Q: Will there be character titles that you gain from certain actions / quests? (Like “Destroyer of Worlds”)
A: Yes, there will be titles related to your level and your alignment on the sliding scale of Karma/Reputation.
Q: How is the AI different from Oblivion?
A: They have updated the AI a lot to make all of the characters inhabit the world more realistically, in OblivionFallout 3 will
just have a few hundred. They focused on getting more interaction with
NPC’s, and if someone was doing something they wanted to get it on
screen so that it was clear to the player what the NPC was doing. The
dialogue has also been created to be more believable on an NPC to NPC
basis, which was very evident in the demo. they quoted about 1,000-1,500 NPC’s while
Q: What about the radio on your Pip-boy?
A: You can tune in to various of the world’s stations (such as Galactic
News Radio) and either listen to it passively as you play the game and
hear about events that are taking place, or even possibly pick up
random signals in the wastelands that could lead to quests or give you
a heads up on some raiders heading your way. Though the radio is mostly
flavor stuff, they’ve licensed about 20 songs from the 40’s and there
are DJ’s in game that talk about what’s going on in the game.
Q: What is there as far as Melee combat?
A: They’re not talking about this yet, but they did say they
are making ammo scarce in game and so melee will be playing a large
part if you don’t manage your resources carefully.
Q: Will the storyline feature any current political commentary?
A: Very little, if any, as it is all centered around the
fictional world of Fallout. There is a lot of in-game propaganda about
China, having invaded during WW3, and some super mutants were carrying
Chinese built rifles.
Q: Will there be a lot of old stuff from the Fallout games, and/or will there be a lot of new stuff?
A: There will be a lot more old stuff than people are expecting, but new stuff as well.
Q: Will there be Mutant Powers?
A: They’re not talking about this yet.
Q: Will there be unkillable NPC’s?
A: There will be some, but they expressed sadness at this, and said they are putting as few unkillables as they possibly can.
Q: Will there be any returning characters from previous games?
A: Not talking about this yet either.
Q: What is left to be done for the game between now and fall 2008?
A: They’ve just finished pre-production, though what they
showed us looked like a very complete demo of the game, and that now
they will have a year of solid production then playtesting. They
repeatedly stressed their abundant confidence in the fall 2008 release
date.
Q: What does Bethsoft bring to the game?
A: The idea of free-form game design, experience in developing
that type of game. Todd expressed the idea in a game of, “never give
the player a reason to stop”. They really wanted to use the best
technology they could to create the game, and create it to a level of
quality so that there is nothing which puts players off from it.
Q: How long is the main quest? How much gameplay time before the game ends?
A: The main quest they estimated at about 20 hours of
gameplay, with about 20 hours more of possible miscellaneous quests and
side stories. They wanted to add as much replay value as possible, and
provide a lot of different choices in misc. quests each time you go
through the game. Based on your decisions, various doors will close and
open to the player.
Q: Are they doing a lot of things to make Fallout mainstream?
A: They’re “just doing what is cool”, they admitted that games
today have a huge emphasis on graphics, but that they wanted to bring
back some retro gaming features (ie - speech trees)
Q: Is this just the Oblivion engine?
A: It is a very supped up version of the same engine, with shorter load times
Q: Will there be Random Encounters?
A: “Maybe.” The way it was said meant ‘yes’.
A few things were discussed in a more open ended discussion at this point as everyone got tired:
The game world is very different from that of Oblivion, as
it takes place mostly in DC and the few suburbs around it. There will
be Day/Night and weather in the game, and the game is definitely named Fallout 3.
There was a lot of discussion about the balance between realism and
fun, and how they are hoping to strike the perfect line of balance
between the two. There are no plans to include the original game as an
unlockable. It was discussed that Oblivion had a large focus on scale, whereas Fallout 3
focuses on detail and a much smaller scale. There will be collectible
bobble-heads in the game, some of which teach you special abilities or
something like that. There are also vaults other than 101 in the game.
