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Bethesda’s latest Inside the Vault spotlight falls on Fallout 3 Lead Designer, Emil Pagliarulo. This interview gets a little more up close and personal than some others I’ve read. Pagliarulo gives players an opportunity to glean a little insight on the man so crucial to Fallout 3’s development.

One big question posed is whether the video games industry is recession proof. Pagliarulo gives us an optimistic answer grounded in realism.

Because of the growing popularity of video games, I do indeed think the industry as a whole is recession proof, but that’s more of a high level financial statement. It doesn’t mean a hell of a lot for the people who work for companies that suddenly go under. That seems to have been happening a lot lately, and my heart really goes out to those guys.

I think we sometimes forget how young this industry really is. We’re experiencing the kind of exponential growth the film industry experienced in its early days, and with that comes a lot of growing pains — cancelled projects, studio closures, what have you.

So for the end user, it’s great. All video games, all the time. Steady releases at Christmas, sequels to your favorite games pretty regularly, even revivals of old licenses like what we’re doing with Fallout 3. I don’t see that ever ending. But I think for the people working in the industry, there will continue to be trials and tribulations for quite some time.

Get to know the man behind the machine on Bethesda Blog.

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Bethesda has announced that award-winning composer Inon Zur has created the original soundtrack for Fallout 3. He has an extensive repertoire of scores composed for video games, Hollywood film trailers, network television productions, CGI movies, and symphony concerts. Most recently, Zur’s music has been featured on CBS’ “Breast Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side” TV webisode series and the Marvel Kids webisodes for “Iron Man”.

“We’ve wanted to work with Inon for a long time,” said Todd Howard executive producer of Fallout 3. “He brings so much to the table, in terms of his talent, background, and the music that’s influenced him. He’s created a score that has epic sweep; from the lonely ambience of the wasteland to dramatic fights for survival.”

You can listen to three of his original compositions for Fallout 3 at http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/downloads/music.html.

via Press Release

Bethesda’s Peter Hines, producer for Fallout 3, talked to PlayTM about the controversial RPG sequel to Interplay’s Fallout series. The open world RPG will take players out of realm of the typical fantasy RPG into an alternate near future post apocalyptic world. This sandbox game will have players wielding guns and exploding ammo and making choices in a moral ambiguous setting that will determine which of the game’s many endings the player will get.

When asked whether he thought the Fallout setting was to far off the beaten path of most successful RPGs, Hines responded enthusiastically:

I think the gaming world is into big, sandbox games where you can go where you want and do what you want. When done right, there’s a big audience for that type of experience. We certainly saw that with Oblivion. I think the potential for a game like Fallout 3 might be even bigger because it appeals to an even wider audience in terms of the setting, and having guns and explosives instead of swords and magic, and so on. Based on the level of interest we’ve had in the game to date, it doesn’t appear the gaming world has moved on.

The interview covers Hines’ answers to many questions near and dear to Fallout fans as well to players new to the setting. there are several elements that define the Fallout setting. He promises the dark humor of the original series will be kept. Like Cid in Final Fantasy, man or mutant’s best friend Dogmeat can be your faithful companion if you wish it. For more details read the full article on PlayTM.

Bethesda marketing boss Peter Hines has been talking shop regarding Fallout 3 this morning, which is expected to launch sometime this Fall for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Some of the things covered include DLC, comparisons to Oblivion, PC specs, framerates, and the Xbox 360. Instead of giving you a complete rundown of the whole interview, I will just post exactly what he said so that no misinterpretations will be made.When speaking on DLC for Fallout 3, he stated that it was a possibility but that at the moment all efforts are entirely focused on finishing the game.

“Given how successful it was for us on Oblivion, certainly it’s a given that we’ll look into it and what we’d like to do.But I can’t tell you when, I can’t tell you what it would be, or what it would look like. Will it be bigger stuff like Knights of the Nine or smaller stuff? We’ve no idea. We’ll let folks know once we get down the road. Obviously we’ve done very well with [DLC] on Oblivion, but the big thing for us is that we’re still working on content for the game itself, and so all our designers and artists are pretty much totally engaged with that. So, until we’re done with that part of the process, we don’t ever think about whatever they’re going to be creating or whatever they’re going to be doing [after the game’s finished].”

