Arcanum graphics...

This goes out to all them that at black isle and interplay

Cut out the bulll
cut out the bull

Drop the crap!




short few lines of the beginning of one of my fav songs but they were slightly modified, think of the beat while saying it

But IP, BI, cut the crap, really its annoying

 

What good are graphics without gameplay?

As everyone's been saying...

 

Yup

Graphics are nothing without gameplay

Take Jedi Knight and Half life, both games are MAD old, 4 years HL, 5 for Jedi Knight, yet both are still heavily played, both have strong communities.

So does Fallout, another old old game, and still played heavily, so...............

 

What's the point of going to 3D, Feargus? Seriously, how does 3D make an RPG better?

Oh boy! An irritating camera to deal with! Yay!

Ever noticed that 3D RPGs DON'T SELL WELL? Maybe there's a reason for that, Feargus.

As far as real time combat goes, I have to agree that it's just not as good for role playing. It's less interactive. You click on a bad guy and hope for the best. If you're losing, click on the edge of the screen and try to run away. Whoopie, RPG Combat for Dummies, here I come!

If this is an example of what you've learned, either keep studying or give up now.

 

One of the things that I can say is that all of the games like future Fallouts, TORN, etc.. that we use Real-Time Combat in will have the pause and issue commands feature (like the way it was implemented in BG by Bioware).

 

*crowds chant* Go saint go saint!

 

Well the tough thing is that at some point most games will have to go 3D. We are trying to make the jump now rather than later. It has not been easy, and we are still working to make TORN look as good as possible - the current screen shots are certainly not there yet. I'm hoping we can get it up to the standards of Icewind Dale, and each day it is getting closer. If you are curious I can go into some more detail as to why almost everyone eventually has to go 3D.

As for turn-based vs. real-time it is a very tough decision. I really enjoy turn-based games, but the unfortunate thing is that game making is a business. On average, a real-time game sells more than a turn-based game. Since we have to sell between 150K to 200K units now just to earn back what it takes to get a game on the shelf, we need to look at what features can get us there and what features might not.

And I do agree with you that real-time can make combat less strategic. However, we are really trying to come up with ways to combat that and keep combat interesting.

 

As to the move to 3D,
I don't really see a problem with that. I understand that 2D graphics have a limited lifespan at the moment. I can't think of a reason why a *good* 3D treatment can't be applied to a new Fallout title. I would mention to those who have been arguing against 3D, that as long as it's managed well, will it matter? Haven't you been saying that graphics are secondary to gameplay? Is it so important then that a Fallout 3 would come wrapped in a 2D wrapper instead of a 3D wrapper?


_________________
"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."
- Mitch Ratcliffe, Technology Review

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Dr. Teeth on 2001-05-13 19:30 ]</font>

 

Well, you asked for opinions, so here goes.

I also really liked Torment. I think it was one of the best games I've ever played. If anything, I thought it would have been better with less combat emphasis, not more. That's not to say the combat system was bad, except the offensive spells were a little gimpy compared to the common AD&D area affect spells, and it was hard to get a good AC as a fighter since the Nameless One couldn't wear armor. What really hit me with Torment was the all the interesting conversations that didn't seem like they were written by a 12-year old like the 95% of games out there I never buy nor plan to. I loved the sensory balls in the Sensate library, and finding traces of what lives you lived in the past, and all sorts of other little touches. Compared to all of that, bashing in Abashi skulls just seemed a little childish and tiresome. If I want that, I'll just play IWD, and I haven't even finished IWD because it got boring just running around killing stuff. I've played Torment many times, though. I'd definitely pay more than 50 bucks for Torment 2, if it kept what made Torment good, but I'd maybe pay 5 bucks for IWD 2 if that. If you want games to evolve, fine, great, but make them evolve into something better. Making a better system aimed at running around killing stuff faster isn't evolving, it's just rehashing the same crap we've seen for the past 20 years. That's devolving if anything.

On turn-based, what's so horrible about it? I don't have an itchy trigger finger; playing FOT in CTB just stresses me out, and that's not what I play games for. I actually like turn-based. If the increased time is an issue, here's a novel idea. Make less combats for the player to wade through, and spend your development time and money making the existing combats more compelling. I'd rather fight one good turn-based combat than 4 "I've seen this one before" real-time combats in the same amount of my own time.

