[Fury]

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotGames/~3/108658367/article.pl

One less IP for Interplay to stick onto. Whether the IP is now in any better hands remains to be seen.

[Turnsky]

as long as they don't turn it into a post-apoc elder scrolls and stick to the isometric look of the games, as well as its "SPECIAL" system.
it should be oaky... i hope

really, Fallout stopped being great the moment Fallout Tactics was released, fun as that game was.

[Fury]

I hope they ditch turn-based fights though, real-time like in Baldur's Gate felt so much better.

[diceman111]

I just hope they dont F*** it upp as they did Star Trek Legacy

[Turnsky]

I hope they ditch turn-based fights though, real-time like in Baldur's Gate felt so much better.

an option between the two would be preferable.

[phatosealpha]

Pure turn based or bust.  It's the nature of fallout - and unfortunately, an option between real time and turn based means neither will be balanced properly (see Arcanum).

Real time battles based on turn based systems always feel half assed and non strategic to me.  Torment, BG2, Kotor - all like that.

Moot point anyway, since it's Bethesda now, and it's gonna be first person or bust.

[Rictor]

really, Fallout stopped being great the moment Fallout Tactics was released, fun as that game was.

what's wrong with Fallout Tactics? It happens to be the only Fallout game I've played and therefore solely responsible for me having an interest in the franchise. The gameplay can get a bit hard, but the atmosphere/universe is done to perfection.

[diceman111]

really, Fallout stopped being great the moment Fallout Tactics was released, fun as that game was.

what's wrong with Fallout Tactics? It happens to be the only Fallout game I've played and therefore solely responsible for me having an interest in the franchise. The gameplay can get a bit hard, but the atmosphere/universe is done to perfection.

Must agree here and besides The Brotherhood Of Steel Are the coolest if you ask me where a bit disapointed they really wherent in Fallout 2

[Turnsky]

really, Fallout stopped being great the moment Fallout Tactics was released, fun as that game was.

what's wrong with Fallout Tactics? It happens to be the only Fallout game I've played and therefore solely responsible for me having an interest in the franchise. The gameplay can get a bit hard, but the atmosphere/universe is done to perfection.

there was nothing wrong with Tactics, it just symbolised the demise of Interplay(although that "brotherhood of steel" game on the consoles was better proof of that), since while it sold well, it wasn't developed by any of Black Isle.. you really oughta do yourself a favor and get the first two fallout games, Rictor, they're great, a bit more on the RPG-y side than Tactics, however.

[diceman111]

I have 2 copies of Fallout 1 (Could only buy Fallout 2 in a best buy thingy with fallout 1 in it) and of cource fallout tactics

[brozozo]

I hope they ditch turn-based fights though, real-time like in Baldur's Gate felt so much better.

I hope not. I felt Tactics was damn near unplayable in real-time mode.

Pure turn based or bust.  It's the nature of fallout - and unfortunately, an option between real time and turn based means neither will be balanced properly (see Arcanum).

Real time battles based on turn based systems always feel half assed and non strategic to me.  Torment, BG2, Kotor - all like that.

Moot point anyway, since it's Bethesda now, and it's gonna be first person or bust.

Again, I disagree. I felt all of those games bled strategy. Not as much as in Torment though, but that game wasn't really about combat. You do know that you can change the options so the game more resembles a true turn based game, right?

[phatosealpha]

I know the varying autopause options, yes.  I do not feel they make the game resemble a turn based game any more then a pause button makes tetris turn based.  They did little to dissuade me that it wasn't just a game desperately reaching for an action gamer crowd, while losing much of the calculated tactics of a true turn based game - all for zippo payoff, since the games combat systems simply don't lend themselves to heart pounding blood rush moments. 

D&D and related rpg combat systems are designed for turn based play.  If your going to discard that, you might as well discard the entire system wholesale, and simply grab a few elements, probably heavily edited, that will function in a well designed action based system.