When talking about the PC version of the game, Hines stated that it should have the same technical prowness that Oblivion had but that it is too early in the developmental phase to be discussing specs for the PC:

“The goal is that it’s similar to what Oblivion was for its time. So, it’s not Crysis but it’s not solitary, and hopefully it’s as scalable as possible. So if you’ve got a shit-hot machine and you’ve got all the latest video cards, and whatnot, then it’ll look amazing, but if you’ve got a standard gaming rig then it still runs good. I can’t tell you what [the specs] are yet. We don’t really hone in on what that’s going to be until we get into optimisation. Right now we’re still messing with a lot of stuff.”

He also revealed the development team’s goals as to frame rates which the aim is at 30 per second for all three ports:

“Thirty frames a second is our goal, so it’s running at 30 frames a second and it’s nice and smooth [for PC]. Yeah that’s our goal [frame rates across the board]. Right now we’re doing all the optimisation stuff. We’re still in the mode where we’re adding and changing content… Once we’re done changing content, then we can go back through and say, ‘OK, this is what the game’s going to look like,’ and [look at] where we can optimise the loading, and stuff like that.’”

Now comes the part where PS3 fanboys will be crawling out of the woodwork to cry a little, even though it has nothing to do with Bethesda preferring one console over the other -someone, somewhere, somehow will take this the wrong way.

When speaking of the console version of Fallout 3, Hines had this to say:

“The 360 is our lead development platform, so we got it working on that one first. I mean, we develop them all simultaneously, but one of them’s got to be the lead, so it was 360. We had a year’s head start on the 360 because it came out a year earlier, so we had final dev hardware to work with earlier on than we did with PS3. But as this point all three of them are pretty much on par. The goal is that, if I get three versions in here and hide the console or PC and just had them running on the screen, that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

So there ya have it folks. More on Peter Hines’ interview can be found on Videogaming247 who seem rightly impressed with what they have seen of Fallout 3 this morning - as much as I enjoy their gaming site, I can’t help but hate them a little for getting to see it in action.

Thanks: Videogaming247

Interplay is back in the black and ready to launch into the development business. The company’s  plans include sequels to popular titles Earthworm Jim, Dark Alliance, Descent and MDK.

As Gaming Today surmised back in December, Interplay is also seeking funding for an MMO based is popular on Fallout video game.

Interplay Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Herve Caen said, “2007 set the foundation for our growth strategy. Going forward, we have the vision, unique intellectual property, and low debt and operational costs to help us pursue financing for our various projects. Our new Website will streamline our ability to communicate development progress with the public, share brand information with the fans and support our customers.”

OK, the important part here is Interplay, the originator of the Fallout franchise is actually going to use its license to develop a Fallout MMOG. You can bet the members of No Mutants Allowed forum are celebrating. Gaming Today will give you more details as they come to light.

via Yahoo! Finance -  Press Release

There are new Fallout 3 screenshots on German site PC Games that reveal more of Bethesda’s vision of the Fallout setting. The visions are grim and gritty as you’d expect a post apocalyptic ruin should be. Here’s hoping that the black sense of humor that Fallout is known and loved for comes out in character interaction.

Check out the gallery over at pcgames.de for the latest screens.

Chris Buecheler of Crispy Gamer shares his journey of reconciling loving the old familiar Fallout and still looking forward to the new Fallout 3. Like many fans of the original games, the author was dead set against Bethesda taking Fallout 3 in a new direction. The traditional third-person isometric gameplay style is giving way to the first person engine used to render the fantasy title Oblivion.

A staunch adversary of the change, the author begins to reevaluate what it was that he actually loved about playing the original games. Realizing that Oblivion is his favorite title to come out in the last five years, he works his way to accepting that it’s nostalgia for the title that has been a roadblock to his acceptance of a new interpretation of Fallout 3.

It’s not going to be a third-person isometric game. It’s not going to be primarily comprised of a few shades of grey and brown. It’s not going to exclusively feature a turn-based combat system, nor is it going to star a descendant of the original Vault Dweller. It’s not being written by the game’s original writers or designed by the game’s original designers. It’s not even going to be set in California!

I’ve decided I’m fine with that, because here’s what is happening: The game is being created by a group of designers who by all indications loved the original Fallout just as much as I did. It’s being produced by a company that believes in lengthy development schedules so that they can cram their games full of content. It’s using an engine that, with some texture upgrades, is still visually stunning on modern machines and based on the screenshots I’ve seen so far can definitely handle “post-apocalyptic” as well as it handled “swords and sorcery.” Best of all, the first trailer they’ve released absolutely nails the Fallout feel.