Finally, what's so awful about Fallout? I for one still play it, and FOT is sitting on my shelf until the bugs get fixed and some good player-made campaigns come out. I think it would be good to make it possible to complete the game without fighting, like Fallout. Do I always end up killing stuff in Fallout? Yes. However, I think making the effort to give an alternate solution to things made the developers think harder on the storyline rather than just planting a bunch of enemies who's sole purpose in life to get shot by the PC. It made a richer game, and that outcome may or may not have been planned from the start, but it did happen. The fact that you're so quick to abandon that to make a better shoot-em-up makes me think it was at least partially unintended though, so do it intentionally this time. Interplay has stood out from the crowd to me at least because they don't make the same old crap as everyone else, and now you're talking like that's what you're shooting for. If I want the same old crap, I'll buy it from people who have 10 years experience making it and hope they've at least managed to learn how to make good, smoothly running crap in that time. I won't buy it from Interplay just because you put it in a setting of a game I once liked but then threw out most of what I liked about the game in the first place.

 

Feargus, dont listen to them. One thing a moron cant handle is change. They judge what they havent even tried. You guys are a bunch of freaks yelling at a guy who just wants to make a game that everyone will enyoy. Dont like it, then dont play it and make ur own damn game. And for that guy that said 3d rpgs suck, the only 3d rpg I remember is Vampires and Everquest (its a MMORPG but its still the same) and they seem to be pretty good.
The only problems Vampires has dont seem to have to do anything with it being 3d. Theres some other minor 3d rpgs like Evil Islands. 3d didnt make Evil Islands so bad, actully it made it bareable.

 

HAHAH! Feargus, let's run through a few things.

You're jumping to 3d because it's the wave of the future? Remind me again when Quake was released? uh huh... right...

Now let's see you're planning on making TORN an original game by with it's own little atmosphere but still a fantasy setting that's been done to death 100 times over!?

So now you're going to change the combat to BG style? Weak. So I guess it'll be a waste of the special system just like FOT was. Another hack and slash since that's what everyone else is doing right? It's the wave of the future.

That's great Feargus.. real great. So what exactly is the part of Fallout the fallout fans should look forward to seeing in TORN? Shitty 3d graphics with a horribly hyper autocam, hack and slash combat, or the bland fantasy setting we've all come to know and love!?

-Killian

 

If that were the case, him wanting to make a game for everyone like you said, why are you the only one in favor of this?

See, you're the minority, Bubba and the minority ain't everyone.

Again, the stupidity runneth over here.

See, I'm a consumer here. If my job were making games, I'd better damned well be listenning to the consumers. Especially the ones who take the time to actually type out the four letter word, "your".

Vampire didn't do so hot. In fact, nearly everyone criticised having to deal with the camera. At least, those smart enough to find the camera.

Everquest is about as close to a role playing game as my cat is to being elected to the Office of President of the United Nations. Oh, and my cat died 10 years ago.

Couldn't find the camera? See my paragraph on Vampire.

It's a tactical game. Even the people who made it say it's mostly tactical. Just because it has Ogres, doesn't mean it's a "CRPG".

It's also not doing so well.

 

Hmmm... It is hard to figure out what is the best solution to making games like TORN and Fallout 3. I totally agree that the screenshots of TORN are not there yet, and the guys have been working the last month straight to get them looking better.

I can totally see how a lot of you feel that Fallout just won't be Fallout without a turn-based mode. It's a very hard call. I guess I feel that if we can keep the mood, look, quests, open-ended nature, and the complex character development of Fallout, then having real-time pausable combat will not make it an un-Fallout game. I could be totally wrong and it just won't work. However, it's something we have to try so that we get to make a next Fallout game.

I guess how I look at the real-time vs. turn based thing is that we just can't do turn based anymore and have enough people buy the games to make us able to keep on making them. However, I really don't think that the real-time of the Infinity Engine was a total action game. I know there are a whole lot of Diablo players that won't touch the Infinity Engine games because they think combat is too slow and not "actiony".

What was it that you guys did not like about the BG system of combat?

 

Okay. I'll state this clearly and concisely:

We don't want a new engine.

We don't want a new continuity.

