Fallout: The Escapist misses the clue train

[Diogo Ribeiro]

While generally known for having some good and informative articles, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/>The Escapist</a> fudged up a recent article called <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/98/8>"From Black Isle to Bethesda: Fallout Story"</a>. In what was meant to be an article concerning Fallout's story, The Escapist made a series of factual errors that surprisingly went by unchecked. Choice quotes:<blockquote>While Black Isle is probably best known for their work on the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment</blockquote><blockquote>Fallout was originally considered a successor to the tabletop game Wasteland</blockquote><blockquote>The "do what you want" sandbox concept made famous by Grand Theft Auto and The Elder Scrolls series was still something of a rarity in 1997. (For instance, Fallout's competition that year was the on-rails Japanese RPG Final Fantasy VII.)</blockquote>After that, the article just meanders about the kind of information we've known all along. I can't tell if it's a press release for Bethesda in disguise or if it was "Let's Play Journalists!" day, but that's probably the worst Fallout article to date that I can remember.


Thanks, <b>Hot Snack</b> and <b>Brother None!</b>

 

[kingcomrade]

Jesus Christ. The wiki has more accurate information than that article does.

 

[Elwro]

Why write on a subject you know nothing about?

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

While Black Isle is probably best known for their work on the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment

I can understand this one. It seemed Black Isle's logo was so much more prominent than Bioware's...not to mention there were a tons of things that felt very Black Isle as well. Still should have done their research though, considering this was for a magazine article.

Fallout was originally considered a successor to the tabletop game Wasteland

Uhhhhhh.....what?

The "do what you want" sandbox concept made famous by Grand Theft Auto and The Elder Scrolls series was still something of a rarity in 1997.

Wasteland, Darklands, Realms of Arkania, Daggerfall, Arena, and some Ultima games could all easily be considered "do what you want" along with others. Not that rare.

What has happened to good journalism nowadays?

 

[Julio]

But what about the new Rambo trailer?

 

[denizsi]

I smell.. payroll!

 

[Fez]

Very poor research and work by The Escapist. Little excuse for such sloppiness when some of these flaws could have been prevented by a quick Google and looking them up on ready made articles and databases. Other parts being nonsense. A very odd article altogether. I think Elwro put it best.

More time writing and less on their pretty art would help, maybe.

 

[Brother None]

Let's play spot the mistake!

A few factual mistakes -

Black Isle created a gritty, tongue-in-cheek adventure that irrevocably changed the way we look at the End of Times. - BIS didn't make Fallout.

The developers had originally enlisted the help of Steve Jackson, whose tabletop rule system, Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS), was to be the framework for their post-apocalyptic adventure - actually, Tim Cain started Project GURPS, around which a post-apocalyptic setting was created

tabletop game Wasteland - ?

Bethesda is based in ... Bethesda, and most writers (and game-makers), after all, tend to work from what they know - Bethesda is based in Rockville, Maryland. Has been since 1990.

Someone should really send a letter to the Escapist. This is just hella stupid.

 

[Fez]

It's as if someone began to write it at 3AM because they had to have something to submit for work that morning.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Wordy, meaningless, and without thought, having been written by awful writers where the subject is featured last, will always be my favorite type of sentence, and indeed they are.

 

[elander_]

I wouldn't call Fallout a sandbox game. It had a typical campaign world map just like Arcanum and ToEE had, but locations were delimited again like ToEE but unlike Arcanum. Being a sandbox means screwed up Disneyland tone world.

 

[Spazmo]

Is it mere coincidence that the Fallout Wiki goes offline and suddenly a generally respectable publication publishes a poorly researched and factually incorrect article about Fallout? I think not. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.

And the guys who were hosting the Vault.

And Ausir.

 

[The_Nameless_Prick]

So many jounalists are ignorant of dead companies like Interplay and Black Isle it's pathetic. I guess there is no money for taking the time to do a little googling since dead companies can't pay up.

 

[Ladonna]

It seems sinister, except that they have not even researched where Bethesda is! However, maybe that is for the companies protection when F3 is released....

In any case, where is Roshambo? Had he seen it? If yes, please post a link to his reponse :wink:

 

[Fez]

He's probably either in hysterics with laughter or his berserker fury hasn't simmered down to the point where he can type a coherent sentence and is still punching the walls and smashing the keyboard.

 

[Briosafreak]

Brian Fargo was demoted on that article too.

