Fallout 3 (Van Buren)

I don't know if this is the right time but an ideia has been bothering me for quite some time now.

As far as know Van Buren project (ex Fallout 3) was almost finished. The ex-developers stated that about 80% of the game was done. We all have seen lots of gameplay movies all over the net (go and search you tube for instance).

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that the community of the game should be able to finish and publish this game for free. There are lots of gamers that are professional developers that could easily get familiar with the tools and finish the game. I believe that there should be many professional actors that would give their voices for free just for the game sake.

I dont think that even Interplay will loose anything if that happens, quite the opposite - this will generate additional hype for the series.

So my question is - Why no body has ever tried to make this happen?
Where are the true followers of the series?

The only answer that comes to my mind is … Bethesda.. :-) or may be I'm wrong again?

Even if possible, this requires a huge amount of work, effort and dedication. Even professional programmers, developers, designers etc. will need at least a few months to get the hang of the tools before they can work on the game properly. Except for that, as far as I know the game is not Open Sourced and they cannot just take the code and do whatever they want with it …

The idea is great, and it might be worth it, but I believe it isn't.

Getting your hands on the Fallout brand and the Van Buren source would not be cheap. Not even close to cheap. In fact, being allowed to release anything Fallout would probably cost you a small fortune.

I don't think anyone would be willing to spend that kind of money on a game with no profit.

Originally Posted by Maylander
Getting your hands on the Fallout brand and the Van Buren source would not be cheap. Not even close to cheap. In fact, being allowed to release anything Fallout would probably cost you a small fortune.

I don't think anyone would be willing to spend that kind of money on a game with no profit.

I'm afraid you are not getting the point , Maylander :-)

The engine and all the development assets (art, models ets.) from Van BUren are obsolete and no body will ever use them commercially. Besides I am not talking to use Fallout name. The game (as it has been last built) can be renamed and all the refferences removed :-)
I know I know that it is kinda Utopia, but all I am trying to say is that it is not impossible ;-)

Originally Posted by Glorian
So my question is - Why no body has ever tried to make this happen?

Several reasons. The first one is that Interplay has released neither the source code nor the latest build of Van Buren, and is not legally allowed to release single-player material of Fallout without permission from Bethesda - even if for free - as this affects the value of the license Bethesda owns. Interplay can keep selling Fallout 1, 2, Tactics and BoS, and it does so, but it's not legally capable of doing anything else. The way it was explained to me was that Bethesda has "exclusive right to any new offline content", which means Interplay can't publish anything that hasn't already been sold before.

Bethesda has clearly stated they have no intention of allowing the release of the unfinished Van Buren code or sourcecode.

And even if by some miracle the above happened, J.E. Sawyer dropped by a while after NMA released the tech demo and advised us that the engine used for Van Buren is nearly impossible to work with, and the fan's creative time is better spent modding Fallout 1/2.

Originally Posted by Brother None
And even if by some miracle the above happened, J.E. Sawyer dropped by a while after NMA released the tech demo and advised us that the engine used for Van Buren is nearly impossible to work with, and the fan's creative time is better spent modding Fallout 1/2.

If that's true, that last 20% of Van Buren might've been very tough going to finish. The 90-90 rule again…