We don't want a spinoff.

We want the same engine from Fallout 1, complete with dialogue tree, pop-up menu and descriptions of scenery.

We want the continuity set out by Tim Cain in Fallout 1. Not some crackladen wacky shit stewed up in a broomcloset at Interplay.

We want the same fixed (or variable in four directions, this is up for debate) isometric viewpoint, with sprites, as Fallout 1.

Anything other than that is not what Fallout Gamers want. We don't want Torn, we don't want Giants 2, we don't want Fallout Tactics.

You may have learned about making games, but you haven't learned about what Fallout Gamers want.

 

I think the reason why the Fallout Series and Torment are great games is based on one simple common factor, ego boosting of the player. The entire game is about "the cool person", the story of one person doing all the things that we are ourselves ocassionaly dream about doing, given some ideal circumstance, or chance of fate.

Fallout for example, the story of one person (you, the player), who changes the entire lives of many people, who, in a bitter sweet ending, is cast-out by your own people. --Nothing less than a epic tale, starring yourself.

Torment on the other hand is game entirely about *you*. Almost everyone you meet has something to do with *you*, and how something *you* have done, has done something to them. An engrossing story, that ends in a climactic battle with, of course, *you* and yourself.

Of course, all games try to encourage a person playing the game to indentify as much as possible with the character or the game itself, its a vital hook to any good story, something to want to keep you involved.

The reason I think Fallout and Torment were so succsessful with helping us, the player, indentify with the character we played, is that the developers did not have a pre-conceived notion of who you (or myself) is. Instead we are given choices, both moral, ethical and character defining choices (do I want to talk the Master out of killing everyone, or do I want to sabotage the nuke. Do I lie to a person to get the object I want?, etc), choices that let the characters' in the gameworld know where you (or me) stand.

Quite frankly, takling about 2d-3d graphics, turn based or non-turn based are irrelevant. If I feel like the star, in my own way, in the next Fallout game (with as many as possible variations on how many different kinds of *stars* I can be), I'll be very happy with the game you make.

Its because of the above reasons, IWD (Ice Winddale) never stuck on me, I felt like a third-party controller, to a second-party group, in someone else's story. Not enough development of *me* the player shows through in the characters I play.

Things I would like to see in Fallout 3:
Torment Character Development, I loved being able to talk to group members' each with their own stories and motivations. -- I didn't like being able to have Dak'kons' entire spriritual life spilled out, however, in the equivilent of an afternoon in the Hive, standing in front of a bar, I'd of liked Dak'kon to talk to me once and awhile about himself.

In Torment I liked the portraits of NPCs and Monsters. I know the modellers' and animators' spent a real long time making your sets and characters, I really enjoyed seeing the 1/2 page full graphic of each person. It gives those tiny person-looking characters, more life. However... to say the women had, unreasonable porportion would be an understatement.

Oops. Ran out of msg room.

 

Feargus, why do you say that at some point all games will have to go 3d? I mean, just because someone invents a new technology doesn't mean that all pre-existing technology is instantly rendered obsolete. At some point in history someone invented timed chess. Does that mean that everyone immediately stopped playing chess the old way and went out and got stop clocks? Hell no, it was just a new way of playing the game. Similarly, just because someone figured out that they could make sculptures doesn't mean that people stopped doing 2d drawings... and we've been making sculptures for thousands of years. You've made the assumption that something new is better, without realizing that is only different, and has the possibility of being better, not the gurantee. What you have seemingly done is tell the fans of your games that they don't know what they want. Needless to say this is a very bad marketing scheme on several different levels, one, you're pissing off your potential customers by putting words in their mouths, and you're running the risk of making something they really don't want.

I'm not against someone making a 3d roleplaying game, i have no problem with it. But you seem to be saying that 3d realtime games are the only way to go. The majority of your fans have indicated they want a 2d or a pseudo 2d turn based game for fallout3. And no, I'm not letting you off easy, one with a STORY as well, and other alternatives to just randomly killing things. Oh and for the love of GOD make sure the damn thing WORKS before you ship it.

