Hah! Take that one, Mr. Logic Man!
    • ** It's not certain that Fallout 3 is the same as this MMORPG. **

      of course it's not certain, if you were up to your name you'd know that it's absolutely certain that bethesda aren't going to make any mmorpg out of it.

      personally I don't care even if the game is called fallout or radio-settle or "after the blow" or "apo-wind" or whatever. the name and even the frenchise mean very little in meaking a quality post apocalyptic rpg.
    • MMORPG have almost universly made several orders of magnitute less then expected. Why? because developers think "I sold X copies of Level Grin Mania 7, If I make a MMORPG I can make X * 20$ a month for ever. OMG I'll be rich". But in reality ends up selling 1% of X. Because most people despise MMORPG specifically because it's rather dull killing the same monster for 2 weeks (or 5 months if you high level) to gain 1 level. And it's also annoying having to spend so much time gaining levels. We like RPG levels

  • A reason to live... (Score:4, Funny)

    by 0111 1110 ( 518466 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @06:58PM (#9680882)
    Thank you so much Bethesda for giving me a reason to remain alive. I was fresh out of reasons, but now I can't die until after I have played Bethesda's version of Black Isle's Fallout 3. Now if someone would just (finally) come out with an Ultima Underworld III and Planescape: Torment II.

  • Oh, great (Score:4, Funny)

    by Wtcher ( 312395 ) <exa+slashdot@minishapes.com> on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:00PM (#9680897) Homepage
    So, now we're going to get a game that won't run on C3s (Cyrixes), will have millions of NPCs who sound alike, and will have us falling into the void every time we bump into a corner.

  • OH YES (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't play any other games but Fallout. I love blasting things away with the .223. I play on the highest difficulty with the wimpiest characters, building them up slowly until Enclave patrols tremble when they see me. I *love* taking out these patrols with the hunting rifle. Sometimes, just for fun, I see if I can take out everyone in New Reno with the pipe rifle. I play for hours, killing things. And I still can easily separate game from reality, well at least most of the time.

  • I love FRANCHISE! (Score:5, Funny)

    by 3Suns ( 250606 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:08PM (#9680970) Homepage
    I've been a big fan of FRANCHISE ever since FIRST RELEASE way back in FIRST RELEASE DATE. I love how FRANCHISE revolutionized GENRE with INNOVATIVE QUALITY #1 and INNOVATIVE QUALITY #2.

    This new take on FRANCHISE has a lot of potential, as long as NEW COMPANY understands what made FRANCHISE great in the first place. I hope they don't go the way of LAST ATTEMPT AT UPDATING FRANCHISE and get back to FRANCHISE's great roots. I really liked NEW COMPANY'S LAST OFFERING, so maybe this is good news.

    Still, the cynic in me can never trust these things, as I am still feeling burned by STAR WARS. We'll see how I feel on RELEASE DATE.

  • Variety! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Merk ( 25521 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:11PM (#9680996) Homepage

    RPGs need more variety. The first Fallout was great. It had great gameplay, an interesting story, and most importantly, didn't involve elves, rangers, swords and spells.

    It's not that I have anything against Dungeons and Dragons. I just think that a pen and paper RPG doesn't necessarily make a good computer RPG, and that it's great to shake things up a little.

    Far too many modern RPGs still have annoyances that just don't need to be there. Why must I play inventory tetris [google.com] instead of playing the game? Why are my classes always "Fighter", "Paladin", "Ranger", "Wizard" instead of "Inventor", "Lawyer", "Cop"? Why are the races the typical "Elf", "Human", "Barbarian" rather than "Elemental", "Ape-man" or "Grey Alien"?

    Fallout 3 may not be a great game. The Fallout franchise has become worse and worse since the first game came out. But, even if it isn't a great game, I'll be really happy to see it come out, because it means variety in a genre that desperately needs it.

    • What you need, my friend, is Progress Quest! It takes the tediousness right out of inventory management, and you can even be a demicanadian robot monk!

    • Re:Variety! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by afidel ( 530433 )
      Troika [troikagames.com] tried this with their Arcanum [troikagames.com] title. AFAIK its sales were a bit disapointing. I personally enjoyed it but it was perhaps a bit TOO open ended in that it was easy to lose track of the main thrust of the storyline. That and the automap sucked completely.
      • Arcanum didn't do it for me. I was *SO* stoked about the game until I got it in my hands.

        First off, the turn-based combat was really difficult to handle, compared to Fallout's well-established fighting. You wouldn't know how many AP a move would cost unless you tried it, so it made strategy difficult.