Probably the most straightforward example is good old fireball.  In a turn based system, it enjoys a number of small advantages over a real time - in particular, enemies who have low initiative will not be able to move out of the area of effect, nor will enemies who have already moved be able to move again to evade it.  This is a considerable strength.  In real time, everyone has the oppurtunity to move out of the blast radius - it's not really all that large, and people tend to move fast.   You have very little chance to effectively calculate what all enemies (and in many cases, AI allies) as they all will be constantly moving.

Now, there are ways to offset this - you can remove casting times entirely, or allow a mage to retarget right before the spell goes off.  However, none of these games did anything even remotely along those lines.  They simply ignored any effects the changeover would have.  This is what I mean by half-assed.  They changed the nature of the game, and didn't adjust the details to match.




At any rate, to me, it's a moot point.  Whatever Bethesda makes, it will not be fallout.  And since Oblivion was a lot of blah with a very small set of cool moments, and Morrowind was the most ridiculously unbalanced game I've ever played, I'm not feeling too positive about it.  Perhaps by some small miracle, they'll capture what I enjoyed about Fallout.  But I ain't gonna hold my breath.

[achtung]

How much did it go for?

[diceman111]

1$ and 20 cents      

Honestly dont know

[brandx0]

AFAIK it was an open auction. 

A secret Interplay employee planted into the auction began the bidding at a packet of skittles (and was promptly fired.)  After this, Microsoft upped the Ante by offerring to provide free copies of Vista to all Interplay employees, but after a wave of suicides Microsoft removed its bid.  EA was next up, and bid a dozen donuts and a promise that their version of Fallout would have the "Best Graphics Ever Seen" and "At least two weeks spent on programming, tesing and bug fixing."  EA, however, was outbid by Derek Smart with the first serious bid of one million dollars.  Shocked at this development, however, the remaining bidders all pitched in to buy a dozen coke machines and quickly pointed Mr. Smart in their direction, in the hopes that his destruction of these would keep him occupied until the bidding ended. 

Now cash strapped, however (most developers were under the impression that the licence would be sold for under a hundred dollars,) the bidding commenced in waves of small candies, pastries, and household pets until Bethesda showed a demo of their latest elder scrolls game, waited until all the other bidders fell asleep (Bill gates lasted the longest, surviving an entire seven minutes of video before slowly nodding off to sleep) and snatched up the licence for the price of:

• One copy of the december 2004 issue of FHM
• sixteen bottles of evian water
• Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"
• And one pack of Export 'A' Light King Size

This is all true

[chief1983]

No one should really be surprised by this, Bethesda has been developing Fallout 3 for several years now I think.  They had the rights to use the license, now they own it.  Probably won't change a whole lot about Fallout 3, but it does obviously give them the right to capitalize freely on the franchise post-F3.

[Zenzic]

I'd play Fallout with FPS view.

I think it could be quite fun. Time of Isometric views is long since past.
and if they do make it 3rd person RPG, similar to Baldur's Gate // Fallout // et al.  then i sincerely wish they allow us to rotate the camera.

Don't get me wrong Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 very brilliant. and if i want to play Isometric game those are on the top of my list. I sincerely hope they don't make Fallout 3 isometric.
Yes i know i am setting myself up for flames.

As i read on some other forum, "Bethesda will make Fallout 3, the way they want it. It will sell millions, and those 'fans' that really wanted Fallout 2.5 will cringe and die. But atleast franchise won't be dead, and most likely gain new fans."

[phatosealpha]

You know, fixed camera isn't a gripe for me.  I look at Silent Storm, and realize it's not a huge issue in terms of gameplay.

[Zenzic]

matter of play style, the camera thing.

If it's third person, i want to be able to rotate the camera, i want to see all the nooks and crannies of the level.

[phatosealpha]

Right.  Don't see why anyone would really gripe about it, except maybe that it requires using polies instead of sprites, but I doubt anyone really things sprites are going to happen anyway.  And it's not like fallout was going out of it's way to obscure stuff.