As a huge Fallout fan myself, Buecheler has cut through to the heart of the arguments over Fallout, and come up with answers that resonate with me. I will always love the old Fallout, but I feel that I can learn to love Fallout 3 as well.

via Crispy Gamer

Fallout 3 lead designer Emil Pagliarulo gives Next Generation the goods on the inspiration and storyline behind Fallout 3. He also gets into how much advice a company should take from a fan base, especially one as outspoken as Fallout’s, before you stop taking it.

Pagliarulo knows quite a bit about inspiration and storyline. This “self-professed literature geek” is the developer behind the incredible, devilishly fun Dark Brotherhood story line in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. He also came in at #24 of the Hot 100 Developers list this year. He believes in pulling inspiration from as many different sources as possible to create somethi9ng new rather than rehashing someone else’s style.

“Life itself is pretty fascinating if you look at it. There’s a lot of inspiration to be drawn out there. I think that people sometimes make a mistake when they limit their inspiration.”

Story can make a good game great or merely mediocre. It takes both writing talent and an understanding of how videogames work to write a solid storyline for a game.

“…It sometimes seems like a good idea to attract a big name writer or an established writer in either the comic book field or some other medium [to work on your game], but the fact is, writing for a videogame is a very specific beast. You have to understand how to compliment the gameplay with your fiction, and the best writer in the world, if he doesn’t understand videogames, can’t make that happen.”

As for Fallout’s die hard fans, Pagliarulo says the trick is knowing when to stop trying to please everyone and put out the best game you can.

“You listen to the fans and respect their ideas, but once you start designing a game that they want to make specifically, then you can get yourself into trouble. One of the things that I love about Bethesda, and that we all love about working here, is we’re all pretty hardcore gamers and we know what we want, we know what’s fun, we know what we like and so we design for each other. We’re our own best audience.

So with Fallout in particular, we’re comfortable that the game is coming out this year—we can finally say that. The game is coming out this year, fall 2008. Knowing where we are in the project and all the work that is finished and all the work we still have to do, I think we’re all so wrapped up in the game that we’re creating, that there just comes a point where you just can’t worry what the hardcore fanbase is going to scream at you about on the forums, you know? You have to make the game that you’re making and know that it’s a good one and continue with that.”

Fallout 3 is slated for a Fall 2008 release for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

via Next Generation

Fallout 3, the post-nuclear RPG will be shipping this Fall for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and it has been, without a doubt, one of if not THE most highly anticipated games in recent history. Pete Hines, Bethesda’s VP of Marketing, stated in an recent interview that Fallout 3 may not be as large as Oblivion, but that it will be between 50-80% the size of the massive and awe inspiring 2006 Game of the Year.

“We’ve never bothered to walk across the world, but it’s between 50 to 80 percent of the size of Oblivion. It’s designed to feel like what the capital’s wasteland should feel like – a post-apocalyptic world where people scratch out an existence in these settlements – as opposed to Oblivion where it was the capital province at the height of the reign of this empire, with big bustling cities. It’s a change in scope and focus in what’s going on in this world.”

Set in Washington DC 200 years after a nuclear war, you will have to scrape and scrounge for existence in Fallout 3 and while it is never really explained how the world came to be this way, your path all boils down to player choice. Players will, however, be privy to why the super-mutants are there and get to interact more with the Valut-folk. According to Hines:

“Vault-Tec built the vaults, and you’ll see ads around the place with the Vault Boy saying: ‘Reserve your place in the vaults so when the bombs fall you’ll be okay!’ There are other vaults that you’ll come across – we’re not saying which ones or how many. In one vault, for example, there was one gun; in another everyone had a gun. And Vault 101 was closed and never reopened and it stayed that way.”

Other rumored vaults include Vault 69 which consisted of 999 women and one man. Every teenage boy’s fantasy come to life - but real men know better. You can read more of the interview here.

Via: Gameplayer

The latest Bethesda Fallout 3 development team member spotlighted on Inside the Vault is level designer Jeff Browne. Before Fallout 3, Jeff did work on DLC for Oblivion including Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles.

