No Mod Tools for Fallout 3 Launch 91
Rock, Paper, Shotgun interviewed Bethesda's Pete Hines about the upcoming release of Fallout 3. He talks about dealing with misunderstandings about the game prior to launch, violence in modern games, and the fact that the game won't launch with mod tools. "Folk probably took for granted that every time we make a game, there's a mod tool. We explained to folk that it takes a lot of time and effort to get that tool ready for release, and it's not on our schedule right now. We need to get the game done and out. ... Right now, we can't say definitively 'there will be mod tools, and here is when they'll be out.' We discussed some Fallout 3 gameplay videos a few weeks ago. That work remains to be done." In related news, Interplay has picked up Chris Taylor, designer of the original Fallout, to help develop their Fallout MMOG.
Modtools prolong a game's life... (Score:5, Insightful)
No modtools? That's a shame. Modtools really extend the life of a game- in fact, I'd say they probably extend the life of a game more than anything else (apart from being an MMO). How long did Half-Life 1 hang around because of Counterstrike?
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, well Oblivion didn't ship with the tools... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Modtools prolong a game's life... (Score:5, Insightful)
Modtools really extend the life of a game- in fact, I'd say they probably extend the life of a game more than anything else (apart from being an MMO).
Then why do console games, which rarely if ever have legit mod tools due to the platforms' closed nature, have such a long life? Nintendo seems to be doing brisk business "licensing" Virtual Console versions of its decade-old titles on Wii Money Prin^W^W Shop Channel.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oblivion's core gameplay was so horribly flawed that the game isn't remotely enjoyable unless you alter the leveling system with mods.
Morrowind's NPCs and towns were horribly boring without mods.
Bethesda makes nearly great games. The mods make them great. I'll take a pass on FO3 unless there are mod tools.
Re:Behind Schedule Much? (Score:3, Insightful)
So... removing features here at the last minute so they can still get it out the door before the deadline. It looks like the picked a too aggressive deadline and they're trying to cover for it now instead of spec things out correctly at the start.
TFA doesn't indicate that it was ever in the schedule. Mod tools have always been nice from Bethesda, but never promised.
I'll bet the game ships with bugs.
Absolutely unthinkable that 50,000 people playing a game would find something a smaller team of developers didn't </sarcasm>. I don't doubt that it will ship with bugs, because bugless software is quite frankly something from textbooks and academia. As the time spent on software approaches infinity, the number of bugs approaches zero. I don't know how far along that curve Fallout 3 will ship, but I imagine it won't be so riddled with bugs that it's unplayable.
Re:Behind Schedule Much? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll bet the game ships with bugs.
And I'll bet the sun will rise tomorrow. Both are equally safe bets.
Keep in mind that "bugs" can range from a very minor graphical glitch or even a gameplay issue that they don't think works as well as it could - all the way to crashing issues / data corruption, etc, the most serious sort. They're all bugs, and every modern games ships with a large number of them. Obviously, developers work very hard to fix all the highest priority issues, but they always go through a triage session and decide what's actually worth fixing and what bugs they can live with before the game ships. You're kidding yourselves if you think *any* game ships with zero bugs these days.
DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Bethesda would be doing themselves a great favor by once again being forthcoming about what, if any, DRM they plan to use in Fallout 3. Before Oblivion released, some rumor about them using StarForce was going around, and they explicitly said that not only were they not going to use StarForce, but all they were putting in was a CD check when you start the game. People went out and bought the game with confidence that it wasn't going to fux0r their b0xen and that they'd still be able to play even if someone dropped a nuke on the Greater DC Metro Area the next day.
Considering how much grief EA has had over Spore, etc., they might want to preannounce their DRM plans again, as a selling point.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
I played Morrowind for months, finished and really enjoyed it. I didn't find the towns boring and actually feel there is more varitey then there is in Oblivion. I just didn't have the same experience with Oblivion. I think what killed the experience for me was the leveling system and the fact that pure magic users (which is what I started out on) felt gimped. To get decent spells you needed to spend absurd amounts of money.
