BT: And can you tell us about the script and how you approached that?
Pete: Well, there’s a lot of it. There’s more dialogue in Fallout 3 than there was in the first two games combined and we really tried hard to give different options and routes, so you might get certain options based on your karma and character type. Your strength might be high enough that you can say X, or you have a certain perk so you can say Y – stuff like that.
BT: So, you can change the course of a quest based on what you say?
Pete: Yeah. You can pass-by quests if you act the wrong way to people. If someone asks for help and you say ‘No, screw you’, then you’ll almost pass that quest by.
BT: So, if you’re consistently bad to people then do you get sucked into a different path through the game?
Pete: No. We don’t detract that, so if you do bad stuff and say bad things then your karma will go down and affect a few things, but it’s more important that the response you get on a case-by-case basis is appropriate to your actions.
What we don’t do is say ‘You are this level of evil, so you can do all this now’, because if it isn’t obvious the player that you’re doing that then the game is just arbitrarily deciding. You have to have it so that the player knows they are in control of something.
BT: What do you think is the most important thing Bethesda has bought to the franchise then?
Pete: Other than that it exists? Um, that’s a good question. At the end of the day, I’m not sure. I hope what we’ve done it bring forward the game so old fans can enjoy it all over again and the new gamers can discover it. I don’t know if there’s any one feature though – we’re just trying to balance between having the old tone and reinventing the franchise.
We’ve seen it so many times before, that if you just keep reiterating on what was done before then your franchise will die. We have hundreds of examples of games that we used to play and which are no longer around because all they did was copy the last game. We want to shake things up a little bit more.
BT: Have you ever felt limited by trying to make a game in a tone and topic that you didn’t create?
Pete: No! We’re very clear on what we think Fallout is and isn’t, so we’re just trying to focus on that. It’s almost the opposite, really. You get to a point in a game where you have to sit down and start fixing what you have, not just adding new things to the pile.
BT: And, slightly more mundane, what about downloadable content?
Pete: Yeah, we announced that back at E3. We’ll be doing exclusive content for PC and Xbox 360. Exclusive. Not timed. If you want downloadable content then we have it on those platforms. The prices should be the same and the intent is that it’ll be substantial stuff, like Knights of The Nine. Stuff that adds a good couple of hours.
BT: What do you think of the complaint that the stuff in the downloadable content should be in the game anyway?
Pete: I can kind of understand that. If you’re playing an eight hour singleplayer game and you have to buy something to add on an extra two hours then I can see people getting bent out of shape about that – where did a quarter of the game? But, when you’re talking about a 100 hour game and it’s a case of that after the game has shipped we have a few ideas for extra stuff then I don’t see the issue there.
I don’t know if there’s a notion that we add stuff to the game until the day we ship it, but that isn’t true. The first thing you is stop adding content and focus on fixing. Every time you add something new then you’re probably breaking something else.
You add a new Raider and... well, you’d be stunned. You move a rock and suddenly it breaks everything and every third person in the game falls through the floor. You moved a rock and it broke this and changed that and tweaked that AI pathing and…it just did, ok. So, I guess you shouldn’t have moved that rock.
And it was at this point in the interview where we had to wrap it up and go get back to actually playing the game. If you want to know our own thoughts about then you can check out our Hands-on Preview of Fallout 3, or you can just let us you’re your thoughts in the forums.
Pete: Well, there’s a lot of it. There’s more dialogue in Fallout 3 than there was in the first two games combined and we really tried hard to give different options and routes, so you might get certain options based on your karma and character type. Your strength might be high enough that you can say X, or you have a certain perk so you can say Y – stuff like that.
BT: So, you can change the course of a quest based on what you say?
Pete: Yeah. You can pass-by quests if you act the wrong way to people. If someone asks for help and you say ‘No, screw you’, then you’ll almost pass that quest by.
BT: So, if you’re consistently bad to people then do you get sucked into a different path through the game?
Pete: No. We don’t detract that, so if you do bad stuff and say bad things then your karma will go down and affect a few things, but it’s more important that the response you get on a case-by-case basis is appropriate to your actions.
What we don’t do is say ‘You are this level of evil, so you can do all this now’, because if it isn’t obvious the player that you’re doing that then the game is just arbitrarily deciding. You have to have it so that the player knows they are in control of something.
BT: What do you think is the most important thing Bethesda has bought to the franchise then?
Pete: Other than that it exists? Um, that’s a good question. At the end of the day, I’m not sure. I hope what we’ve done it bring forward the game so old fans can enjoy it all over again and the new gamers can discover it. I don’t know if there’s any one feature though – we’re just trying to balance between having the old tone and reinventing the franchise.
We’ve seen it so many times before, that if you just keep reiterating on what was done before then your franchise will die. We have hundreds of examples of games that we used to play and which are no longer around because all they did was copy the last game. We want to shake things up a little bit more.
BT: Have you ever felt limited by trying to make a game in a tone and topic that you didn’t create?
Pete: No! We’re very clear on what we think Fallout is and isn’t, so we’re just trying to focus on that. It’s almost the opposite, really. You get to a point in a game where you have to sit down and start fixing what you have, not just adding new things to the pile.
BT: And, slightly more mundane, what about downloadable content?
Pete: Yeah, we announced that back at E3. We’ll be doing exclusive content for PC and Xbox 360. Exclusive. Not timed. If you want downloadable content then we have it on those platforms. The prices should be the same and the intent is that it’ll be substantial stuff, like Knights of The Nine. Stuff that adds a good couple of hours.
BT: What do you think of the complaint that the stuff in the downloadable content should be in the game anyway?
Pete: I can kind of understand that. If you’re playing an eight hour singleplayer game and you have to buy something to add on an extra two hours then I can see people getting bent out of shape about that – where did a quarter of the game? But, when you’re talking about a 100 hour game and it’s a case of that after the game has shipped we have a few ideas for extra stuff then I don’t see the issue there.
I don’t know if there’s a notion that we add stuff to the game until the day we ship it, but that isn’t true. The first thing you is stop adding content and focus on fixing. Every time you add something new then you’re probably breaking something else.
You add a new Raider and... well, you’d be stunned. You move a rock and suddenly it breaks everything and every third person in the game falls through the floor. You moved a rock and it broke this and changed that and tweaked that AI pathing and…it just did, ok. So, I guess you shouldn’t have moved that rock.
And it was at this point in the interview where we had to wrap it up and go get back to actually playing the game. If you want to know our own thoughts about then you can check out our Hands-on Preview of Fallout 3, or you can just let us you’re your thoughts in the forums.
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