There are some interesting fluff comments in the piece that serve to give folks like Jeff a human face. Maybe Bethesda wants the rabid Fallout 3 Haters to realize that real people with real skills are actually working on the game and not faceless corporate automatons who are looking purely to squander the promise of the series in search of more silver widgets to build their empire. Or maybe not, I know the rabid Fallout fanboys in the audience have already passed judgment.

Especially funny was Jeff’s answer to this question:

What games are you looking forward to?
Planetside 2 - come on, someone in the industry has got to make it!

I hope that was a joke and no one at SOE was listening.

Get the inside story on Jeff’s work and tips on how to break into the gaming industry on Bethesda Blog.

The latest Inside the Vault from Bethesda Blog takes a closer look at the QA lead for Fallout 3, Kevin Kauffman. Kevin is in charge of coordinating testers and “Saving lives” by exterminating bugs.

Say you find a bug, that when fixed, will save the average user even one minute of confusion, and you multiply that time saved by the number of people that will eventually play the game, then divide that by 24 — what you end up with is the number of days of human living you have literally saved by reporting a single issue. Multiply that by the number of issues reported, and I start looking a little like Mother Theresa.

Read more about what motivates this QA saint on Bethesda Blog.

When Bethesda released a developer diary for Fallout 3 describing the background events leading up to persistent Brotherhood activity in war-torn Washington D.C., opinions on the piece ranged from applauding to outrage. Because of this, the folks over at No Mutants Allowed have decided to allow fans to come up with their own versions of how and why the Brotherhood are up to what they are in Fallout 3.

“Your assignment is to write your own version of this story, to tell it the way you would want it to be told, to set the Brotherhood up for the game you would want to play.

Your entry must be centred on the premise that the Brotherhood of Steel, or some group using their name and trappings, are operating on the East Coast. Who are they? What do they represent? What’s their history, what state do we find them in, what’s their agenda? We’re looking for stories that are ambitious, well-considered, well-written, consistent and believable.

All surrounding details are mutable. You can but do not have to refer to other aspects of the setting and plot of Fallout 3 that have been revealed or hinted at, or try to guess at undisclosed plot points. You can frame your piece however you like, but don’t forget about the content.

The judges will pick the best entries based on style, substance, and legacy and the winner who wrote the best story will be awarded a poster-sized print of any one art piece by renowned fan artist Defonten: City Ruins, Cafe of Broken Dreams or Brand New Reno.

For full contest details and rules, visit the NMA website. If any of our readers decide to enter, be sure to let us know!

A new US/UK Fallout 2 Restoration Project version 1.1 is available for download on the No Mutants Allowed Forum. This update fixes several bugs from the first release of the game and adds in new dialog.

Unfortunately, because the expansion requires the tweaks made by Timeslip, the update is only available for Windows at the moment. No OSX has been announced yet, but check back with NMA as the Fallout 2 Restoration Project updates with fixes and new content should be available fairly frequently.

Link: Fallout 2 Restoration Project Installer Version.
Link: Fallout 2 Restoration Project Thread.

via No Mutants Allowed

A recent developer diary from the lead designer of Fallout 3, Emil Pagliarulo, discusses one of the series’ most notorious factions, The Brotherhood of Steel, and reveals some new concept art in the process. The Brotherhood of Steel is a small group who desire the most advanced technology above all else. Thus they travel the ruins of a post-apocalyptic U.S. searching for pre-war equipment and information, which brings some of them to establish a base in a devastated Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, while trying to deal with the problem of super mutants in the area, the Brotherhood becomes divided over what their main objective should be. Pagliarulo goes into much greater detail about what happened, but that’s essentially the state of affairs when the game first starts. I guess this confirms that D.C. will definitely be a location in the game, though I still wonder if we’ll be able to travel to the West Coast, where the events of the first two games took place. That release date can’t come soon enough.

Via Official Fallout Site

Bethesda is offering a few lucky people the opportunity to play Fallout 3 before everybody else. The company is looking for Quality Assurance testers to help work the kinks out of titles under development before they’re released into the wild. Bethesda often picks interns out of the QA pool throughout the year. It also hires for the development team from within first, so being a great QA tester could easily lead to bigger, better things.

Programming experience is always a plus although the real must have qualification is a love and enthusiasm for Bethesda’s games. Given the hours playtesters are required to put in on games, you’d better like them.

via Bethesda Blog

There’s a lot of excitement over at the No Mutants Allowed forums. Kilap has finally announced the completion of the Fallout 2 restoration project and the release of the unofficial FO2 expansion.

