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.
Re:Modtools prolong a game's life... (Score:2, Interesting)
Good point- but could you imagine what might happen if there were official modtools for console games? The Wii itself would be endlessly entertaining.
Actually, that's probably why they won't do it- it'd be endlessly entertaining. Gotta bring out the new console sometime...
Interplay (Score:3, Interesting)
Interplay destroyed Black Isle, ruined Jefferson and Van Buren, refused to pay employees, didn't pay their debts, was delisted, and without an office. How are they still around seriously making a Fallout MMO, and why in the world would Chris Taylor want to go back there?
Re:Modtools prolong a game's life... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because on consoles, you actually have to make a good game from the start, and you can't just offload that work on the modders.
Chris Taylor. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that the same Chris Taylor that was heading up Gas Powered Games (Dungeon Siege, Supreme Commander), and previous created Total Annihilation?
I suppose Chris Taylor is probably a common enough name that it's likely two separate people, but thought I'd ask, in case anyone can confirm or deny?
Hehe, "no modtools" (Score:2, Interesting)
The community for Bethesda games has a knack for accomplishing things Bethesda never intended.
For example, the oblivion modding tools were locked down in terms of modeling and skeletons, and other misc functions.. but the community hacked together a set of tools that met and/or exceeded the tool-set of the beth developers themselves in terms of functionality.
Re:Strange... (Score:4, Interesting)
Suddenly that $5 "Wizard's Guild" (or Fallout equivalent) looks a lot better when you don't have full-fledged towns created by the community.
Except that they're different markets. I own both a 360 and a gaming PC and I intend to get the PC version mainly because of the possibility of user-created content on that platform. Increasingly, that's a key factor for PC games.
The market is different for the 360 where everything uses a "paid content" model. There ARE no free downloads to compete with.
Does this make the PC version a better deal? Hell yes! It's $10 cheaper too. But you also had to pay $1500 for that gaming PC.
Re:Modtools prolong a game's life... (Score:4, Interesting)
Same here. I have found some third party mod tools, but even on a recent Fallout DVD (has FO, FO2, and FO:BoS, all with official patches), no mod tools.
Hell, I still keep an old Dell Optiplex GX1 with Win 98SE that has all three FO games on the network...I was playing FO2 on it this past weekend!
And before one of you fellow FO+ *nix zealots sound off about FO running perfectly on WINE-I know, and have it running so on my day to day Kubuntu Hardy PC- I also have some older Win 95-98 games that I still play that are not compatible with WINE, DosBox, Or VirtualBox.
I expect some mod tools will come out sometime after FO3 is released, either from the publisher, or as in FO and FO2, third party/fanbased tools. The 'No Mutants Allowed' website would be a good place to check for this, IMHO. Who can forget 'falche.exe' and 'falche2.exe'?
Re:"Nooo!" indeed... (Score:3, Interesting)
Who is the publisher for Fallout 3, anyway?
For obvious reasons, I'll have to decline purchasing yet another classic if it's EA.
Re:ESRB to blame? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hi, Matt from Bethesda here...
As Pete mentioned in the interview, the focus right now is simply to get the game ready for release.
We did a fan interview (question #9) back before E3 where Todd Howard answered this question.
http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=856489
To summarize, it's something we'd still love to do. If we're able to make it happen post release, we'll let everyone know.