Pete Hines was interviewed by Shack News about Bethesda, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and some other stuff. Not much new has been said, although there were some interesting bits. Here are some snippets: Shack: So you're pretty far into development, I'd think?
Pete Hines: We're a fairly good ways
away. Projects reach different stages of development based on how many
people are working on them. You can have eight people working on a
project for a year and a half and still consider yourself in
preproduction just because they spend so much time speccing out what
they want to do and how it's going to be implemented. But yeah, we've
got a full team working on it now. Of course, as we said with all of
our stuff, we don't believe in showing it or even talking about it
until we can say, "This is what we're going to do." That time is not
that far off.
Shack: This year?
Pete Hines: Oh yeah, yeah. It actually shocked us how long ago it was that we announced that we got the rights
to Fallout 3. It surprised all of us! We all said, "Really? That long
ago?" [laughs] All we had really done back then was announced we
acquired it. Nobody was working on that. We just had to put something
out because Interplay is publicly traded.
... Shack: Have you spoken at all to the
original creators of the franchise--who from what I know already had
less complete involvement with Fallout 2 than with the first game--in
any capacity?
Pete Hines: We have, on an
individual basis. Some of those folks have contacted us on varying
levels, whether it's a "Hey, good luck" or a job inquiry or what have
you. Not really formally though, no. Again, it's one of those things
where I have a lot of respect for those guys. I was a huge Black Isle
fan, and all those RPGs coming out of Interplay at the time. I loved
Baldur's Gate, Fallout. It was fantastic. Way back when, when I wrote
for the Adrenaline Vault, Interplay was one of my companies. I used to
cover all their stuff and play everything they put out. I still have my
shrinkwrapped copies of Baldur's Gate and Planescape. They did great
stuff for which I will always have tremendous respect. But at the same
time, if we're going to move forward, we're really going to have to
move forward. We can't just say, "Well, let's ask these guys what they
think." As Fallout fans and guys who make roleplaying games and have
for over a decade, we have pretty good ideas about what we want to do
and how to do it.
Shack: Is there somebody at
Bethesda who is really driving the vision of Fallout 3, like Todd
Howard, or is it more a situation where it's the company vision?
Pete Hines: It's the vision of a
group of folks. Much like The Elder Scrolls, it starts with Todd Howard
who drives everything, but then there's definitely the lead designer,
lead artist, lead programmer. More than anything, those team leads are
the guys who champion for things, saying, "This is what it has to play
like, this is what it has to look like, this is how the systems have to
work." It's definitely a group of folks but at the end of the day it
falls on Todd to set the pace and and how he thinks it should look and
play.
Interesting. Anyways, you can go and read the whole article here. Thanks to VDweller and Kharn for the tip. |