Really poor overall. Really poor.

 

[Zomg]

I'm kind of disturbed there was an article at all. FO3 hype is gonna be two ticks down the dial from Halo 3. Is The Escapist just gonna be another schlock gaming mag now if it's going to do sloppy pseudojournalistic puff like this?

 

[psycojester]

So many jounalists are ignorant of dead companies like Interplay and Black Isle it's pathetic.

Writing on the internet does not make you a journalist, stapling a wound shut doesn't make you a doctor.

 

[Volourn]

"...not to mention there were a tons of things that felt very Black Isle as well. Still should have done their research though, considering this was for a magazine article."

Maybe it felt like 'Black Isle'; but the game itself wa smostly BIO. Writing, combat, characters, story, the world. It's all BIO. Good or bad. BIS was responsible for hiring for music and voice overs, and quality assurance ie. play tetsing. For gretaness or suckiness it is BIO that should get the praise or the blame. BIS was the publisher.


"BIS didn't make Fallout."

Spin it all you want; but the Interplay RPG division created FO, and in essence, it was BIS who did it just before it was officially named. Either way, it's technalities and irrelevant.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Is it mere coincidence that the Fallout Wiki goes offline and suddenly a generally respectable publication publishes a poorly researched and factually incorrect article about Fallout? I think not. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.

And the guys who were hosting the Vault.

And Ausir.

This has clearly opened my eyes, I thought the Vault was a useless piece of nazi shit that Ausir worked on but it actually has some use on the interweb.

 

[M0RBUS]

While generally known for having some good and informative articles, <a>The Escapist</a> fudged up a recent article called <a>"From Black Isle to Bethesda: Fallout Story"</a>. In what was meant to be an article concerning Fallout's story, The Escapist made a series of factual errors that surprisingly went by unchecked. Choice quotes:<blockquote>While Black Isle is probably best known for their work on the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment</blockquote><blockquote>Fallout was originally considered a successor to the tabletop game Wasteland</blockquote><blockquote>The "do what you want" sandbox concept made famous by Grand Theft Auto and The Elder Scrolls series was still something of a rarity in 1997. (For instance, Fallout's competition that year was the on-rails Japanese RPG Final Fantasy VII.)</blockquote>After that, the article just meanders about the kind of information we've known all along. I can't tell if it's a press release for Bethesda in disguise or if it was "Let's Play Journalists!" day, but that's probably the worst Fallout article to date that I can remember.


Thanks, <b>Hot Snack</b> and <b>Brother None!</b>

That's cheating Diogo! You copy pasted into the "other" forum Anyway, yeah, it has many errors, but it's not THAT bad. At least the guy got it right when he said fallout is a unique game c:

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Never fear, clueless readership is here:

That being said, and with no intentiones whatsoever of starting a flame war (...) really sorry that you couldn't enjoy Tactis because it wasn't Fallout 3.

Note how he doesn't want to "start a flame war" but Tactics hadn't been mentioned in the replies until his own post?

Yeah, and those mean Fallout fans who were bummed out Tactics wasn't Fallout 3 - it's not like they knew what the game was going to be like considering the game's coverage or the developer's dialogue with fans, right? It's not like "Tactics" would suggest an entire different gameplay theme, right? Yeah, I wonder how many people returned Final Fantasy Tactics because it wasn't Final Fantasy VIII.

So the article has a couple of mistakes. Big deal.

"I like to be informed even if it means being misinformed!"

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

That's cheating Diogo! You copy pasted into the "other" forum

The what now? They're pretty different, I reckon. This was a simple newsbit that touched on a couple of errors; in the other forum I made a post about the errors and why they were errors - even with examples. Different

 

[Amasius]

The thread in the Escapist forums developed quite interesting, but than the Associate Editor and the CEO stopped responding. I wonder why...

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

"The second error we've addressed was the mis-representation of Wasteland as a pen & paper roleplaying game. As you all know, and a few of you have pointed out, it was actually a computer game. We knew it, too, but jumbled the text of the article in editing, introducing the error by mistake. These things happen. We publish over 200 stories each year, five features, the same number of editorials and more than twice that number of news stories each week - roughly the equivalent amount of content produced in one week as most periodicals produce in one month. This is not to excuse mistakes, but to explain them. Mea culpa."


They knew it but somehow someone mistakenly put pen and paper instead of computer game, a totally legit explanation.