Gikoku
driftin' along.
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2007
- Messages
- 4,897
- Reaction score
- 2,389
- Points
- 305
Fallout: New Vegas
--------------------------------
Alright guys, more Fallout New Vegas news. I'm putting the snippets etc. in spoiler tags so people don't have to endlessly scroll through the quotes and can pick what they want to read.
J.E. Sawyer on Fan Feedback & Dialogue.
Bethesda's "Fallout: New Vegas" fact sheet.
Collection of previews from Obsidian's Las Vegas press event.
Click the logos for the full previews/articles.
More soon.
--------------------------------
Alright guys, more Fallout New Vegas news. I'm putting the snippets etc. in spoiler tags so people don't have to endlessly scroll through the quotes and can pick what they want to read.
J.E. Sawyer on Fan Feedback & Dialogue.
Do you have any particular approaches to NPC dialogue/chatter to help with immersivity and without them coming off as useless bots, taking up space, and never adding much lore or relevant information?
I am a believer in what Obsidian calls "barkstrings". Generic, rank-and-file characters in the world typically do not have full dialogue trees. Instead, they have a large list of reactive one-off lines that they will say either in passing or when you interact with them. As long as barkstrings react to things in a meaningful fashion, it's usually more satisfying than drilling generic characters for generic information through a dialogue tree.
Background characters should also be engaged in meaningful action. A world where people endlessly, randomly mill about feels like a world without purpose. Communities should have a focus and characters within communities should have roles that they fill.
-----------------------
What's it like working in a field where everything you put out is scrutinized by online fan groups, many of whom will trash or ooze about the game despite its faults?
You either get used to it or you don't. Some developers never get used to it and basically shut out/write off fan feedback entirely.
Throughout my career, I have felt that it is incredibly important to read and (when possible) respond to fan feedback. It helps professionally ground you and it forces you to defend your ideas to the enduser.
The challenge I sometimes face is getting past my initial aggravation at a person's tone to ask what their underlying concern is. But if I can do that, I usually find that they are reasonable -- even if I don't think I can make them happy.
-------------------------
What kind of balance do you try to strike between player-driven events and plot-driven events?
Within the context of "Obsidian-style" RPGs, we tend to give the player a lot of options, but they are still designer-created events. These options can reward a player's investment or character choices, but ultimately it's just picking from a pre-defined menu.
Personally, I try to push our game play in directions that allow players to create their own stories. I want people to enjoy the stories and characters Obsidian creates, but I also want our game play to be compelling and dynamic enough that player stories overshadow our meager choose-your-own-adventure plots.
Reading through someone else's story can be entertaining and satisfying, but if you get the opportunity to create your own, that adds another layer of enjoyment.
---------------------------
Can a game tell a complex story mostly through environment and inference on the part of the player, or are exposition dumps inevitable?
Certainly. I actually prefer this kind of storytelling, but it can be tricky to pull off. If a developer were to establish hard and fast rules for presentation in a game, I'm sure they could have a rich, complex story with minimal exposition.
I think games like Ico show that developers are capable of presenting narrative in a lot of untraditional ways. I'd like to work on a game with no dialogue -- or dialogue that's all spoken in nonsense/indecipherable language, with intonation and facial expressions being the player's only hints at what's being discussed.
Bethesda's "Fallout: New Vegas" fact sheet.
Collection of previews from Obsidian's Las Vegas press event.
Click the logos for the full previews/articles.
Our final excursion is to Helios 1, a Poseidon Energy power station occupied by the NCR. Reputation with that bloated, bureaucratic faction grants you access to the station's inner sanctum, where a surfer dude posing as a scientist, calling himself Fantastic, runs the plant at 1 per cent efficiency. Get past the pre-war security system and you could re-route the power anywhere you like: to McCarran to benefit the NCR, to Fremont to help out the local poor, evenly across the whole region... or to the plant's dormant defence system, an insanely powerful orbital laser. You can then command it at will anywhere in the environment: your own, private apocalypse. Avellone uses it to turn on his NCR allies and decimate their troops. In doing so, he demonstrates Obsidian's gleeful embrace of the player freedom and destructive abandon that were the hallmarks of Bethesda's already legendary revival of Fallout. But there's also a richness, a texture here that really harks back to the original Interplay games - not surprising really, given Obsidian's own Interplay heritage.
We only saw the dialogue checks several times during the demo, but it appears that in certain situations, barter (and possibly other passive skills) can be used in a similar capacity to speech and you can rely on the skill you have higher points in when another doesn’t cut it. Interestingly, the game will also show how many points you have in a specific skill area versus what you need to pass the check in the dialogue tree. Seems like it will make the game less punishing for those who don’t pump points into their speech skill (fools!).
Using a varmint rifle, we watched several overgrown geckos' heads explode with a few quick shots. There's a kill cam that can be set, which slows down the final shot and makes your kills feel more cinematic, but this can be turned off if you don't like seeing limbs fly in slow motion. Sawyer said that geckos were a favorite from Fallout 2 and that there will be tougher versions to fire at later in the game. The core controls, as well as the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (VATS), remains mostly the same, and we later found out that special skill options have been added for melee attacks. Sawyer explained that there wasn't a lot of development time for New Vegas, and because a lot of people played Fallout 3, the developers didn't want to make any drastic changes--just improvements to the existing controls. He also said that aiming should be more responsive, reactive, and predictable. To discourage players from always aiming for the head, certain weapons will be more effective against limbs. At times, a red shield icon will appear to let you know that you're dealing less damage per shot and that it might be a good idea to switch targets to conserve precious bullets.