Exploring wasn't as fun as it was in Morrowind too. I think it's because Morrowind was a whole island, you could go everywhere which I loved exploring but Oblivion had "magic walls" which made the experience feel limiting.
ESRB to blame? (Score:3, Insightful)
Shortly after Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was released, a modder released a "topless" mod for the female characters. The ESRB, fearful of another "Hot Coffee" incident, re-evaluated the game and changed the rating from "T" to "M" [escapistmagazine.com], forcing 2K Games to republish the game with updated box art. I remember thinking to myself, "well, there goes the mod tools".
Sure enough, the next game that Bethesda released doesn't include a mod tool. The Oblivion rating fiasco may not be the only reason but I'll wager it was a factor. And if game creators are being held responsible for the actions of modders, can you blame them?
"Nooo!" indeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a very bad sign, that goes far beyond the absence of actual mod tools.
Some people don't know why Half-Life was such a great game and why Oblivion was so disappointing. The answer is just one word: play-testing. Okay, maybe that's two words.
Half-Life spent half its development life (ha-ha) in testing (and refining). And Half-Life 2 levels started being playtested before the textures were even ready (remember those "orange map" screenshots in the teasers?).
Oblivion's quests feels buggy and disjointed mainly because it was not playtested by anyone outside Bethesda, and some last-minute adjustments to the game probably weren't tested at all.
Now, what does all this have to do with the announcement that mod tools won't be available? Simple: mod tools and documentation are tipically readied for end users while the game is in the final testing stage which, even on a relatively linear game like Half-Life, should take several months or years, if the game is to be any good. During this stage only minor things are being tweaked, like map design, damage of each weapon, location and frequency of rewards, etc.. Basically stuff that doesn't keep the programmers too busy, so they can focus on polishing the mod tools (in fact, better mod tools will also make that final tweaking much easier).
So, when the official word is that "[mod tools are] not on our schedule right now. We need to get the game done and out", what that means is the game isn't even ready yet, but the release date is already set, so there will be little if any playtesting (probably, as with Oblivion, only internal playtesting, which is close to useless in terms of gameplay tuning, it'll just catch the most obvious bugs). And, of course, without mod tools we can't even expect a fan-made "Fallout Overhaul" any time soon.
I can't say this is unexpected, but it is disappointing. Considering the FPS-like gameplay shown in the demo videos and now this, I'm pretty sure I won't be buying Fallout 3 in the first few months after release, if ever.
Can someone please put the 1992 Origin team back together? I miss a good RPG.
Re:Modtools prolong a game's life... (Score:5, Insightful)
.
I don't recall mod tools shipping with Fallout 1 or 2 - and the series has remained in print since 1997.
Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Modtools prolong a game's life... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Nooo!" indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Did it not sell well?
If you're going to measure quality simply by number of units sold, McDonald's must serve the finest food in the world.
How much a game sells is mainly a product of how much hype was created around it and / or how good its prequels were. Lots of brilliant games (ex., System Shock 2) were short-term commercial failures because people simply don't hear about them.
Oblivion is fine as a "medieval combat" game with a big world to explore, lots of monsters, etc., especially after you install a mod or two to get rid of the incredibly stupid auto-levelling system. But it was not even close to the "living world" RPG that was being promised (the "groundbreaking AI" somehow morphed into repetitive, buggy scripting, etc.), and in fact had less atmosphere than any of the previous Elder Scrolls games (which, while not perfect, looked like they could be the start of something good).
So yes, to pretty much anyone expecting a "true" RPG, with an immersive, consistent game world, and gameplay that actually required people to use their brains, Oblivion was a major disappointment.
Now, I'm sure there are people who like medieval-themed FPS games designed for 8 year old console players with ADD (in fact, that seems to be a huge market these days - medieval theme optional), so future Elder Scrolls games might continue to sell. But they won't be selling to the same people who bought Oblivion because they were told it would be a good RPG.
I'm the type of gamer that likes to play the game that was given to me. As such, I rarely use mods unless they're produced by the same company that made the game.
So, if the game is crap, you still "like to play it" simply because "it was the game that was given to you", even if someone created a mod that makes the game a lot better (like OOO for Oblivion)? Oh well, I guess conformism is its own punishment.