Obsidian Entertainment - Fallout: New Vegas Announced

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
Mostly awful? That's not harsh enough

That was my one main beef with F3 was the inane dialogue and beyond stupid plot. There were a few ok moments in this game, but that's it. They were just ok and no depth to them at all.

Other than dialogue the rest can be tweaked to your satisfaction with mods.

Yeah, it's true.

Not sure what it is with Bethesda - but they have the weirdest approach to "dark" settings. It's as if their interpretation of dark is 100% batshit insane. Juvenile isn't the worst word to describe it, honestly.

I must admit I find myself puzzled with that perception, and I find few things darker than reality under the "right" circumstances. Simply make it real, and an apocalyptic setting will supply a generous helping of dark material almost by itself.

Beyond that, they elect to have voice actors deliver dialogue completely out of context - almost as if they mean for them to sound as if they're standing in a studio, drinking coffee on the side. It can't really be a lack of talent, because their actors have done several good things in many cases.

It speaks volumes about just how out of touch they are with creating an emotional connection.

Anyway - about mods and gameplay mechanics. I found with Oblivion that it was a nightmare messing with mods - because it became almost an obsession to find and experiment until everything was just right. I never found that, and I'll never find that with Fallout 3.

In my primitive and outdated mind, it's simply up to the original developers to get the basics RIGHT - and not the modders. Content, great, but not basic mechanics.

I could provide you with several walls of text about what's wrong with Fallout 3 and its mechanics - but I'll spare you

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
To be frank, Bethesda are great at marketing and their engines are typically pretty solid and technically impressive. Combining high production values with genuine game design could result in something classic.

Fingers crossed that'll be the case, fallout 3 was certainly very pretty, just pretty shallow and dull. If they can work the same miracle they worked going from NWN2 to MoTB then the resulting game should be pretty good.

It'd be interesting to see what Bethesda's cut for the license is . . . if so could be a great business move, give another studio a crack at developing something (with presumably a fairly short development cycle & costs because the engine & art assets will get recycled) and cream off the profits for very little work while cementing market interest in further fallout titles.

Heh . . . or maybe now they've secured the rights for the movie & tv spin offs they thought they'd get Chris Avellone to write a good game & plagiarise his work for the (presumably even more lucrative) film & tv work.

Originally Posted by Benedict
while cementing market interest in further fallout titles.

Yeah, I think this may be the main reason behind this decision. Maybe Bethesda will be too busy making TESV or something, and they don't want the people to 'forget' Fallout?

But who cares why - we are going to get a Fallout game by Obsidian!

Now I wonder, why did Jason Anderson accept Interplay's offer in November 2007 instead of joining Obsidian, which, apparently, was already working on Fallout: New Vegas back then? http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3355
As a former Fallout developer, wouldn't the desire to revive this classic be strong? Or are there personal dissentions between him and the Obsidian team which I am unaware of?

I very much doubt Obsidian was working on a Fallout game a full year before FO3 was released.

Looks like J.E. Sawyer is the lead designer and project director.

Just a clarification here: Isn't Fallout 3 using the Gamebryo Engine, which is also used in some RTS games? And isn't this engine capable of showing? (if that's the correct word) an isometric perspective?

I wouldn't be to concerned about the perspective, though. Obsidian's games are usually made with a third person perspective.

More generally, I would say that I really didn't expect this move from Bethesda. Iøm sure that Obsidian will be able to develop a game that has focus on story, dialog, choice and consequence, character development etc. and so on…

Yes it is using the Gamebryo engine and the Gamebryo engine can do nearly anything. For example it was used in Civilization 4.