Interview Pete Hines chats with Gaming Source

[Volourn]

They won't, and why should they?

 

[Ultron]

http://www.elderscrolls.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2809375&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

I saw the same stuff on Slashdot.....people wanting a GTA3 clone.

 

[Jed]

FPS stands for First Person Shooter. Morrowind's a first or third person RPG. It's not a twitch game -- the success or failure of everything you do depends on your character's stats.

This is simply not true. Try playing an archer in MW. Try sneaking in front of someone. Try not clicking fast enough in a melee encounter. MW is a bastardization of FPS & stats. As your stats grow, the clicking, aiming, sneaking, etc. become easier, but they still depend on the player's skill. In FO, success or failure was dependent soley on the character's stats, not the players. That's one good reason it is such a great roleplaying game. Also a strong reason why Beth's RPGs aren't that great.

 

[Lasakon]

Asking for Fallout to be like GTA is like asking for Serious Sam 2 to be a Tetris clone. I knew Console/PC joint development was a bad bad bad idea.

 

[Snuffles]

I'll pick an FO3 thread at random and mumble my heresy.

Where was the "tactical" turn based combat in Fallout, I used the same tactic for every enemy I met, I aimed for the eyes/sensor nodes until they died. I'm beginning to worry I've missed a large part of the gameplay now.

 

[Duodenum]

FPS stands for First Person Shooter. Morrowind's a first or third person RPG. It's not a twitch game -- the success or failure of everything you do depends on your character's stats.

This is simply not true. Try playing an archer in MW. Try sneaking in front of someone. Try not clicking fast enough in a melee encounter. MW is a bastardization of FPS & stats. As your stats grow, the clicking, aiming, sneaking, etc. become easier, but they still depend on the player's skill. In FO, success or failure was dependent soley on the character's stats, not the players. That's one good reason it is such a great roleplaying game. Also a strong reason why Beth's RPGs aren't that great.

But when you shoot someone, even if the arrow LOOKS like it hits them (and I will grant you that the player certainly does have to aim), it may not ACTUALLY hit them. And even if it does, the damage that it does is entirely stat-driven as well. In a true FPS, if the bullet hits, it hits.

Yes -- there is player skill involved. No doubt whatsoever of that. That's the difficult part of the design -- balancing player input vs the character's skills. I have no dispute with you about that at all. But that STILL doesn't make Morrowind an FPS. Not in the FPS genre sense, i.e. Doom/Quake/Half-Life.

As far as what makes a great roleplaying game, there are plenty of people who think Morrowind is a great roleplaying game, just like there are plenty of people who think Fallout is a great roleplaying game. Some people even think BOTH are great games, if you can imagine that

Anyway we're arguing semantics here, so I'll stop.

 

[Shevek]

Yes -- there is player skill involved. No doubt whatsoever of that. That's the difficult part of the design -- balancing player input vs the character's skills. I have no dispute with you about that at all. But that STILL doesn't make Morrowind an FPS. Not in the FPS genre sense, i.e. Doom/Quake/Half-Life.

However, you have not addressed the fact that many games firmly defined as FPS's (again, System Shock, Deus Ex, hell, even No One Lives Forever 2) have had stats and/or skills determine combat effectiveness (therefore having a similar 'balance' between character/player skill). The way I look at it, its a heavily twitched based game. I will leave it at that since there is no reason argueing semantics.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I never said or implied that one individual developer is unable to learn or master something, but Bethesda is a business and Pete's statements shouldn't be ignored. Give me one reason why Bethesda would risk doing something different and risky instead of doing something that worked and worked very well (GOTY awards)?

Because the Fallout fanbase has expressed exactly what it is they DO want, and Bethesda hopes that they buy the game? As I said in another post, maybe Bethesda's goal isn't just to sell Fallout to Morrowind fans, but to bring Fallout fans over to Bethesda. The only reason I can think of where that wouldn't be the case is if there aren't enough Fallout fans to matter.

I doubt that. Bethesda is trying to get sci-fi fans usinsg TES model. I'm sure that they will try to make a great game, fixing whatever flaws they think MW had, etc; but I doubt that they are trying to make a true Fallout game or give a damn about it. Their attitude certainly shows that. The remarks prove that as well. Really, what more do you need to make a logical conclusion?

 

[Duodenum]

Really, what more do you need to make a logical conclusion?