        Switching to real-time made the battles go lethally quickly. Especially with random encounters on the map. You'd get into the battle too fast and could have a dead character within 5 seconds without hardly a
    • I play games to escape reality. I don't want to play a game with lawyers and cops, nor about WW1 or WW2 or Vietnam. (Actually real life war themed games disgust me. It's a topic that should not be made light of.)

      Personally, I like games with elves and magic and fake things.

  • Tight Graphics, Tight Story (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:13PM (#9681016) Homepage Journal
    I'm not a huge fan of Morrowind because of the rubbery graphics. Fallout 2 has a lower-end graphics setting that lets you imagine what things might look like, without painting too much of it for you. The snarky storyline was what made the game fun, not to mention the evil side of things. Like they had really funny cards that showed what your character was like. The funny cards didn't save Fallout Tactics from ruin, but maybe with a rich storyline in Fallout 3, we may see some improvements to the Fallout franchise. I only hope that they don't use the Morrowind engine for Fallout 3, because Fallout fans are very picky. They should use graphics like Temple of Elemental Evil, and that would be nice enough (sans bugs).

    But I'm guessing Fallout 3 will use graphics much like Morrowind. Too bad.
    • I liked the MW engine. I didn't like a lot of things about it, but I liked the way you could get gear or skills that would let you abuse the map at your leisure.

      In NWN, your character can be stopped by a slightly differently coloured tile. In MW, you could jump over it. If you had good gear, you could FLY over it. That's what I enjoyed about Morrowind.

      The graphics were a little... well, you know.
      • I liked the messed up alchemy system that could make any potion maker into a god.

        And the item physics that let you make impossible stacks and then remove the lowest item to have a floating tower.

        It was a incredible game, but it could have been a lot more realistic in places.

  • In one hand, cheer... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:31PM (#9681161) Homepage Journal
    ...because games from Bethesda have great plot and wonderful atmosphere (plus great gfx).
    In the other, I deeply hope it won't be as bug-ridden as, say, Morrowind...

  • please don't be yet another FPS (Score:4, Funny)

    by myowntrueself ( 607117 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @07:41PM (#9681221)
    please oh *please*...

    fallout had such a cool atmosphere... even the way that your cohorts were totally out of control had its moments, and being able to view it all from third person made it so entertaining.

    first person would ruin it... (mind you I think it *always* ruins a game; I just feel like a blinkered dalek in a neck brace when playing FPS games).

  • More info here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FloodSpectre ( 745213 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @08:12PM (#9681461)
    From HomeLAN:

    HomeLAN - How much input will Interplay have in the development of Fallout 3? Can they say "yes" or "no" to things like game design, story, etc?
    Pete Hines - We have complete creative control over the development of the game.

    HomeLAN - Will any team members from the previous Fallout games be involved in Fallout 3?
    Pete Hines - Too early to talk about stuff like that.

    HomeLAN - Ok. Final question..has development of Fallout 3 actually begun and can you give us any idea of a release date?
    Pete Hines - I'll take the last one first. WAY too early to talk release dates. Yeah, we've started pre-production on Fallout 3 development.


    Also, from Bethesda dev Gary Noonan:

    Being a developer at Bethesda, I am also a big Fallout fan. I played all of the titles from FO1 to FOBOS. Not so much a fan of FOBOs or FOT, but I did play them through. To this day, FO1 is still in my top 5 fav games, not just RPGs. The campy humor, the grotesque action, and the integrated pop culture, as well as Pip Boy (can't leave THAT out!) are what allow FO to stand out from other titles. I agree, without these, it is simply NOT FO.
    Now, the fact is, this news is just that.... NEWS. I have known about this for some time now, and I have been excited about it since the deal was still in the making. I AM a fan of FO. Who better to have working on a game than a FAN.... someone who knows the game, knows what it's about, knows the mood, knows the setting and atmosphere. Now, as a new development even here in the office, it's still quite a welcoming shock and we are ALL eager to be a part of it. I can't put into words how much I am dying to be a part of it.
    So, for all the existing Tes fans, welcome the FO fans. Everyone has their opinions about titles and developers.
    For the FO fans joining us, give it a chance. Everyone (well, I really speak for myself) here is excited about this opportunity and it is talked about quite a bit.
    And for all, let's keep it cool. As everyone who has been here for a long enough period of time knows, we developers listen to what the fans have to say. The forums are our link to hearing your thoughts and input on aspects of the titles.

    (All yanked from No Mutants Allowed [nma-fallout.com]).

