Slashdot Mirror
Fallout IP Sold to Bethesda Softworks
In what I can only see as good news, the Fallout IP has been sold to Bethesda Softworks. A long, long time ago simoniker posted that Bethesda was licensing the IP from Interplay; as of earlier this month, they now own it lock, stock, and barrel. Gamasutra reports: "According to the filing, first spotted by Fallout fansite No Mutants Allowed, the purchase of the Fallout license and accompanying IP was settled on April 9th of this year, with final payment installments expected to be delivered by the third quarter of this year ... In an interesting twist, as part of the agreement Interplay now acts as a licensee of the IP as it continues to ramp up production on its own Fallout-themed massively multiplayer game, first announced in 2004 alongside Bethesda's sequel, and shown via internal documents as recently as December to have a projected $75 million dollar budget and launch date of 2010."
I'll be happy. Well, and make it a game worth playing.
A fantastic IP ending up in the hands of such a crappy developer. I'm certain Pipboy is crying his eyes out right now.
Given Bethesda's miserable track record, any new Fallout games will now:
* Be mostly focused on the usual crap pc developers seem to live for, water effects and shiny metal armor on things
* Be obscenely buggy
* Run like crap - too busy making thing shiny and tweaking the water reflections to be bothered with all that messy and tedious rendering optimization stuff
* Use crappy middleware like Gamebryo because no one of any competence works at Bethesda
* Really,really long. And really,really boring
Farewell Fallout. You will be missed.
This is basically the death certificate for Fallout. We'll never see a Fallout 3 which the fans have been screaming for. Bethesda has a wonderful track record when it comes to their own Elder Scrolls game. They have a horrible track record for everything else. Their games are now (and will probably remain as such) X-Box 360 Games which are poorly ported to the PC. They have shown no desire for turn-based strategy games. They have so far refused to say whether or not Fallout 3 will be turn based or not, or whether or not it will use the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system that Fallout fans have grown to love. Star Trek: Legacy was a pathetic failure. They did a great job getting the voice-acting together, but then they threw half of the plot out the window. Just read some of the blogs of the writers for that game, and they've clearly said as much. The gameplay, the actual GAME that Star Trek fans had such high hopes for... was awful. Bethesda is going to give us Fallout 3... but it won't be the same game that we know and love. They'll convert it and change the gameplay so that they can mass produce it. They'll want to have it on the PC and all the consoles. They'll make it for the X-Box 360, and then do a terrible port of it to make a PC version. They won't make combat turn-based, because in spite of legions of screaming fans, turn based combat is too "niche" and won't appeal to the masses enough. Gone will be Fallout's mature content. Drugs, hookers, swearing? Gone. We'll get a watered down Fallout universe which is nice and PG-13 friendly. Remember, this was the company that took all the blood out of their own game, Oblivion, because they didn't want an M rating. Bethesda is going to give us a game. MAYBE it will be a good game. But it won't be Fallout 3. Unless they come out and say that they are making a turn-based combat role-playing game, it won't be Fallout 3. At best, it will be a bad spin-off, like the other forgotten Fallout titles that have emerged since Fallout 2. Actually, I thought that Fallout: Tactics was a pretty good game. If they drop the ball on this, they fully have the capacity to KILL the Fallout franchise once and for all. I'm still praying though. I really really really am. I hope everything I just said is completely false (Except for what I said about Star Trek Legacy, and Bethesda's habit of making awful PC ports. That's all true.)
So we get Fallout 3 *and* a Fallout MMORPG?
Should I file for that divorce now or later?
I see this as terrible news, myself.
I realize that Oblivion is a very popular game that a lot of people like. But I just can't get into it. If anything, it's too open-ended - it feels like someone sat down, made a universe, took a week to throw a plotline into it, and then spent a year or two making side quests. I never feel like I'm having a real impact in the world, and I feel like most of the world is in stasis waiting for me to walk by and solve their problems.
I wouldn't even mind all of that, except that Bethesda appears to have no sense of which features are important and which are not. Sure, you can become a vampire. That's great and all. But why is my inventory so hard to navigate? I could do without becoming a vampire if they'd just make the interface not suck. (Yes, I realize there are now third-party mods for this. A game shouldn't need to be modded to be playable.) At least they're getting better - some of the bugs and glitches in Morrowind were hilarious. It's like nobody ever bothered to sit down and play the game, they just decided to put every awesome feature possible in it without any thought to polish.
I think that, fundamentally, Bethesda needs to sit down and make an MMORPG. Their design style is practically ideally suited for it, and once they see what horrible problems their "game balancing" creates, they might learn how to balance a damn game for once. But I have to say that I'm not excited in the least about what Bethesda does anymore, and I'm deeply saddened that they now own the Fallout series.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
I have a great deal of misgivings on this. I really don't think Bethesda should be in the business of making RPG's. Their games have been [in my eyes] a downward slide since Daggerfall. Morrowind had fantastic atmosphere, but the combat and most importantly the Quests and NPC's, were incredibly boring and dull. Oblivion vastly improved the graphics and combat, but the NPC's actually got worse: They retained their wiki-like dialogue from Morrowind, except with fewer things to talk about. What they could talk about was vastly reduced in length, to keep voice-overs from getting too large, and each race only had one or two voice actors, so you get things like a beggar talking like a nobleman and then going back to talking like a beggar.
