Why Sawyer Hates Us

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:03 pm

[ -> N/A]

<html><body>Well…maybe hate is too strong a word. Some of you may have wondered why <A HREF=http://blackisle.com/ target=_blank>Black Isle</A>’s J.E. Sawyer always chats about Fallout 3 at the <A HREF=http://forums.interplay.com/viewforum.p ... 212f2ecf3a target=_blank>Interplay boards</A> and <A HREF=http://www.somethingawful.com target=_blank>Something Awful</A> but never stops by DAC, <A HREF=http://www.nma-fallout.com target=_blank>NMA</A>, or any other Fallout fan sites for that matter. Here’s your answer:<blockquote>Look, man, seriously: there are a lot of people with really useful ideas here, at NMA, and at DAC. But there are also a significant number of people that only comment on things they don't like, and to the extreeeeeeme. They will never comment on even the most beneficial changes.

See someone who will always post a complaint, but wouldn't post any sort of affirmation -- for anything, ever. Those are the people that drive me absolutely berserk. The kind of people who will remain silent if we said we were putting golden dubloons in every box -- but will complain endlessly if the fins on a car look more like early 60s than late 50s in their opinion. When a person's only function seems to be to complain, their feedback becomes kind of useless because it all seems like a vendetta.

It also becomes hard to take complaints seriously when the complaints focus on adding things for other people. I, Josh Sawyer, enjoy turn based combat. I have enjoyed turn based combat for a long time. I played all of the Gold Box games. I enjoyed it in Fallout. However, I also like some real-time RPGs like Darklands. They are different systems, each with benefits and drawbacks. Neither is inherently better than the other.</blockquote>I don’t like posting about this stuff mainly because it bores me to tears and <A HREF=http://www.nma-fallout.com target=_blank>NMA</A> has been doing a great job covering everything, but this was too good to pass up. Next, Sawyer discusses the fans’ concerns over real time vs. turn based combat:<blockquote>Turn based combat is a fundamental aspect of Fallout, and it should remain the focus in future games. However, I do think it's important to add a real-time component for the large number of RPG fans who do like RT combat. And all the insults and sneering from TB fans is just ridiculous. Why should anyone care about how someone else plays their game as long as your game is high quality? Did you enjoy TB combat in Fallout and Fallout 2? I/we have no intention of removing anything from the TB combat component. I know that you have concerns about what could be added to TB combat, and that's certainly fair. But, if you don't like RT combat, its relative quality or suxitude shouldn't really matter, should it? Yes, I understand the argument that by working on two instead of one, we sacrifice the overall quality of both. That's true, but what is frustrating is that people refuse to accept the fact that what is true for that option is true for ALL options. It is true for evil and stupid dialogue paths. It's true for non-linear gameplay. We make that effort and that sacrifice because it gives a player more meaningful options.</blockquote>If someone says “options” one more time my head will explode. Spotted at <A HREF=http://www.nma-fallout.com target=_blank>NMA</A>.</body></html>

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:13 pm

Wow, everyone is insane and think we are some kind of vindictive bitter gay mafia or something

yea well were not a mafia pal

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atoga · Post by **atoga** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:18 pm

I don't think we're gay either (well atleast not all of us)

Anyway JE should at least give it a shot. Damn he is bitter & inflexible.

Ghetto Goose · Post by **Ghetto Goose** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:20 pm

He should drop by #fallout sometime for some intelligent discussion, provided Pyro isn't there. :hypno:

swordinstone · Post by **swordinstone** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:23 pm

atoga wrote:Anyway JE should at least give it a shot. Damn he is bitter & inflexible.

so are a lot of people here.

I dont think his article or whatever you want to call it, is that far off the mark.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:30 pm

It's his game so he can do whatever he wants with it. I wouldn't want his job with marketing telling him one thing, fans telling him another, and he has his own ideas on what he wants. Ultimately he has the biggest say in what goes in the final game and I wouldn't be vindictive about his choices. I don't think any fan would be. But if it is entirely unappealing then no self-respecting fan will buy it until it is dirt cheap on the bargain rack.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:36 pm

Ghetto Goose wrote:He should drop by #fallout sometime for some intelligent discussion, provided Pyro isn't there. :hypno:

i know ur trix gg, first get him on irc then steal his tv WELL DONE GG YOU MADE A GAMES DEVELOPER CRY

Finch · Post by **Finch** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:44 pm

If someone says ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œoptionsÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬? one more time my head will explode. Spotted at NMA.