  • Mixed Bag (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Monday July 12, 2004 @08:20PM (#9681533)
    This is sort of a mixed bag for me. On one hand Bethesda has a history of being ambitious in thier game design and opting for a more open ended game style. On the other hand they consistantly fail when it comes to producing polished game play and up to date technology. Morrowind, while wounderfully ambitious, flat out failed when it came to producing a bug free and polished game. I know a lot of RPG fanatics loved Morrowind, but the simple fact the matter is that the raw gameplay was horrible - and lets not even talk about the anti-piriting technology they put in that literally made the game unplayable. Only the immensity of the world and the open ended game play saved it from its self.

    The real question is whether or not Bethesda has learned from thier mistakes. They clearly have the right mentality, but remains to be seen is wheather or not they can actually build a decent engine with decent gameplay mechanics.

    Personally, if I had my choice someone would just snag the FarCry engine. The FarCry engine could easily handle the typical Fallout town and then some. Just tweak it to handle RPG aspects and add an overland map. Now you have a solid RPG that is beautiful, full of atomic powered cars, in real time, and has game play mechanics to appeal to a broad audience... but that is just my pipe dream.
    • I don't know what you mean by "raw gameplay". Care to give more details?

      If it is what I normally consider gameplay, and what reviewers, gamers and other people I know call "gameplay" (i.e.: the essential mechanics of the game) I think Morrowind was pretty good. I'm still playing these days.

      Sure, there were some minor "gameplay" issues I would have liked to see improved: high-level balance, economics model etc. But the quality was still pretty high...

      Now, if by "raw gameplay" you mean "Being Able to Play

      • Re:Mixed Bag (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MikShapi ( 681808 )
        I'll pick that one up. I once wrote in my journal [slashdot.org] the following:
        "Elder Scrolls3: Morrowind made a shot at a humongous world. They did manage to get that right. But they went astray. There was no Garriot. No Lord British. There was no atmosphere. It was just an endless [beautiful] world of immensely over-recycled content, unbalanced gameplay, flat-as-a-plank characters and utterly boring [and endless] fed-ex quests that required spending too much of the game time on travel. The company who made it just wasn'

  • fond memories (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mrwilly123 ( 796375 )
    Back in....1998, I think...or early 1999, when I was 12, I visited Bethesda Softworks (I live in DC) and watched them as they worked on an early, early build of Morrowind. At the time, I think they had only been working on it for a few months. All that you could do in the game was walk around, and there were no other characters.

    I also remember seeing and getting to play a Japanese Dreamcast there, since they hadn't come out in the US yet, and the developers were debating whether they should develop for it

  • Fallout 3 WON'T Be Morrowind With Guns (Score:4, Informative)

    by TomHandy ( 578620 ) <tomhandy AT gmail DOT com> on Monday July 12, 2004 @09:12PM (#9681920)
    http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7 969 [nma-fallout.com]

    Seems like just about everyone is assuming that this is going to be just like Morrowind. Read the posts linked in the article above, and you'll see that Bethesda is making it clear that they aren't just going to be sticking Fallout stuff into the Morrowind engine. It's way too early to tell what they're going to do with it, and until we know more, it would be a good idea to avoid jumping to all these conclusions.

  • I sure hope that today's game market characteristics will not have some of the most fun traits of fallout removed.

    Fallout was really an adulty game. It did not have blatant nudity or sex, but your character could sleep with others (no, you didn't see anything) and it affected the story. It also had tons of gore (especially if you picked that special character trait ;). You were allowed to shoot kids, and it affected the game.

    I can see those things being removed from Fallout 3 because some stuck up executi
    • Fallout 2 had a terrible, terrible bug that prevented folks from progressing past a certain point. Worse yet, the patch didn't work with your save games, so all of your progress was history if you applied it (but you had to).

      The same kinds of problems (times ten) happened with Arcanuum, which had a lot of Fallout developers on the team. Great games, but their lack of bugs is not something I could praise with a straight face.

    • Two things:

      For one, you can be sure they will remove stuff like that. Bethesda makes great games, but they have two problems. One of them is they don't want to lose any potential customers by including adult material. This clearly shows in Morrowind.

      The second problem is it's probably gonna be just as buggy as I hear was Fallout 2. Again, Bethesda makes great games (I've been in love with the Elder Scrolls series for 9-10 years now), but their code never is as bugfree as you'd want it.

      On the upside, othe

  • Seems to me that the Mad Max future is interesting because some people may be living there shortly.

    It'll be the Wild Aussie West for a few years, but after the first century of scorched earth living, nobody's shot-guns will work anymore. --And the 'Brotherhood of Steel' as protectorate of high technology is both a stupid and very interesting idea at the same time. . .

    --Stupid, because without massive support industries, high-technology is the first thing that will stop working. Without massive factories

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