With a few of his fellow modders, he has worked tirelessly to add back in all the content the developers originally intended for the game. There are six entirely new areas and many established sites have new areas as well. Town content has been expanded to include new NPCs, quests and items.

Kilap promises a new experience in playing an old favorite. Another expansion is still to come to add back in the Shi submarine as well

Fallout is a game series that has gathered a fanatical following over the years. There is much controversy over Bethesda creating a slightly sanitized version of Fallout 3, and much anticipation over the possibilities raised by an Interplay Fallout MMO. No Mutants Allowed has been following a Mod team working on their own version of Fallout 3, and although I’m curious as to what they come up with, I’m sure the IP infringement will come into play eventually. All this is great news for Fallout fans. The more choices the better. Bring it on.

via No Mutants Allowed

The latest Side Quest feature article from RPGWatch, “Manipulation and Perversion” invites readers to explore the choices or illusion of choices games present to players. Games that are often regarded the best in their genre, particularly RPG offer player choices that result in actually consequences they must face later in the game.

Side Quest articles are incomplete editorials designed to provoke discussion. This article starts a conversation about developers manipulating gamers to choose the “right” path through the story and the tendency for gamers to want to pervert that path for the sheer Ss and Gs of it.

They picked two great examples to talk about, CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher and Planescape: Torment. These two games dare players to choose the path less trod, and you never know whether you chosen path is a perversion of the “right” one or whether the developers wanted you to choose that way all along. Read cautiously as there is a very minor spoiler for the first chapter of The Witcher.

Personally, I enjoy the challenge of a story with many twists and turns where you never know which path is the one intended. In fact one of the reasons I have so thoroughly enjoyed The Witcher is that there are really no righteous choices to be made. Often you are choosing what you perceive is the lesser of two evils and no matter what you choose there will be positive and negative repercussions later on.

Bethesda claims they’re planning Fallout 3 as such a game; with many different endings to it based on character choice. I’m looking forward to seeing it in action. What’s your take?

via RPGWatch

In the January ‘08 edition of Playstation the Official Magazine, a top 10 list of PS3 games for 2008 was featured. Fallout 3 was ranked at #5 while a short Q&A with Bethesda’s Emil Pagiarulo was given as well. A user going by the name of §ÇåßßL€ (scabble) over at the GameFAQs message board was nice enough to transcribe that Q&A for us. Here’s a short excerpt from that Q&A:

PTOM (Playstation the Official Magazine): Your resume includes the “Thief” series and “Oblivion” (particularly Dark Brotherhood quests,) so you like the sneak-and-stab style of gameplay?

Ah, and there are a couple of new Perks (special abilities you choose when leveling up) I think stealth-loving players are going to really enjoy…

scabble also keenly pointed out that “obviously, kids [in Fallout 3] don’t have pockets.” - Nice one.

You can read the entire(?) transcript after the break.

Read the full article

Jason D. Anderson talked with GameBanshee on Fallout Online Interplay’s unnamed MMOG. Anderson, a Fallout and Troika veteran, is serving as the creative lead on the project.

Even though I have been away from the game industry for the past couple of years, I have kept in contact with people. Hervé has wanted to do this project for a long time, but has not been in a financial position to move forward. He and I have been talking about it for nearly a year and he has worked steadily to get the project up and running. I have always felt that it was one of the few projects that could entice me back into the game industry. I am very happy to finally get a chance to work on it.

Catch up with Anderson; from the details on his hiatus from the gaming industry and his take on MMOs on GameBanshee.

Bethesda Softworks’ Pete Hines, V.P. of public relations and marketing, took time to interview with CVG about the latest Bethesda title in the works, Fallout 3.

Hines Talks about Bethesda’s learning experiences with Oblivion, and where they plan to take that experience in Fallout 3. Fallout 3 should feature even more re-playability than Oblivion. The world won’t be as expansive but there will be several ways to complete quests. The players’ choices will open new story paths and close off others as they progress. There will be anywhere for 9 to 12 different endings to experience.

Hines also touches on the MMO possibilities for the Elder Scrolls with XeniMax Online Studios. The MMO rights for Fallout belong to interplay. Read the full article on CVG.