Of course! Why on EARTH should a game be made to accommodate more than one type of player? If they don't want to conform to the way YOU want the game to be, they should find something else!

:roll:

Senor Deluxe · Post by **Senor Deluxe** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:49 pm

If Interplay had not violated the FO setting that much not only with FOT (which could have passed as some sort of mistake), but now even further with FBOS, people wouldnÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t be so suspicious about changes being introduced as "making the game more palatable". Not to mention all those lies they told in conjunction with FOT. Seriously, how can they be surprised, when FO fans now always fear the worst?

Better appreciate people being interested in your ideas AT ALL, Sawyer. If there hadnÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t been places like NMA and DAC that constantly fueled the fanbase, there probably wouldnÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´t be too much interest in FO anymore. Well, I do not really know, at least this applies to me.

IÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´m not sure if JE has any idea of how much Interplay owes this place.

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:50 pm

Finch wrote: Of course! Why on EARTH should a game be made to accommodate more than one type of player? If they don't want to conform to the way YOU want the game to be, they should find something else!

:roll:

I think MM's qualms concern JE using it as a buzz word over and over again to try and make his argument. Meanwhile it's pretty asinine to say that giving a player different lines of dialog in relation to his intelligence is as heavy a task as setting up a game with two different combat modes. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Finch · Post by **Finch** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:59 pm

I personally had fun with Fallout: Tactics. True, I played it before I played either of the Fallouts, so there's something to that. However, I still enjoy playing it.

As far as the other "options" goes, why even make a Fallout 3 if you don't try to improve some of the basics or incorporate innovations in the basics. I mean, you can download free mods to enhance Fallout 2, both storylines and mechanics. Why spend 50 bucks on that?

Killa-Killa · Post by **Killa-Killa** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:12 pm

Finch wrote:FO:T Was better than the other two! FOT is GOD! I LOVE FOT j00 n00bz0rz!
F03 w0nt $3lL if it isnt F0:T:2!!!1!311!

Hmm maybe I could have misread a little, or maybe I should have used the "Quote" button on his post, but this is what I got from it!
NOTE: why does it delete the next letter if I try to add something mid-sentence?!

Senor Deluxe · Post by **Senor Deluxe** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:28 pm

Finch: I had fun with FOT as well, from that point where I accepted, that it is not the Fallout setting I expected. I had no difficulties with the game being not a RPG, although I would have preferred it. There was absolutely no necessity to drop the atmosphere and the style however. If you want to change that, make a different game. Btw, some of the guys on the FOT mapping forum have done a better job creating falloutish atmosphere in their maps (even with the limited possibilities) than the whole FOT game did.

But thatÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´s not what I was talking about. Interplay told us all kinds of crappy stories of why the art looked so non-consistent, until they had to admit that it was partially stripped from another, abandoned game. They told us there will be a sprite editor. There was none. Then they came up with palatable Fobos. HAVENÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´T YOU SEEN THE TRAILER?! This one just made me speechless. This list can be continued, as you might know. So WHY is anyone at Interplay surprised, if their suggestions are considered with suspicion?

And um, where exactly can I download a Fallout game with up to date visuals, a new story and hours of gameplay? Maybe you can provide a link.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:47 pm

Killa-Killa wrote: Hmm maybe I could have misread a little, or maybe I should have used the "Quote" button on his post, but this is what I got from it!
NOTE: why does it delete the next letter if I try to add something mid-sentence?!

Because you are stupid???

BlackDog · Post by **BlackDog** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:55 pm

I enjoyed Fallout Tactics. Even though it wasn't an RPG and kinda got bad when you hit the Robots part, some MINOR details like deathclaws having hair and such, it was still, to me, a fun tactical squad game. The only one in that genre I have ever enjoyed.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 12:17 am

Since I love ol' Sneaky McDodgealot, I'm going to speak in his defense here.

