Bethesda Softworks' Todd Howard stopped by the official Fallout 3 forums on July 3rd to apologize for not delivering on the community fan interview
after nearly six weeks of inactivity. Included with the personal
apology was the promise of a completed interview along with community
exclusive screenshots to be delivered on Monday, July 7th.
Ok, I know this has been a long time coming. Too Long. I just wanted to
drop in and apologize. It’s 100% my fault, and Gstaff can tell you that
he’s asked me every day for the last several weeks for it and I keep
saying “today!” but the days seem to be getting crazier and crazier.
Finishing a game is kinda like that. Anyway, I finally started
answering it today, and was hoping to have it up before the July 4th
holiday, but that’s not going to happen. So – it will be up Monday,
writing that here makes me stick to it as opposed to just telling
Gstaff. And to seek everyone’s forgiveness - we’re also going to put up
some exclusive images here on the forums, just for you folks who have
been waiting. Thanks for your patience, you guys have been great.
Update: The interview and exclusive screenshots are now up. 1) Which of the following, if any, will be featured in Fallout3~
Romance, Sex, Homosexuality, Nudity, Prostitution, Slavery,
Cannibalism, Children, Child killings, drugs, addictions? And of the
things that won't be featured, can you explain why they won't be
included in the game?
It touches on most of those. Slavery,
children, drugs and addiction more than the others, as those factor for
into the setting more. In regards to nudity and child killings, no, it
features neither of those, as they don't really add to the flavor of
the game (I'll get into children in the next question more). I think if
you look at Fallout 1, and the footprint it has with the topics you ask
about, Fallout 3 is pretty much the same, in that it features the types
of things you mention at about the same rate, no more, no less. Drugs
and drug addiction play a larger role perhaps, as it's a key gameplay
device. I think the heart of this question is "has the harshness and
maturity of the world of Fallout 3 been tempered from the earlier
games?" and I can certainly say "No, it hasn't been."
2)
Are children and otherwise non essential or non-quest related NPC's
vulnerable or invulnerable to accidental or purposeful (deadly) harm?
And how about quest essential people? Please elaborate as much as you
can, especially on why you choose to do it that way.
You
will not be able to be a child killer. There are several reasons for
this, some of them are very basic, like we wouldn't be able to sell the
game, anywhere to anyone, if the children could be killed. I'm not
using that as a scapegoat. We never wanted the game to offer any
incentive or desire to be blowing kids away, so from our initial
designs, we didn't know how we were going to handle if you shot them,
we just knew it was going to be a big no-no, especially with a system
like VATS and the graphic fidelity the gore has. Anyway, when attacked,
all children flee and any regular NPCs friendly to the children will
instantly attack you, so it feels good in the game, in that there is an
appropriate response.
In regards to essential NPCs, it works
like Oblivion, in that when they "die" they get knocked "unconscious"
and get up a little while later. It worked well in Oblivion, so we kept
that system, as you can still attack everyone that you want, and get at
least a small benefit (being able to avoid them while they are down). I
will say that the number of essential characters is minute compared to
Oblivion and we've gone to pretty big lengths to cover a lot of
people's deaths, but sometimes that's just not possible.
Read all 25 questions here. Exclusive Screenshots: Megaton Bar
Shotgun on Robot
Pip-Boy Skills You can read his apology as well as the resulting discussion here. |
