PsxMeUP writes
"Game Observer conducted an interview with Ashley Cheng, Production Director at Bethesda. He answered questions about the Gamebryo engine, why they prefer it over other engines and the advantages it presented while making Fallout 3. Cheng also talks a bit about what inspired their designers while making Fallout 3 and what is in store for the PS3. Apparently, much of the team has read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which inspired the look and story of Fallout 3. Bethesda, according to Cheng, will never create a game like Final Fantasy because the Gamebryo engine is better at handling 'open ended worlds ripe for exploration.'"
Meanwhile, Bethesda's Jeff Gardiner spoke recently about
the game's fifth and final DLC release,
Mothership Zeta, which finds players aboard an alien spaceship in orbit. He said, "The player will have a handful of tasty alien technologies to play with. There are new fire arms and melee weapons, which will comprise the most powerful weaponry in the game."
The Road (Score:2)
I read The Road right before Fallout 3 came out, and the whole time i was playing it, I was sure someone was going to use the G.E.C.K. to re-create the story from the Road in F3. I was even tempted to do it myself, but with the movie release impending (2 versions of the same story is saturation for me) and my lack of time, I decided against it. Interesting that the Book influenced the game.
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Five DLC releases? (Score:2)
the game's fifth and final DLC release
Why can't I get a single fucking one of them for my PS3 then?
I loved Fallout 3 but thought it was a bit too short. If I had been able to buy the DLCs I would had done so but the more time that passes I get less and less likely to buy them when/if they get released because my interest has moved on to other games.
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RTFA.
Turns out weâ(TM)ve announced that weâ(TM)re doing downloadable content for PS3 so itâ(TM)s coming. Weâ(TM)re also including them with Fallout 3 Game of the Year for PS3, coming out for this holiday season.
Re:Five DLC releases? (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense! Bethesda has posted a helpful pdf right on their website entitled "Three simple steps to getting DLC on the PS3." I'll summarize it here:
1) Go to your local electronics retailer
2) Buy a Xbox 360
3) Download content
Problem solved!
Parent
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And here I thought that the correct course of action was to purchase it on the PC. Not only do you have access to said DLC, but tons and tons of user created content as well. Let's not forget the superior mouse/keyboard control scheme as well. Poor, poor console kiddies.
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You can (Score:2)
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Fallout 3 is too short?
I had 450+ hours into the game playing different characters *before* the DLCs came out . Now I have over 600 hours and each character brought new adventures not only because of a different skill set, but because of places in the game that I missed before or scenarios that played out differently.
If you think F3 is too short then your only skimming the surface.
I played the missions one after the other and can't say I did much aimless exploration. It took me about 20 hours of active gameplay before I reached the ending scene.
So yeah, I'm sure I just skimmed the surface. However, I don't get much out of aimless exploration, I want missions spread out all over the map.
BTW, when buying the DLCs, do you get to keep using the character you spent hours leveling up in the base game?
Gamebryo (Score:2)
For those that missed it the Gamebryo engine is a middleware piece (platform if you will) for game design. It was the front end for several MMOs, Civ4, and several other titles.
While we often think of the Unreal and Quake engines for FPS games Gamebryo is the more well rounded, less insaine sister of those two and actually puts out without being on drugs or booze!
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Ever played Warhammer Online?
Re:Gamebryo (Score:4, Interesting)
Having seen & used the Gamebryo source back in 2003 (right when it got renamed from Netimmerse to Gamebryo) I wasn't too impressed. It uses its own version of RTTI, along with auto_ptr, and custom un/serializers. The PS2 version was decent though -- major optimizations using the VUs for skinning.
It was used on Elder Scrolls 3, which explain the horribly broken physics of getting stuck in geometry.
Parent
The Problem with Fallout3 (Score:3, Insightful)
I also miss the Magic from Oblivion
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I much preferred VATS, but to each their own. What was wrong with just ignoring it and playing the game like an FPS? All the guides I read talk about what builds are good for VATS and what are good for FPS-style playing.
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Well, a few things. Your skill level for certain kinds of weapons matters; small arms vs big arms, etc. Also, the condition of the weapon mattered... the better the condition, the more accurate.
Finally, all weapons naturally have a scatter pattern; no bullet will exactly follow the course of the previous one. Not sure why this was done, maybe to make it a bit more real (as I'm sure you're not holding a gun totally still as you shoot).
When you first start playing you have low skill and badly damaged weapo
Re:The Problem with Fallout3 (Score:5, Insightful)
Fallout 3 is an RPG, it's not an FPS and not meant to be played as such.
Parent
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I completely agree. I played STALKER prior to Fallout3, and the latter's FPS experience was just very, very lacking in comparison. Little things like iron sight aiming, bullet drop and ricochets add so much immersion, it's sad they weren't there. Also, the whole manual aiming system is somewhat broken, it doesn't really feel "right".
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You really, really need to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.
Really.
A better overall game than Fallout 3, and definitely a better FPS (since F3 wasn't really trying to be one, that's not saying much)
Re:The Problem with Fallout3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep thinking to myself how awesome the game would have been if it was built on an FPS engine like the one used in Call of Duty 5
So why not just play Call of Duty 5 and leave us Fallout fans our Fallout experience? Seriously, there are any number of "me too" FPS games out there to satisfy the mouse-twitchers and "gaming keyboard" masses; Fallout, on the other hand, is something unique and special in the history of computer gaming. The point of Fallout is to become immersed in the rich game world of post-apocalyptic alternate earth and enjoy the ironic gallows humor of the optimistic retro-future (epitomized in the sci-fi serials of the 1950s), in ruins by the time of the Fallout games, contrasted with the bitter realities of survival in a bombed out wasteland. If the game were to depend too heavily on FPS type skills then it would detract from the immersive RPG experience whereby the player "becomes" the character in the game world. Fallout is an RPG; if that is not what you are looking for then play something else and leave us RPG gamers our own niche. I almost wish that Fallout 3 had NOT been released on console so that the true Fallout fans would be spared the indignity of hearing the complaints of the unwashed console FPS masses who play War Game 200X and Madden Football 200X and then complain when they don't "get" Fallout and ask why it couldn't be more like any of the other forgettable console games which come and go each year.