While it is pretty shitty that's he going to IPLY or SA for FO3 discussion, I don't think it matters. JE isn't stupid. He knows that most people who will suggest things to him are total idiots. He's going to do whatever he thinks is best.

Besides that, so far, we're all getting worried about SPECIAL tinkering, most of which is good stuff, like merging Doctor and First Aid and creating a viable Science Boy path. I admit that Marksmanship crap has me worried, but I'm sure he was either drunk or just humoring the IPLYers to avoid trouble.

Basically, what's really important to me is the setting. We have no idea what that'll be like yet. However, I think that in the past five years, the Fallout community has given Interplay and Black Isle so much shit and/or constructive criticism about what is and is not Fallouty that Josh must have a good idea of what should go into the game.

So cut the guy some slack. Like Killzig said, he could get a way better job somewhere else (a recent desktop screen with evidence of email contact with Tim Cain would lead me to believe maybe Troika wants a piece of Sawyer). But JE cares about Fallout. He wants it to be good. He doesn't want to leave it to Chucky and Caen. He wants to make sure that it won't suck, within the constraints provided by what Interplay is at this point. Let the man do his job. Try to help him out some. And maybe we should all stop jumping down his throat at the slightest error.

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 4:39 am

I hardly whined, so JE won't talk to us. Fuck him. That's fine. FO3 probably won't live to see the light of day, just like BGIII. And like I said, JE was the one to classify IWD as the cruddy Honda. IWD2's sales were garbage.

You get amnesia or something? Most of us were willing to give Fallout Tactics the benefit of the doubt. Most of us even liked the demo. A lot of us played skirmishes with the developers. Then the story went to shit, then we started getting testy and it grew from there. Get your chain of events right.

Boo hoo, you can't put yourself out the way iply does and not expect a good reaming every now and then. And if you think it's been sustained you should take a look at the progression of the fallout bibles (an idea that came from Dan Wood of DAC) and see how many contributions were made by people like saint who you're categorizing as one who does nothing but criticize.

You bis fanboys need to pull your heads out of your asses and see wtf has been going on around here for the last three or four years. We may be frantically yelling and clawing but we've been pretty dead on. See, Saint called it on NMA about two years ago, "The only way FO3 is going to get made is if BIS loses the rights to publish d&d on the pc" ... guess what! that's exactly how it went.

BIS/IPLY have no choice but to go with a solid franchise for the pc and this is it -- Fallout. This is a fallout fansite. We love Fallout not Fallout POS, not IPLY, not BIS. Fallout. If they want to sell us Fallout it would be nice to at least pretend to listen to us. We've proven before we can be civil, its when we're told we're not going to be bothered with or that Fallout is being bastardized once again that we get testy.

Phias · Post by **Phias** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 4:46 am

You should know that parts of this community have been around since 98. When people have been waiting for a legitimate sequel to their favorite piece of software, and have been nearly literally shit upon by Chuck Cuevas and Caeenene with FOBOS.

It doesn't help your argument to create new arguments, grifman. You KNOW that your arguments are taken as flames to many here. It would help to understand the NATURE of a situation before jumping in on one. Your points seemed little more than whining, the same thing YOU peg US with. Sounds like hypocracy.

It may seem like whining to you, but this community has not seen good days for many years. And they DO have a reason to complain about MANY things that the company has done. A classic series is being desecrated right now, and the fans of the series have every right to bitch. Maybe some members of this community argue more than others, but you seem to think the collective whole is a bungling bunch of idiots. Ask anyone here, and they'd call me a jackass with no cause. But I would LIKE to make it known to all ANTI FALLOUT FAN PEOPLE that, if NOTHING else, it's like saving a classic epic story. And trying to keep future sequels of the classic as true to the setting as possible.

spyder07 · Post by **spyder07** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 5:13 am

I always got the feeling that, when a game has both realtime and TB, they are both done half assed. Neither really has the consistency a single combat system seems to have. Take Arcanum and FOT for example. Especaily Arcanum as it would always switch from TB to realtime.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 5:40 am

Pretty much, since the gameplay of Civilisation is grossly unsuited to a real-time model JUST LIKE AN RPG!