DAC Interview with Tim Cain

[Caleb]

Loved Syndicate as well...syndicate wars was just my introduction to the series.

[Stainless]

I remember when the original came out, my brother and I played it to death on our Amiga 500, then when American Revolt came out we had a small B&W laptop hooked up to a monitor that a we used for it.

[Skrekkur]

The original syndicate was awesome and should be recognized as such. Syndicate wars felt very different and was in many ways a different take on the same idea. I think they improved on it and I ended up spending more time in wars.
Not to mention the multiplayer support in syndicate wars.
Used to play it over serial and later coax with my brother ending up leveling the entire cities. Just talking about it makes me want to play it all over again.

Sequels are of course not always good, and of course almost never as original as the first one, although I think sequels fall into three categories, improving the original idea, doing a different take on the same universe/idea or just completely butchering it like I think they did with gangsters 2.
Some of my friends accept fallout 3 if they think of it as new game entirely, others see it as complete butchering, but I see it as a different take.

[Stainless]

I like to think I tried Fallout 3 on its own merits, it's just a fairly sub-par game anyway I look at it, regardless of title and tie-in. It's a mediocre RPG with how shallow it is, it's a mediocre action game with how terrible the combat engine is. Good writing or quest design might be able to save that a little, but even that's terrible.

Syndicate Wars came out around the time I was in the no-multiplayer void. My brother and I lived 10 hours apart and the last things we'd played were Warcraft 2 (overplayed the original like crazy... same with Dune 2) and the many many games of Doom 2 over serial port.

Syndicate Wars always just felt as more of the same, with a more developed plot and better graphics (flying cars wooo). Not to mention it didn't have that god-awful atlantic express mission (both kinds).

[Caleb]

Shrekkur: Have you played Bloodlines? I have a feeling most of this forum would've responded much better FO3 if it had had the same quality of writing/quest design/etc as the first 2/3 of the game. Probably one of the best, if not the best(and most fun) RPG's in the past several years.

[Skrekkur]

Yeah I loved it, a shame troika didn't do better with that title. Really much difference between how different classes can solve quests as well. It was the sole reason I upgraded my ram at the time, unfortunately it was really buggy, but some custom patches fixed most of the issues

[Caleb]

That they did. I agree it could have been better....but still, to this day one of the best examples of an fps roleplaying game it would seem. Loved playing malk, though that and nos seemed to be the only different experiences compared to the other clans. Still, decent and fun combat, and a great time.

[King of Creation]

The fan patches for Bloodlines are meant to really improve the game a lot. If Troika had been given enough time by Activision (I think that was the publisher) to actually finish the game then it would have been such a masterpiece. I thought it was fantastic anyways, and it's got a special place on my hard drive.

[Mendoza]

It's somewhat a tragedy, I'd say, how Obsidian and Troika was treated by their publishers. Obsidian has been more lucky though still suffered from greedy, borderline moronic (in their own special brand) publishers who had neither the faith nor care to give them the time needed to polish and make sure their products were ready for the public.

Obsidian had to release their Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 virtually unfinished and riddled with bugs and quirks. Seeing as they couldn't extend their deadline they had to scrap several plots and parts of the history in order to make 'somewhat complete'. The game directory itself is packed with unused voiced dialogues, scripts, maps and other content which they simply had no time to implement. And even when they begged Lucas Art to be permitted to create a patch/addon which implemented all the unused material into the game to make it wholesome and complete, they were denied.

That said, and digressing back to Fallout 3, it has always been my view that F3 is basically just Morrowind, Oblivion, Dagger Fall or any of those Elder Scroll games turned into a wacky post-apocalyptic game. Sure, it's fallout-themed, sure it has supermutants, BOS and its Wasteland. But it's not Fallout as I remember it.

I liked Morrowind because, to me, it was something 'new' at that time and it was fun enough. Oblivion had me sighing with frustration as they actually managed to make a Morrowind-copy, only it was worse . Fallout 3 gave me exactly that same feeling. It glorifies itself with its amazing non-linear gameplay. What's so god-damn fun about trotting around on a beautified wasteland and doing NOTHING in a REALLY. NON. LINEAR. FASHION!? So yes, occasionally you meet some Supermutants! Shoot them! Wow, you find a CaptainCosmoFactory! What's in it? Chinese ghouls! Shoot them! Holey moley, that's a underground subway which looks identical to those 20 others you've seen but it has a different name! What can be in it!? Feral ghouls!? Raiders!? Oh CHRIST! BOTH ! Shoot them too!


