Development Info Fallout 3: Who's who

[Vault Dweller]

Twinfalls! You're back! From outer space!

You must nevar, EVAR leave us again.

 

[Twinfalls]

 

[elander_]

I agree. Actually, I found Oblivion significantly more playable than Daggerfall. All the skills and factions in the world didn't change the sheer banality of an oversized random world and getting stuck in a giant ass dull dungeon that couldn't be solved before falling through the floor.

Story alcoholic.

Strangely enough a lot of people feel the same as you do and are completely driven off by the huge dungeon cawling to express their rage for not being able to play Daggerfall properly.

I think the people behind Oblivion really do believe their game is a worthy follow-up to Daggerfall. They also (I suspect) love American Idol and can see no wrong in aping the aesthetics of the LOTR movies, ('How could those films be any better!!'). There has been a loss of imagination in that studio.

I think you can say that literaly. Ken Rolston wanted to get out to retire then decided to work in another rpg. Ted Peterson is already out. Michael Kirkbride was not doing very well and is not working for them either.

At least in Morrowind we had localized guilds which was an improvement. We still could tell some local guild head to fuck off or even kill him and continue to raise in rank in that particular but working for another local guild of the same type. This kind of freedom (to turn your back at something) was the only thing making Morrowind interesting to play as the combat and dialog was what we know. And yet they dumbed this down completely by making guilds linear storytelling devices. They have screwed up big time with Oblivion by insulting the good game designers and writers they had and leting them go away. Really sad, but it reflects the ignorant and small minds of the people who truly control Bethesda.

 

[xedoc gpr]

from the awful, saccharine and monotonous music

Um, what? Are you just throwing out random adjectives because oblivion sucked therefore everything associated with oblivion has to be OH SO CRAPPY?

Oh the silly ignorance.

 

[Drakron]

Are you saying you liked Oblivion music?

I had to turn it off because I not could stand its monotonous repetitive nature ... its certainly not Jeremy Soule best work.

 

[denizsi]

sip

Also don't forget that how doing, refusing or failing a single quest can affect your reputation with many factions all of which somehow factor into the variety of quests you might get and the faction/person variables in quests where you can choose to help/comply with others to finish the quest. It doesn't really have an overall impact on you as a player, but it's incredible that they've been able to think of and implement such details and how it could have been expanded into something meaningful in simple ways had that vision not been lost to modern Beth.

I want Ted Peterson and Julian LeFay back together in business!

but of the three, oblivion rises up as an action game by having actual gameplay

Define an action game with actual gameplay. Action in Daggerfall feels a lot more actiony and exciting to me. It's often brutal and unforgiving depending on your skills, as opposed to the dull and meaningless combat in Oblivion. What is actual gameplay? Picking up flowers?

You have Pete's ESP profile bookmarked?

I knew this would come up and I've been prepared I have most if not all Beth devs' ESF profiles bookmarked; I check (or used to check pre-release and short term post-release of Oblivion) posts every now and then for posts with comedy gold club value.

 

[hoochimama]

I had to turn it off because I not could stand its monotonous repetitive nature ... its certainly not Jeremy Soule best work.

Implying that not all of his work was monotonous and repetitive in nature?

I know his music from at least morrowind , neverwinter nights, oblivion and guild wars and it always sounds like the same generic crap that is never fitted to the situation. Say what you will of japanese game design but as far as the usage of music in games goes they're aeons ahead of us.

 

[MF]

Nothing to do with Japanese game design and everything to do with hiring the right people.

 

[Crichton]

Define an action game with actual gameplay. Action in Daggerfall feels a lot more actiony and exciting to me. It's often brutal and unforgiving depending on your skills, as opposed to the dull and meaningless combat in Oblivion. What is actual gameplay? Picking up flowers?

Neither daggerfall nor morrowind is brutal and unforgiving depending on your skills, success depends strongly on your character's skills. You are just clicking the attack button. This is why they're both garbage as action games; an action game is one where your ability to press keys and move the mouse quickly and accurately comes into question, be it in driving cars, balancing speed and stealth, shooting guns (or bows), jumping puzzles or using fancy timing sensative hand-to-hand fighting. Jedi Outcast is a wonderful action game, Oblivion is a mediocre action game, the Gothic games a step below that and Morrowind and Daggerfall are right down there with Dungeon Hack and Diablo, they aren't even trying. (I should mention that I heartily enjoyed dungeon hack when I was a kid, but there's no way I'd touch it now, that would just ruin the memories)

Now there are all kinds of other critera by which to judge games, even though Gothic 1 is a lousy action game (no aiming for missile fire / magic, simplistic melee model, worthless stealth system), it's still a fun game for me due to the dialog and exploration; a better game in fact than Oblivion even though Oblivion does "action" better.

