Part 2 of Fallout revisited

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:19 pm

[ Person -> Interview ] - More info on <a href="#Avellone, Chris">Person: Avellone, Chris</a>

There's a <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/fallout2-1.php" target="_self">new interview with Chris Avellone</a> at Gamebanshee <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/static/ ... NmmKrW.php" target="_self">as part of their 3-day Fallout party thing</a>. A lot of it is dedicated to Van Buren, which we've all heard enough of (apart from Gamebanshee it seems), and he also continues the worrying trend he's had of recent years of showing he doesn't seem to get what Fallout was about anyway.<blockquote>GB: Were any of you at Obsidian interested in
acquiring the rights to Fallout 3 when they became available? What was
your reaction to the news that Interplay had sold the rights to
Bethesda Softworks?


Chris: I don't think it was ever an option that
ever came up (I think it was offered to much higher bidders than we
could hope to be) - and Bethesda totally works for me. Oblivion kicked
a great deal of ass.

GB: Why do you suppose Interplay retained the
rights to any massively multiplayer Fallout titles? Do you think we'll
ever see such a game, and if so, would a Fallout MMORPG even work?


Chris: I have no idea, but I think it would totally work, though.

GB: If you were given the choice, would you like
to see Obsidian pursue a post-apocalyptic RPG in the same vein as the
Fallout series? Why or why not?


Chris: Nope, I'd rather we do something brand new
that builds on the RPG mechanics and aesthetic style guides of that and
other Interplay RPGs to create something that's better than Fallout. If
it's post-apocalyptic, so be it, but it doesn't have to be similar to
Fallout.

</blockquote>MMORPG Fallout, and Bethesda being great for Fallout because Oblivion kicked ass? I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I'm glad Obsidian didn't get the rights, and the company appears to be less than the sum of its parts.

baby arm · Post by **baby arm** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 5:23 pm

You fool, Teatime! "Oblivion kicked a great deal of ass" is Avellone's code phrase indicating that he's under duress by the Russian Mafia and being forced to say horribly retarded things at gunpoint. Alert the President!

Brother None · Post by **Brother None** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 5:48 pm

Agreed. This interview made me well glad that guy's not getting his mits on Fallout anytime soon.

At least he finally realised all the dumb jokes in Fallout 2 were...dumb. Now he only needs to apologize for New Reno.

Koki · Post by **Koki** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:07 pm

Hey, I liked New Reno.

Oblivion kicking ass... yeah, MOAR LIEK YOUR MOM ASS AMIRITE

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:26 pm

As for a Fallout MMORPG, having given over a year of my life to WoW, I'm not dismissing all MMORPGs as trash - I still maintain the levelling part of WoW is the best single player adventure/rpg experience in recent years (you just have to do it online). I just don't see how anyone could make a decent Fallout MMO when it's clear most companies are incapable of making a decent Fallout SP game, which is the main thing. And then the MMO would probably begin to take priority over all else within the franchise, and then... yeah. NOT worth it.

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:27 pm

Basically anything could make a great MMORPG if you knew how to make a good one.

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:31 pm

POOPERSCOOPER wrote:Basically anything could make a great MMORPG if you knew how to make a good one.

You should publish a book of your philosophies, Pooper.

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 10:52 pm

Prolosophy.

Koki · Post by **Koki** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 6:51 am

Don't worry, we didn't get into your delusions and still consider MMO trash.

Post by **Dogmeatlives** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 4:47 am

Better than Fallout?! This guy is dreaming... Fallout changed gaming forever. Fallout 3 will probably make game of the month. Big whoop

Rosh · Post by **Rosh** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 11:58 pm

Dogmeatlives wrote:Better than Fallout?! This guy is dreaming...

The closest MCA could ever come to "better" is post-apocalyptic with dual-wielding +6 "plasma sabers" in whatever engine BioWare licenses him, if The Shit Lords was any indication of how he and others have learned to continue sucking BioWare's ass. The "M" in MCA has started to stand for "Mediocre".

How about those wonderful RPG design mechanics and aesthetic style guides of Descent to Undermountain, MCA?

Oh, wait, too easy of a low shot?

Lionheart: Legacy of the Kewl Particle Effects Crusader, the game that wasted BIS' time and work doing more productive things, like sit on the keyboard while scratching their ass, all made because Reflexive was led by a buddy of Feargut?

Waaaay too easy with that one.

What about the title that served as example to everything BIS was to become, mere dungeon-crawler modders of an engine? Asswind Dale, and the Fart of Winter expansion so crappy, it had to have a free downloaded addition with Trials of the Assmaster?

Still too easy and low?

