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Obsidian's Urquhart On NWN2, Fallout 3
Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with Obsidian Entertainment's Feargus Urquhart, as the ex-Black Isle founder talks about the formation of the Star Wars: KOTOR II developers ("I must have been at least an OK boss, or it was just Interplay almost going out of business, but of the 36 people working here at Obsidian, 18 of them are from Black Isle"), regarding updates to BioWare's engine for the 2006-due Neverwinter Nights 2 ("We are going over almost every inch of the engine to add new features and refine things that are going to stay the same. From a graphics standpoint, we are updating most of the graphics engine to support new graphical features like normal mapping"), and discusses the fate of the Fallout 3 license ("I think the team at Bethesda has their work cut out for them. This is mostly because there is almost nothing that they can do that will make the Fallout fans happy.")
It should be easy enough. Just don't be stupid.
Keep the feel of the original games. Update the engine all to hell of course and give us flashy things (we like flashy things), but don't go changing the basics. The feel of the world with the whole retro 50's nuclear age motif is perfect. Don't do something strange like give it a fantasy, victorian, or God forbid 80's theme. Keep the gritty feel that the environments had. Bring us new plot devices, but make sure our old favorites (Radscorpions, mutants, slavers, Brahmin, etc.) are lurking around every corner.
Most of all, don't go dicking around with the game system too much. Fallout fans are Fallout fans because the system was so beautiful. You had really good character customization with the perks, skills, and stats. It was like playing a REAL RPG!!! I can see them trying to simplify it or automate it or something really dumb.
There's also this trend to move turn based games into real time combat. Fallout doesn't need it. It goes along with the system and how it makes it feel like you're playing a real table-top style RPG. Just because the world is twitch oriented, doesn't mean people always want their games like that. Even twitch action gamers like to calm down and strategize their combat now and again.
We want new stories. We want a flashy new engine and updated technology. Beyond that, what's so difficult to understand? If they can't understand why we like the original games in the first place, they have no reason to be building the new one.
Luckily, I think Bethesda understands and will have little problem making us happy.
I think the team at Bethesda has their work cut out for them. This is mostly because there is almost nothing that they can do that will make the Fallout fans happy.
On the other hand, the way thins were looking, Black Isle couldn't make them happy either. I remember the rather heated feedback that Black Isle got, first when they said that Fallout 3 would have 3D graphics (although it would still take place in a 2D space like Fallou 1 and 2 did), and later when they wanted to make the combat real-time.
After that, they wanted to balance certain things. Balance is supposed to be a good thing, but the community hated it for some reason. I was stopped reading NMA-fallout.com's forums after the response to a Black Isle member mused about reducing the bonus from the Gifted trait so it would be an actual tradeoff like it was intended to be, and not a freebie.
Just about every new idea thought of - improved science skills, weapon creation/modification, decan and repair, more limited resources in the game world, even more grass on the ground brought some amount of backlash. I just don't think anything short of a remake of Fallout 1 will satisfy many of the hardcore fans.
I can think of a thousand things Bathesda can do wrong with Fallout 3, but the existing fanbase is too firmly set with the original engine. They have to realize that without renovating the game at just about every level, it won't go anywhere. An original-engine game would sell a couple hundred copies to the hardcore fans, but even the bulk of the original fanbase has moved on to more modern things. What the most vocal part of the Fallout community seems to want just isn't a viable game in 2004, especially not with the modding tools available for Fallout and Fallout 2.
Another example is Deus Ex.
They make a sequel and get nothing but complaints about stupid AI, poor performace, slow load times and so on. They complain about bad voice acting, unbelievable story and characters, lousy hud, actions not having any real impact on the story.
All problems that were the same or worse in the original game.
And the fans wonder why the publishers give up trying to make them happy and just release cheap mass market games using the IP.
Your post is a good example of not understanding what an engine is about. It's fun to see armchair developers touting about all the mistake Obsidian is making on this - I mean it's obvious, why should 36 obisidian employees be right when everyone who has seen a screenshot knows how bad the engine must be...
An engine defines an application framework, not fancy graphics. Since Obsidian is using another version of Aurora for KotOR, they must know pretty well what they are getting into.