One other significant tweak, besides skills and combat, is how companions (Sawyer shows off two: a soldier named Craig Boone and a ghoul named Raul) work. Sawyer's basic rule for companions is: "They should feel helpful without replacing the player -- you should maintain and command without babysitting them. But your companion shouldn't just win a fight for you." Instead of a brief and cumbersome dialogue tree like in Fallout 3, you use a handy companion wheel interface that lets you easily perform activities such as switching weapons, managing inventory, healinh, and adjusting tactical behavior. Though, since companions are more active and manageable, that means you can't simply treat them as pack mules and dump items into their pockets -- they'll likely try to use those items.
Your journey will eventually take you to Novac, another town with a huge point of interest. In this case, it's Dinky the Dinosaur, the aforementioned T-Rex, complete with the Dino Bite gift shop and a sniper's nest inside of its mouth. This is where the developers introduce you to companions, characters who have their own storylines and will follow and fight for you; the first is Craig Boone, ex member of the New California Republic, or NCR. Not only is it good to have a buddy come along, but you can manage him or her using the Companion Wheel, examining their health, A.I. state and weapons used; you can give them weapons. Over time, you learn that a crazy super mutant named Tabitha (essentially a dude in drag), AKA the commander of Black Mountain, holds a guy named Raul captive. So, you set off to kill everything in your path to save him; you'll run into the Nightkin, tough mutants with the power to cloak. That said, you should have acquired both the Anti-Materiel Rifle (a 50-caliber monster) and one of New Vegas' best weapons, the Grenade Machine Gun. This bad boy lives up to its name, as it spits grenades like an automatic rifle discharges bullets, one after the other. The mission concludes with you saving Raul and slaughtering Tabitha and her brood. And in case you ever wondered what a mutant would look like in a blonde wig and lipstick, it isn't pretty.
There seems to be a reverence for midwestern Americana at work in New Vegas. Aside from the tumbleweed feel of Goodsprings, a couple of the other towns Obsidian revealed during the demo I saw featured things like an old amusement park--where you fought bandits right up and down the tracks--and one of those gigantic roadside dinosaurs (Dinky the T-Rex, in this case) that you'd see off the interstate while driving across the desert. Dinky just happened to be the home base of a group of local rangers who were running their operation from within his metal frame, so stuff like this isn't just for window-dressing. But it does add a lot of personality, and some of that trademark Fallout humor.
Black Mountain suffered many nuke explosions. As a result, its communications array is almost completely destroyed. But one station, called Black Mountain Radio, remains, broadcasting a warning: super mutants are plentiful, it says, and if you've got any sense you’ll stay away. Chris doesn't of course, and approaches the super mutant camp, taking a route that seems to have been carved into the ground just for stealthy players to enjoy. "We tried to make sure with our level design that we included stealth paths that go into all locations so sneaky characters feel special and can take advantage of the lack of security in some areas," he says.
We didn’t get to see the strip, which, at the time of our demo, was “still under construction, both literally and figuratively.” We did get a few hints as to its content, though. It won’t contain any real-world casinos, but will contain properly-themed ‘50s establishments, and gambling is available both on and off the strip. The strip will “be Vegas,” said Obsidian, so take that however you like for now. We were also told that the game’s cast is on par with Fallout 3’s, and that licensed music will be “appropriate to the setting,” and may contain, at least partially, a selection of Country Western songs.
OK, this one shouldn’t be that surprising. Fallout: New Vegas adds some new perks to the character mix. Want to know more? Here’s a little teaser.
“We’ve introduced a new dialog perk called terrifying presence,” says Sawyer. “It allows you to, when someone basically confronts you, instead of talking your way out of a fight you terrorize the person who’s threatening you to the point where they all run. It initiates combat, but they all run for the hills. Some guy comes up to you and says, ‘Man, you just screwed with the wrong guy,’ and you’re like, ‘I’m going to f---ing cut your head off and wear it as a hat,’ and they’re like, ‘Holy s---!’ and he freaks out and as soon as it ends he and all of his crew just run. It gives you about five seconds where they’re just running in terror from you so you can just go off on them. But it’s just one of those things where every once in a while it just comes up in conversation and you can just lay it down.”
The locations are plentiful and varied. Primm – a small town encircled by a rollercoaster based on a real-life place. Novac – under threat from Caesar’s Legion, home to Dinky the Dinosaur and amusingly titled due to a few letters falling off of a ‘No Vacancy’ sign. Black Mountain – a dark and dangerous place filled with mutants. There is also a location known as the Helios One Solar Energy Plant. Occupied by the New California Republic, Helios One was built during the pre-war years by Poseidon Energy (from Fallout 2) and currently isn’t fully operational. You can choose to help get it up and running and divert power to the NCR, or you can spread the power out across different locations, or you can choose to use the Archimedes II orbital laser to turn against the NCR.
More soon.