Asswind Dale 2, a dungeon crawler so forgettable, people don't bother to bring it up unless it has to do with a time when J.E. Sawyer was NOT acting as an underdesk gimp, and even then it's questionable?

Fish in a barrel, you say?

Planescape: Torment, the one title that BIS created worth playing, that was deemed "unsound" by both marketing and the senior people at BIS (Feargut) because they couldn't quite wrap their minds around anything other than "ackshun" and "kewl particle effects".

So, does MCA expect us to believe that he's talking about the minority of his career when he did good work, or about the rest of the overhyped BIS trash? I'll say it because someone has to have the balls to: The reason why we don't consider BIS to be the original creators of Fallout, not only because of the missing team members that left Interplay pre-BIS and were part of the core design group, but because after BIS was formed Interplay's CRPG quality started to really suck. First with the near hatchet job of Fallout 2, and then with Descent to Undermountain, and the rest has been unimpressive garbage compared to Interplay's earlier work before Fatass and MCA showed up/started fucking around with CRPGs.

St. Toxic · Post by **St. Toxic** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 1:51 am

Alot of ass in there. Sort of gets the point through.

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 1:58 am

St. Toxic wrote:Sort of

Rosh · Post by **Rosh** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:17 am

St. Toxic wrote:Alot of ass in there. Sort of gets the point through.

Sorry, I don't mean for it to sound like a game designer slashfic, but the metaphor of BIS crawling up BioWare's ass has been an apropos one for many years. Judging from the size of MacFeargut, the Goatse.cx man had NOTHING on both Muzyka and Zeschuk...AT THE SAME TIME!

(No, I don't want visual examples, although send them MCA's way, he needs something he can hope to understand.

Feargus might even get the idea once he hears the "pop" from behind himself and wonder what the hell is going on, and where did that draft come from?)

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 12:43 pm

I think MCA is better than many gamedesigners. But I've recently (past year or so) come to think that PS:T was an anomoly rather than an indication of MCA's regular ability and gamedesign philosophy.

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:42 pm

In all fairness, PS:T's design and feel are both pretty darn groundbreaking, and wasn't MCA responsible for, like, all of it? I think he deserves some credit, chaps.

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:47 pm

Like I said, it seems it was an anomaly rather than an indication of his standard.

Frater Perdurabo · Post by **Frater Perdurabo** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:48 pm

atoga wrote:In all fairness, PS:T's design and feel are both pretty darn groundbreaking, and wasn't MCA responsible for, like, all of it? I think he deserves some credit, chaps.

Planescape had an amazing storyline (c'mon chaps 800 000 word script for a computer game is not bad) but I find the engine and environment really offputting. I don't know who's responsable for that, but they should have been sacked :@

Concluding my statement

The "feel" of PS:T = (Y)

The "design" of PS:T = (N)

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 6:25 pm

What I meant when I said "design" was the idea that most combat should be eschewed for favour of solutions through dialogue or whatever. I also liked how virtually all character building was done through dialogue and story, rather than combat like in all other DnD games. I think of those things as design choices.

The engine is just standard, although I liked the environment, because everything about it felt really dynamic (there are, like, ZERO repeated tiles in the game). It was pretty; you gots to give it that.

Anyway, my point is, track record aside, MCA is at least capable of creating a really innovative, immersive game. Hasn't Tim Cain made a big pile of blunders over the course of his career as a developer as well?

Someone mail me their PS:T cd please, I've lost mine

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:20 pm

atoga wrote:What I meant when I said "design" was the idea that most combat should be eschewed for favour of solutions through dialogue or whatever. I also liked how virtually all character building was done through dialogue and story, rather than combat like in all other DnD games. I think of those things as design choices.

The engine is just standard, although I liked the environment, because everything about it felt really dynamic (there are, like, ZERO repeated tiles in the game). It was pretty; you gots to give it that.

Anyway, my point is, track record aside, MCA is at least capable of creating a really innovative, immersive game. Hasn't Tim Cain made a big pile of blunders over the course of his career as a developer as well?

Someone mail me their PS:T cd please, I've lost mine

Well like I keep saying, I consider one game an anomoly rather than an indication of ability. If it was more than one, then yeah... Tim Cain, for instance, has Fallout to his name, some of FO2, Arcanum, Vampire... all of which I'd say show a considerable amount of greatness (albiet with some shortcomings).

MCA's other games don't show that. KOTOR2 was supposed to be a Star Wars PST and really, it wasn't, for me anyway. And, the main thing for me really, is that Tim Cain doesn't go around doing interviews that really show off what seems to me an ignorance of what made FO great (and given that PS:T took a lot of the concepts in FO...).