Time. I don't think they've been working on Fallout 3 since Morrowind finished up -- I imagine they'll finish whatever project they're involved in currently before they start work on Fallout 3. Until we see what their actual plans are, we really won't know for sure.

That said, I DO see your point. I'm just more willing to wait for concrete info, rather than marketing speak, before making up my mind.

 

[FrankHorrigan]

Time. I don't think they've been working on Fallout 3 since Morrowind finished up -- I imagine they'll finish whatever project they're involved in currently before they start work on Fallout 3. Until we see what their actual plans are, we really won't know for sure.

They have 2 dev team's now and are making both concurrently

 

[Duodenum]

They have 2 dev team's now and are making both concurrently

I don't think there's enough info to assume they're already staffed up & actively working on it. They wouldn't have done that before actually GETTING the license, and by all accounts they just got it in the past couple weeks. So I seriously doubt they're working on Fallout 3 in anything other than a conceptual manner at this time.

 

[FrankHorrigan]

I don't think there's enough info to assume they're already staffed up & actively working on it. They wouldn't have done that before actually GETTING the license, and by all accounts they just got it in the past couple weeks. So I seriously doubt they're working on Fallout 3 in anything other than a conceptual manner at this time.

Agreed, just stating they will be working on both projects concurrently as opposed to finishing TES 4(prolly 2 years) then starting fallout 3. They had their staff working on TES 4 at the same time as the 2 TES 3 expansion packs and have taken on staff, and are taking on more still atm.

 

[AlanC9]

I'll pick an FO3 thread at random and mumble my heresy.

Where was the "tactical" turn based combat in Fallout, I used the same tactic for every enemy I met, I aimed for the eyes/sensor nodes until they died. I'm beginning to worry I've missed a large part of the gameplay now.

Well, you sometimes had to worry if you had enough APs for a particular firing mode. But that's about it.

 

[Jed]

I'll pick an FO3 thread at random and mumble my heresy.

Where was the "tactical" turn based combat in Fallout, I used the same tactic for every enemy I met, I aimed for the eyes/sensor nodes until they died. I'm beginning to worry I've missed a large part of the gameplay now.

Well, you sometimes had to worry if you had enough APs for a particular firing mode. But that's about it.

Yes, the two of you have proved that Fallout was no fun for POWAH GAMERS.

 

[Volourn]

Then explain why Tri enjoyed it?

 

[evilmonkey]

I never really found the combat in FO1 or FO2 fun, nor did I in FoT but nevermind that.

At best I had not problems with it, at worst I hated it (running away from ants, only to have a weak fucker of a follower run after some Ant in the Mines of Doom (red. the Mines in Broken Hills) trying to beat it down with a weak right hander that just got the Ant running away to the other side of the mine with the NPC in question in persuit was just one time that I just exited the game in disgust -, at the time I was playing one of my first ironman sessions in FO2, it was a lesson of (& in) patience in many ways).

The AI for the NPCs in combat was often piss poor to boot, often resulting in weird erratic behavior - or at best the standard "attack until damaged to X% and then run like hell" without actual tactics involved at all.

meta gaming in FO isn't really fun based on the combat alone - neither is it for me when not metagaming.

As such I prefered the setting and over all system.

Now the combat is still better then in most cRPGs - or in most games for that matter - but then thats pretty sad.

 

[Volourn]

"I never really found the combat in FO1 or FO2 fun,"


Our opinion what makes fun combat differ so wildly it's amazing!

 

[Jung]

"I never really found the combat in FO1 or FO2 fun,"


Our opinion what makes fun combat differ so wildly it's amazing!

Seriously, what is so special about FO combat?

You shoot
Your budy shoots
They shoot
etc until someone dies.

BG2 had more tactical combat from what I've seen, though it was more difficult to manage with so many chars to control and fight. Gothics had fun combat too, and took reflexes and strategy on your part to kill multiple stronger creatures. These two games stood out in my mind has having interesting combat . I haven't completed FO yet, so maybe I'm missing something. Help me get the most out of FO.

 

[Transcendent One]

Seriously, I agree. I never saw anything special about FO's combat. Lack of even basic control over NPC's and just a lack of things to do really killed any possible tactics. Target shots weren't quite so exciting, and if you have to really think about whether to use burst vs. single shot well then... *backs away*.