If I had to say something in defense of morrowind I might mention that it had lots of landscape to explore or that it offered lots of backstory that some people found palatable. But I wouldn't call it any kind of acceptable action game because that's nonsense. Nor would VD have called it a decent action game in the good old days when the codex was busy making unfavorable daggerfall/morrowind comparisons. This sudden appreciation of morrowind as an action game serves only rehabilitate it so that unfavorable morrowind/oblivion comparisons can be made.[/b]

 

[Drakron]

Implying that not all of his work was monotonous and repetitive in nature?

He did the music of IWD that I liked, also when it come to KotOR his score was not a "Look, I am John Williams !!!!" that we see in most Star Wars games.

 

[xedoc gpr]

Are you saying you liked Oblivion music?

I had to turn it off because I not could stand its monotonous repetitive nature ... its certainly not Jeremy Soule best work.

I think the battle music is rather boring and unimaginative, however there are some interesting arrangements in the town and exploring music, particularly with some more creative instrumentation then was present in Morrowind. It was also more stylistically varied than Morrowind's (not a big accomplishment, I'll admit), although like in Morrowind there wasn't enough tracks and it got repetitive quickly. And I don't usually like Jeremy Soule's work at all.

But I think the poster who describes it as "awful" doesn't have much clue of what he/she's talking about. Or they're just the "NEEDZ MORE GUITARZ" type. Not sure.

when it come to KotOR his score was not a "Look, I am John Williams !!!!" that we see in most Star Wars games.

Certainly don't disagree with you on that one.

 

[Hazelnut]

Jedi Outcast is a wonderful action game, Oblivion is a mediocre action game, the Gothic games a step below that

I found the action in Gothics 2 & 3 (not played 1) to be much more satisfying that Oblivion personally.

If I had to say something in defense of morrowind I might mention that it had lots of landscape to explore or that it offered lots of backstory that some people found palatable. But I wouldn't call it any kind of acceptable action game because that's nonsense. Nor would VD have called it a decent action game in the good old days when the codex was busy making unfavorable daggerfall/morrowind comparisons. This sudden appreciation of morrowind as an action game serves only rehabilitate it so that unfavorable morrowind/oblivion comparisons can be made.[/b]

The quallities of Morrowind have been referred to as an action-adventure, with the action part to distinguish it from traditional adventure games I guess. I don't think anyone here is saying it's a good action game in it's own right, or rpg for that matter. I liked it a lot, same for daggerfall. Somewhere in between the two would be great I think. Anyway maybe we should use the term 'first person exploration adventure' or something? The move from MW to OB saw the loss of the reason to explore, an interesting world to explore and world consistency. Plus it gained a discusting amount of patronisation.

 

[kingcomrade]

IWD and Total Annihilation had good soundtracks. I've not really heard much of his other stuff.

 

[hoochimama]

Nothing to do with Japanese game design and everything to do with hiring the right people.

I think there's more to it than just better musicians, from what I've followed of western rpg development music comes very late into the process, usually after they're done making the game they outsource music and sound.

In japanese games development musicians seem to be part of the team and start their work at the design stage with music and sound being as important or sometimes even more so than graphics. They have developed a genre of music-based games and their musicians are as big a star as the game designers and often throw game music concerts that sell out.

Example: http://www.eminenceonline.com/anif07/

There's also an explanation that it has to do with their console background , the japanese trying to invent small catchy midi tunes while western pc devs had no size constraints.

also when it come to KotOR his score was not a "Look, I am John Williams !!!!" that we see in most Star Wars games.

I played kotor many times and until now I didn't know the music was his so I agree that there are exceptions to his case.

 

[xedoc gpr]

Example: http://www.eminenceonline.com/anif07/

Eminence is based in Australia....

the japanese trying to invent small catchy midi tunes while western pc devs had no size constraints.

That's incorrect. There were always been restraints in the past for game music composers, console or PC.

 

[hoochimama]

Eminence is based in Australia....

I'm not sure what your point is, the concert is about japanese games' music and their composers will be there.

That's incorrect. There were always been restraints in the past for game music composers, console or PC.

You're saying there's no difference between recording your real-life music to be placed on a 700MB cd or having to generate a tone to simulate an instrument for a melody using the nes music chip to fit in a 4MB cartridge?

Edit: To get back on topic :

Emil has been credited here with the dark brotherhood stuff in oblivion which was ok in my book, how much of it was his doing, did he design the quests and write the dialog?

Wouldn't making him Lead Designer of Fallout3 prevent him from being able to personally add that sort of detail to quests?