Parent
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I play games on consoles, I've never owned a Madden game, never owned a WCW/WWE game, don't play NBA, don't play ESPNfoo. Pl
Id Software (Score:2)
I find it odd that they bought Id Software for their engine technology only to sing the praises of the Gamebryo engine instead. If the Gamebryo engine is so great, why do they need Id Tech 5?
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Gamebryo and Id Tech 5 are different engines for different purposes. Id Tech 5 is good for some games that Gamebryo would not be suitable for and vice versa.
The games rock, but the character models are poor (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure if the engine referenced is responsible for rendering graphics. I am a HUGE Bethesda fanboy... I'll admit it. I LOVE Oblivion and all of it's DLC as well as Morrowind and Fallout 3. However, those plastic looking expressionless faces are sub par for such fantastic games. I realize that this is a difficult thing to accomplish with current technology and that most games suffer from this to some extent. The other thing that bugs me about the engine is that the women are very manly looking. If I were Bethesda, my big focus for my next engine iteration would be on having the character models show at least a little bit of emotion and make the women look like women.
The game mechanics portions of their engines are wonderful and their talent at creating atmosphere in a game is spot on. That has got to be quite an achievement in games where people play for sixty to over a hundred hours. Their games never feel terribly repetitive to me. I stay engaged pretty much the whole time.
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SPOILER!!!
It's probably related to the crashed alien spacecraft in the original FO3 content.
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Re:Recycling skins and textures from other games? (Score:4, Informative)
Alien spaceship? Seems like a bit of a deviation from the Fallout universe, unless I've missed something....
You have. There was a discoverable crashed alien ship in the original game as well as the third installment. The DLC is just extrapolation on the concept.
Parent
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I also remember finding that solar powered alien raygun in Fallout 2 (or was that Fallout 1?) which was extremely powerful in the early game.
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Also, in Fallout II, in the lowest deck of the giant ship (aircraft carrier? Can't remember) there were actual alien bad guys. Not greys, but they were labeled as aliens.
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Not really. There were all kinds of aliens in Fallout 2...Once you got to a high level, they'd attack you reasonably often in random encounters.
If anything, they're less common in Fallout 3. As it stands right now, I think there are a couple of "set piece" random encounters with alien stuff. This will just build on that.
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In addition to the other examples given, the "Wanamingos" that inhabited the mine in one of the towns in Fallout 2.. I think it was Redding.. were identified as "Alien" when you targetted them. I think the 6-legged centaurs that hung around with Super Mutants were also identified the same.
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Not really. There have been space aliens in each Fallout (in Fallout 3 it is a crashed one where you get the Alien Blaster). On top of that the original intent of the Enclave was to simply leave this planet in a space ship. So...not that far gone.
Re:Recycling skins and textures from other games? (Score:5, Funny)
not to mention their art department is apparently composed entirely of people using 10 inch laptop screens from 1997 with the brightness and gamma turned all the way down.
At least that would be my guess considering their obsession with making EVERYTHING glow like the freaking surface of the sun covered in a layer of radioactive maple syrup whenever HDR or bloom is on.
Parent
Re:New stuffs (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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What they need is more powerful enemies. As soon as I learned the run-up-close-engage-vats-pump-burst-from-chinese-assualt-rifle-to-head-of-enemy trick, the game got _incredibly_ easy.
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Gauss Cannon and T-51B Winterized armour didn't count?
(Went Deathclaw hunting with the Gauss cannon. Pop'em in the leg to slow them down, then start pumping rounds into the torso.)
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I don't know, I love the Chinese Stealth Armor but it kind of made the game too easy after that. The only thing I had any trouble with at that point were Albino Radscorpions when on Very Hard
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Oblivion of course had its bugs (its a pretty complex game...not to big of a surprise) but it was really a step up from previous titles by Bethseda. Even after all the patches, Morrowind still would frequently hang up for nearly a minute when changing cells for no apparent reason. Plus, tons of quest bugs (some of which were fixed with unofficial patches). Oblivion has no such problems in my experience, cell transitions are clean and generally fairly quick. This may not seem like a horrible bug but it was p
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one thing has remained a constant: the Gamebryo engine. Love it or hate it
I hate it.
it has been the foundation of what fans of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3
Like me!
have come to love.
What?!
Anyway, hopefully the guys at id can take a break from id Tech to do some bugfixing on Bethesda's version of Gamebryo.
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Or better yet... license id tech 5 for the next Elderscrolls game! Seriously, id's graphical fidelity and Bethesda's sandbox-making abilities... what could top this?
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Why did people have to spoil that? I didn't freaking get to stage 1-4 yet!
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Hey, stop stereotyping console players there's some of us that have no desire to ever play Madden. For all you know the OP could be playing the PC version of FO3.
Personally even though I'm supposed to be going to Little Lamplight to find a way into the vault, I'm just wandering around finding new locations and exploring. Heck, I haven't even been to Kvatch in Oblivion and I"ve put over a hundred hours into that.
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but in-house tech genious to tech genious, I wonder what kinds of conversations they are looking forward to with Carmack.
I imagine Carmack would laugh at them for using third party engines while flexing his awesome nerd muscles.