That said, I don't think they should do a real time FPS with it either. As far as I'm concerned just add more tactical options to the tb system.

 

[Shevek]

FO combat may not have the tactical depth of, say, Jagged Alliance or ToEE. However, for a cRPG, its combat is considerably fun and indepth. Navigating the field, firing, switching weapons when appropriate and so on while keeping an eye on your APs is considerably more tactical depth than most cRPGs I can name. Even in melee, it was sometimes advantages to use thrust vs regular attacks to get some critters of and away from you. Of course, if one is playing a straight up diplosniper, then, yes shoot for the eyes ad nauseum. Alot of the depth came from deciding who to strike, when and in which order - when to heal, etc. Though not a positive to some, keeping your NPCs alive and yet managed to avoid friendly fire also forced you to think about other things than just butchering the enemy while in combat.Not quite chess but the turnbased nature of it allowed for alot more tactical thought than just clicky click click. Sure, more depth here would have been nice. What Van Buren was doing to make criticals more prevalent and one shot kills less so would probably have made aimed blows to other parts of the body more key (and the added complication of having to deal with more injuries mid fight) - shame we wont be getting Van Buren.

 

[Lasakon]

I 100% agree with you on that Shevek. Also you can break every single game down to a simple formula if you really try Jung. Not to say that I wouldn't like added variety (Like crouch/prone ability and a corner shot), but combat was pretty damn solid.

 

[Jed]

I love the recurring complaint of "all I had to do was <combat action> over and over until TEH WIN!" but the same argument can be applied to almost any recent cRPG, and especially the RT games that perform <combat action> over and over for you while you take a nap or read a book...gimme engagement any day...

 

[dregotim]

But maybe the goal in getting the Fallout franchise is to make NEW Bethesda fans? Maybe they want to get people like YOU buying Bethesda games -- at least the Fallout titles. They don't just want to sell Fallout 3 to Morrowind fans -- the idea behind any business venture is to EXPAND your market, not just keep it the same (although Apple seems to be content to do that Wink ). By offering two different types of RPG's in two different scenarios, perhaps they're not looking for overlap as much as looking for new customers. And if THAT is the case, then they most CERTAINLY will listen to what the die-hard Fallout fans have to say.

And maybe they want only to get more money from the Morrowind fanbase saying: "Look, it's like Morrowind, but now it have guns!!!" and expand their market with the poor souls that say: "Hey, it's fallout 3! I remember playing 1 and 2, so this one must be good!".

Not all people & fallout fans read NMA & RPGCodex. Perhaps they are the people wanted by Bethsoft. Or perhaps they pretend to make the game more mainstream. We don´t know for sure their intentions. And their PR campaign the last days were very misguiding and awful.

Sorry for the errors. English is not my firs language.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Seriously, what is so special about FO combat?

You shoot
Your budy shoots
They shoot
etc until someone dies.

BG2 had more tactical combat from what I've seen, though it was more difficult to manage with so many chars to control and fight. Gothics had fun combat too, and took reflexes and strategy on your part to kill multiple stronger creatures. These two games stood out in my mind has having interesting combat . I haven't completed FO yet, so maybe I'm missing something. Help me get the most out of FO.

Uhhh.. BG2's combat is like this:

While paused, select your thumpers, assign them to monsters. Select casters, select spell, select target. Unpause. Hit the space bar as many times until you actually get to a round where you have to do something again. Repeat.

The only thing that remotely makes BG2 more tactical would be the choice of offensive spells. Buff spells, after all, are similar to the drugs in Fallout.

 

[Jung]

Uhhh.. BG2's combat is like this:

While paused, select your thumpers, assign them to monsters. Select casters, select spell, select target. Unpause. Hit the space bar as many times until you actually get to a round where you have to do something again. Repeat.

The only thing that remotely makes BG2 more tactical would be the choice of offensive spells. Buff spells, after all, are similar to the drugs in Fallout.

It's been a while since I played BG2, but I recall having to come up whith the correct "strip" spells to remove protections from the spellcasters, and defend your own weak characters from their tanks, while finding the correct offensive spells that would be effective. Managing this was a bit hectic in RT/Pause, but it did require some strategy.

I didn't bring this up rhetorically to put down your opinion. I really want to know why you guys are putting FO combat up on a pedestal because I am early on in the game, and it doesn't seem all that strategic right now.