 

Woah, hold on there Dan,
I think that saying we want nothing different is going a bit far. For myself, I'm happy to see the wrapping change, as long as the Fallout feel that we know and love is there. Changing the graphics and sound and engine is fine, as long as the game dynamics hold true. I think we all need to just take a step back and look at what's realistically possible here. As has been pointed out, Black Isle make games. For a living. They need to get money out of this. Making another Fallout title with no engine modification would not sell enough units. However, I think that changes made should be done carefully so as not to ruin the excellent features of the game.

 

Here's something you have to think about. Fallout fans does not equal Baldur's Gate fans. In fact, the majority of people I have met in the Fallout community *hate* BG.

Another thing to consider. Baldur's Gate was not popular because of it's combat system. Once again, an overwhelming majority of people I have spoken with thought that the worst part about the Infinity engine was the combat system.

Fallout fans *like* the Fallout combat system. They like the Fallout feel. We don't want Baldur's Gate with new tiles and different weapons.

Also, I don't see the problem with having an option to play TB or real time. They did the same with FOT, and that seemed to work alright. Most people bought FOT for the combat, not for the story, or lack thereof.

Everyone who has been faithful to Fallout has done so because they like it the way it is. Try changing the parts of Fallout that had problems (if there are any), not the ones that you got right.

 

I actually didn't mind BG combat too much, especially with the auto-pauses when combat begins set. It still didn't have the depth of a turn-based system, though. I realize a 14-year old's daddy's money is as good as mine when it comes right down to it, but I just really don't care about fast action in a video game. There's quite enough action and stress out in the real world for me, thank you very much. There are more substantial rewards for dealing with it, too, so why should I pay for the privlege in a game. My main objection is that the player just plain can't do as much in a fast-paced real time combat system, as FOT makes quite clear. You can't really play trench warfare by peeking out for a shot and then darting back, or make targeted shots for your entire team just to name a couple of my gripes. It basically takes the game out of your hands and puts it in the computer's hands, and what fun is that? If you can find a way to speed up my brain, hands, and computer to be able to micromanage a group effectively, I'm sure you'll make a mint, but I don't see that happening. At least as far as I've seen, real time combat games are either much more shallow or impossible to manage effectively without turning most of it over to the computer. Neither is particularly what I would call an improvement over turn-based. If you can come up with an alternative to that problem where no one else has, more power to you, but I have my doubts frankly.

 

Hmm. 3d. No.

Okay, I'm going to make my one and only post here. Some people know me, and some people don't. I'm a fallout fanatic.

You can do whatever you want with TORN, Feargus. You really can. You can add all kinds of flashy 3d crap to it that kids will love and the game magazines will love it. I don't care.

Fallout is a different story. Listen to what Dan is saying here.

Forget marketing for just a second, we'll get back to it. Let's talk about common sense.

People loved Fallout for the atmosphere. Fallout 2 had that atmosphere. Fallout Tactics didn't quite get it right, but at least they kinda tried.

If you spend time making a whole new engine, a whole new set of graphics, and all this other combat changing crap to the game, what will happen to the story? What will happen to the atmosphere?

We don't want anything to change. Back to marketing: I know that gamers like 3d nowdays. They hate having $200 video cards in their computers gathering dust, and 3d looks so nice. But it isn't Fallout.

The interface was very simple and easy to understand in Fallout. No camera...no jumping...none of that crap. EVERY 3d game is either an actiony piece of crap (a la quake) or a stupid Tomb Raider clone.

We don't want Vampire (and Black Enigma needs to go check into a hospital for mentioning that horror here) and we don't want Everquest (because that would be FOOL, and the community will commit mass suicide if that ever hits shelves.)

We want Fallout. New story...new challenges. Maybe some new art. Hell, you knock the bugs out of the Phoenix engine, and MAYBE that would pass muster....but the old engine would be far superior.

You make that, and the game will sell. I will personally buy a copy for all my friends, and thats about a hundred copies right there. There are lots of games that suceed without flashy, 3d style graphics.

I don't know how to get this across to you. Maybe the old-skool fallout community is hopelessly outdated. Maybe we're out of touch. But if we aren't, PLEASE try and keep the same engine, the same continutity of story.

Don't create an abomination like FOT with 3d graphics and a storyline out of a comic book. Make it our way...please.

I wouldn't bother posting this if I didn't think you would listen, Feargus. You're the last game designer worth more than a bucket of spit. Help us help Fallout.