Horrid dialouge, bad voiceacting, bland gameplay aside. What REALLY made me physically and mentally angry at Fallout 3 was for instance how they included 'slavers' in the game. When I found out there were slavers there, I thought it'd be cool like in Fallout 2, the Den. You'd be a badass slaver. But no, of course not. They fucked that one up too. Instead of going on slaveruns, instead of actually feeling like you're a slaver, you get a mezma-gizma-thingie which you shoot at some people and then place a silly remote-explosive collar (suspiciously high-tech) on them and tell them to run off. OH GLORY HOW FUN. It's not only the slavers that's the problem, it's every god-damn city. There's not one, not one, city/town/settlement that even remotely reminds me of the Den, New Reno or any of those classic 'junktowns'. With its junkies, jet, whores, slavers and gangs. The only gang I can remember was the Tunnel Snakes. And let's face it, who the hell wants to call themselves 'Tunnel Snakes'?

So yea, in my eyes, Fallout 3 isn't really a 'Fallout' game more than a wacky pg-13 happy tour with sublime references to outright butchering of the old time classics that are FO/FO2.

[Skrekkur]

What REALLY made me physically and mentally angry at Fallout 3 was for instance how they included 'slavers' in the game. When I found out there were slavers there, I thought it'd be cool like in Fallout 2, the Den. You'd be a badass slaver. But no, of course not. They fucked that one up too. Instead of going on slaveruns, instead of actually feeling like you're a slaver, you get a mezma-gizma-thingie which you shoot at some people and then place a silly remote-explosive collar (suspiciously high-tech) on them and tell them to run off. OH GLORY HOW FUN. It's not only the slavers that's the problem, it's every god-damn city. There's not one, not one, city/town/settlement that even remotely reminds me of the Den, New Reno or any of those classic 'junktowns'. With its junkies, jet, whores, slavers and gangs. The only gang I can remember was the Tunnel Snakes. And let's face it, who the hell wants to call themselves 'Tunnel Snakes'?

Those are really good points and if this was different the game would be better for it and actually everyone of those issues had crossed my mind that could be better in fallout 3. There is now a slaver mod I haven't tested, but of course things like this should not fall to modders, although when they continue the series I am sure they will look at some of the better mods for ideas.

What I like about fallout 3 is the fallout universe, beautiful graphics, sneaking up on somebody and bashing their head in with a sledge hammer, or sniping them from afar.
Roaming the wasteland finding random hideouts and exploring places (I am one of the people who liked operation flashpoint even if most of the time you were just crawling around hoping for no-one to shoot you).
Some of the vaults are pretty cool although too many of them feel the same.
Building up your hideout (although that could really have been more extensive)
The radio stations , (although that gets boring after a while).

What I don't like about it and hasn't been mentioned are tough enemies that aren't really that hard but take long time and a shitload of ammo to kill.
Some of the weapons are just far too weak compared to how they look and feel.
Not enough things to do with your cash and too much time just going to places to loot going back, sell it, going back again, repeat.

Not many options on having a party or assistant that has some depth and interaction, all the collector quests.
Many of the skills just aren't that useful, and whats more it will not matter too much because you will likely max most of them.
Probably something more that I can't remember right now.

I think it could be a good idea though to try to collect things and agree upon that were wrong with fallout 3, and try to influence the making of Vegas to make it a better game that more people will like.


On those other things I really agree on kotor2 and I am actually saving some vacation up for playing the mod that unlocks a lot of the severed plots and unused material. I had mixed feelings about oblivion because they took so much of the good things from morrowind, I think in part to make it more console friendly I ended up playing it through with a healthy dose of mods. However even morrowind had only a fraction of what dagger fall had to offer (which was pretty awesome imo), which I think shows the effect of the increasing cost of content creation when graphics, demand for voice acting and such continues to grow.

From some perspectives can understand the publishers, gaming is a difficult business and if games are made only on the PC it is even harder, so they rush things out to either cut their losses or get some money flowing in. Sometimes this is just plain greed, but in other cases this is just kind of a survival but in either case it affects the final quality of the game, that can of course also end in decreased sales.
There are very few developers who don't suffer from this, and the only one I can think of at this point is Blizzard, that takes whatever time they need to finish a game and support it to the end of time, because they can afford it and have shown it pays up for them.
What I think is really lame however is when games do make money but aren't fixed afterwards or anything added to them.
In this money driven world the art of making games becomes to manage the resources and time you do get the best you can, which can result in lesser but complete games nontheless.
Making a game easily moddable is also vital in this regard because if the game fails commercially or the publishers are being asses the community can pick up the slack and fix the things that need fixing.
The worst case of developer freedom must be duke nukem forever, which I guess most publishers look at with horror, but that was really due to truly incompetent management and not enough power to the actual programmers and game designers.

[Caleb]

Many of the issues you've brought up were the hammer blows to the nails in the coffin of(and for the reasons you've listed, games often are) underdeveloped and underfunded game. While underfunded might not be completely accurate, the content side definitely was. If you're going to make a sequel....and I'm by no means including everything in this....you should at least not repeat things incorrectly(i.e. going backward it would seem in development or feel). Wandering around will always be fun in a game, and while the scenery may have been pretty as whole, individual objects...not so well done. Again, the mechanic of a first person game has shown some interesting things. Ambush, sneaking, ability to have a single kill fairly easily, exploring, etc. It just seemed like a half assed attempt is the main thing, again - like a mish mash of pieces of the series. While people may enjoy it, it seems almost from incidental properties, not direct design.