 

[xedoc gpr]

I'm not sure what your point is, the concert is about japanese games' music and their composers will be there.

Reread your original statement if you need clarification.

You're saying there's no difference between recording your real-life music to be placed on a 700MB cd or having to generate a tone to simulate an instrument for a melody using the nes music chip to fit in a 4MB cartridge?

Right, except that if you take a quick look at some of the older PC titles, most of them definitely did not have the luxury of being able to create music to their fullest potential (or occupy 700mb) and always had some limitations up until a certain point and time, in a similar way that consoles did, if not as long.

 

[Section8]

Banal was the ridiculous number of healing and other potions you would find everywhere, giving the game a Nintendo platformer quality

Hey fuck you, Twinfalls. Nintendo platformers are for the most part shining examples of excellence within their given genre. Their most well defined quality for me is thoughtful design. Oblivion stands in stark contrast to these properties. It's more like a negligent mother standing by with motherfucking chocolate milk.

 

[Shoelip]

I like chocolate milk!!

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

I like chocolate milk!!

There should be no chocolate in milk, ever. The original milk didn't need chocolate, and was better off without it. Adding chocolate you get a sweet mainstream beverage, and certainly the mouthbreathing console kiddies will love it, but you can't call it milk. It's bad enough with all the sugar in other drinks, can't we at least let milk be milk? I hope all true milk fans rally to the defense of the milk spirit - since milk fans are what makes milk milk, there can be no success of chocolate milk without milk fans.

 

[galsiah]

 

[Hazelnut]

I like chocolate milk!!

There should be no chocolate in milk, ever. The original milk didn't need chocolate, and was better off without it. Adding chocolate you get a sweet mainstream beverage, and certainly the mouthbreathing console kiddies will love it, but you can't call it milk. It's bad enough with all the sugar in other drinks, can't we at least let milk be milk? I hope all true milk fans rally to the defense of the milk spirit - since milk fans are what makes milk milk, there can be no success of chocolate milk without milk fans.

So, what's your position on Banana Milk?

 

[Vault Dweller]

...an action game is one where your ability to press keys and move the mouse quickly and accurately comes into question...

Sounds like a definition of arcade games to me. Action games are about, well, action. There isn't much else to do there. You shoot, attack, drive, race, run, etc. Whether you use your skills or your character's skills is irrelevant. If Doom was turn-based and skill-based, it would still be an action game, would it not?

Jedi Outcast is a wonderful action game, Oblivion is a mediocre action game, the Gothic games a step below that and Morrowind and Daggerfall are right down there ...

Which is why I used the term "action-adventure". Dark Messiah is a good action game, and it does a lot of things much better than Oblivion, but combat is all it does, so it's hard to compare both games apple-to-apple to style.

So, if you follow my reasoning and compare the three TES games as action-adventures, taking the adventure part into consideration, then you'll see that DF>MW>OB. If you decide to stick with your action definition, then Oblivion is, without a doubt, the best action game out of the three.

Now there are all kinds of other critera by which to judge games, even though Gothic 1 is a lousy action game (no aiming for missile fire / magic, simplistic melee model, worthless stealth system), it's still a fun game for me due to the dialog and exploration; a better game in fact than Oblivion even though Oblivion does "action" better.

Which is why I suggest looking at it from the "action-adventure" point of view.

Nor would VD have called it a decent action game in the good old days when the codex was busy making unfavorable daggerfall/morrowind comparisons.

I would have, just like I called BG2 a decent action adventure game in the good old days when BG2 was criticized for its RPG crappyness.

This sudden appreciation of morrowind as an action game serves only rehabilitate it so that unfavorable morrowind/oblivion comparisons can be made.

I don't think we need to lower the standards and make exceptions to make "unfavorable morrowind/oblivion comparisons".

 

[Twinfalls]

Hey fuck you, Twinfalls. Nintendo platformers are for the most part shining examples of excellence within their given genre. Their most well defined quality for me is thoughtful design. Oblivion stands in stark contrast to these properties. It's more like a negligent mother standing by with motherfucking chocolate milk.

You are watching like a HAWK! I think you knew what I was saying: the egregious silliness of splicing token-and-power-up collection galore from the platform genre into what's supposedly a PC RPG type dungeon crawl, set in a supposedly believable, realistic 'world'. The sheer number of potions one quickly amasses in Oblivion is one of its profound embarrassments.

You are right though, Nintendo has always been a beacon of design-as-bedrock, one shouldn't use that name glibly in place of 'childish'.
<spanked>

 

[psycojester]

See kids on the internet dreams can come true. Argue with passion about computer games on the codex and the women will let you spank them