[Superhaze]

Hey, a bitch and moan thread that is active. Count me in! A reminder, this is based on my third attempt at a playthrough.

I did resently try to play F3 again, as I have yet to finish the main quest. Here is my F3: Goddamnit- third times a charm! list of the noticable.

#1. The voice acting is still pretty bad. I first thought I was just being pissy, but Bethesda does really have a bad voice-casting guy, and some pretty average voice acting talent. For a company that is supposedly one of the industry "giants", its amazing how they get away with off-off-off broadway rejects trying to be rugged wastelanders.

#2. Drugs and Whores! ...where exactly are the drugs and whores? I know there is a chick who is the "designated" whore in the game, but it sort of defeats the purpose. Secondly, drugs should be more visible in the enviroment. No one passed out in the street? No junkies pestering you for caps? No shady dealers ripping you off? Its all too squeaky clean. The designated "abusers" usually will be convinced to stop abusing after some comforting words from a random wastelander (me).

#3. Settlements of two or less(?) people. Really?

#4. The occational awesome. When i take out the two sentinels up close and personal, climb the guard tower, kill the guard, and clean out the base with my sniper rifle. It is great fun, and I'm annoyed that the flash, glitz and slowmotion action overshadows any other game option when doing most quests.

#5. Repetition. Again and again. Over and over.


..thats all I will bother to note. I didnt finish the game this time either. Carrying tree tons of ammunition and two miniguns, enough stims to knock out a supermutie and explosives enough to level half the city somehow ruins the experience.

[jetbaby]

This thread is way off topic and I can't be bothered to read the eternal defense of Fallout3, but, suffice to say, this interview was pretty much awesome. Cain is as close to a hero of the wasteland as we will ever manage to find before the wasteland actually exists.

[Skrekkur]

It has definetly got off topic, but I will note i am not really defending Fallout 3, just listing the reasons why I enjoyed it. You guys seem to be a pretty intelligent crowd and I completely agree this interview was pretty good, and I really hope he will do good stuff with the mmo he will be working on.

Although I am interested to know what games strike you as having really good voice acting, I kinda enjoyed the gta 3+ series for its voice acting, although they could have gotten better results from some of the actors. And I think at least mass effect 1 and dragon age origins didn't do too bad of a job (Claudia Black rules).
Many of the golden oldies didn't have to much of voice acting, and most of user generated content doesn't (which leaves me hoping for a really good voice synthesis framework, for everyone to play with).

I agree on most of your comments about fallout 3 but bad voice acting hasn't struck me yet, It might be because I watch a whole lot of bad sci-fi so I might not notice anymore, but just curious, what characters do you find most lacking.
I for one really like Liam Neeson, Malcolm McDowell and ron perlman portrayal of their characters, haven't really made up my opinion about the rest.

[Wolfman Walt]

I personally thought Liam Neelson sounded as though he was just collecting a paycheck. His character didn't sound very interested in what he was doing.

I'm pretty sure just about everyone on this site liked Malcolm McDowell's portrayal of the president, however.

The problem, however, was the more bland voice actors. Most of them just were.....meh to me. A game with good voice acting? Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 come to mind.

[Retlaw83]

A game with good voice acting is Borderlands. All the dialog is ridiculous, but the actors manage to pull of the comic timing and sound lively doing it.

Also been replayed Fallout 2 lately, and what voice acting is in it is top-notch. There's a world of difference between Marcus and the "lol im retarded rawr" portrayal of them in Fallout 3. And I have a sneaking suspicion that's how it'll be in New Vegas, too.

An easy out would have been remaking the mutant models to resemble super-mutants from the first two games for New Vegas, then explaining that the super mutants in DC were called super mutants because Lyons is retarded. Then go on to explain that they were dipped wrong and with no selectivity, and that's why they're freaks.

[Blargh]

Equal opportunity vat selection criteria ? Ahaha.

[Retlaw83]

Equal opportunity vat selection criteria ? Ahaha.

It's what the Master did in Fallout 1. In Fallout 2 Marcus says that he wishes they were more selective, because most people don't have the will to come out of it with your wits intact.

Like most everything else in Fallout 3, the mutants are explained poorly. Where is the mutation forced? Who is their leader, that they're a homogeneous group?

[King of Creation]

Even the stupidest super mutants in FO1 and 2 were geniuses compared to the orcs in Fallout 3.

I think the real question we should be asking is will Obsidian bring back super mutants who aren't bald??

[Frater Perdurabo]

Admittedly, the mutants in FO:T were pretty dense as well.