Furthermore, the atmosphere and setting took a nosedive. Lore was completely thrown out; what made Morrowind so exotic and alien was gone. Instead they went with a classical fairytale look. [Cyrodiil is supposed to be a jungle.] But by far the worst thing they did with Oblivion was the level scaling. One of the biggest draws of Morrowind was to go exploring in dungeons for valuables, there's absolutely no point to this in Oblivion. Everything is scaled to your level. It doesn't matter where you go or what you do; any treasure you find is scaled to your level, almost all the monsters are scaled to your level. There's no challenge, no mystery, no reward. You might break into a rich nobleman's house, but it doesn't matter if you pick the level 90 lock on his treasure chest, because all you're going to get are a couple gold coins and maybe a rusty dagger.
If this continues, Fallout 3 isn't even going to be an RPG. Oh, they're going to call it one, for sure. But I think the game, like Morrowind did from Daggerfall, and Oblivion from Morrowind, will slip so far away from the RPG genre, that you'll barely even be able to call it an RPG. [Unless of course, you consider and RPG as just 'playing a role'.] I really get the feeling it'll be something like Diablo, but with guns.
Where to begin, where to begin...
First, there's plenty of blood in Oblivion. There's even an option you can set to make it have even more blood than before.
And Oblivion was rated M.
Star Trek: Legacy wasn't developed by Bethesda, it was developed by Mad Dog Studios and published by Bethesda.
Co-developing games for consoles and the PC (like they did with Oblivion) is not the same as developing a game for the console then porting it to the PC. Even Morrowind was developed as a PC game then ported to the X-Box.
Bethesda's "refusal" to tell the public about game mechanics is a direct result of the Fallout fanbase (namely NMA) having this twisted sense of entitlement that you're showing so well. With you guys, Bethesda is damned if they don't and damned if they do. I sometimes wonder if NMA et al. would be happier if no new Fallout game was being made, ever.
Ridiculous Fallout fans like to harp on the "it's not Fallout without turn-based combat", as though many other famous RPG series never made the jump from turn-based to realtime combat. Are you seriously going to tell me that Ultima 7 isn't a real Ultima because it has real time combat instead of turns?
You idiotic Fallout cultists seem to think that Bethesda is going to kill Fallout. I have news for you, Fallout is already dead, going on for nearly a decade. Bethesda is your only hope of seeing it come back to life. I suggest you come to terms with that.
Holy fuck.
The only way i can undestand the following is that even though Interplay sold the licence they still have the right to the MMORPG and they will be making it, not Bethedsa, who will be making fallout 3.
http://www.nma-fallout.com/
Under the License Back the Company obtained an exclusive license, under certain conditions, to use the IP for the purpose of developing an Interplay branded Fallout Massively Multiplayer Online Game ("MMOG").
Interplay pledges to obtain funding for and start the development of the MMOG within two years and to successfully launch it within six (which entails securing the continual patronage of a minimum of 10,000 paying subscribers), or else forfeit this license. Some additional excerpts:
2.6 RESERVATION OF RIGHTS. Any and all rights not explicitly granted to Interplay hereunder are reserved by Bethesda.
5.3.2 Interplay shall not offer or provide any products or services whose nature or quality does not comply with the quality standards of Bethesda.
7.0 PAYMENT OF ROYALTIES. Interplay agrees to pay Bethesda a Royalty of twelve percent (12%) of the Net Cash Receipts derived from the sale and distribution of the FALLOUT MMOG, including sales of subscription fees or access fees to the FALLOUT MMOG or any other revenues generated by the FALLOUT MMOG, in the Territory during each calendar quarter following the commercial launch of the FALLOUT MMOG.
Yeah, because we all trust rumours that surface on april fools day...
:P
Fool
I personally am going to wait and see. I have no problem with someone other than Interplay taking this on. The major reason I say this is because the original Fallout was a game I dreaded. I loved Wasteland and I was like, shit, they(The same company that made a bunch of crappy star trek games and a bunch of shit that is not worth the media it was put on) will not make a game as fun as that. Well they did. So I think I'll give Bethesda a try on this one.
Did you snort cocaine before writing this? The only good news that could have come about fallout was that interplay had pulled the rights and was locking them away until a developer worthy of them showed up. Fallout will not survive the Bethesda treatment.
You'd think that Bethesda had raped everyone's dog the way people are reacting to this news. I would have thought Slashdot to be a little more open minded and thoughtful than NMA.
Just because you didn't like Elder Scrolls doesn't mean Fallout will be bad.
Just because they made Elder Scrolls doesn't mean Fallout will be LIKE Elder Scrolls.
If you don't want Bethesday to make it - who the hell DO you want? Should the IP just sit unused until everyone forgets about it? Should we let the next generation of gamer's only impresssions of it be the Interplay MMO? At least wait until you play a demo or something before you start screaming bloody murder.
I realize some people love Oblivion but I think Oblivion epitomizes what's wrong with PC gaming. It's a fabulous tech demo but otherwise lacking real substance and style. Bethesda seemed to be so obsessed with creating a photo-realistic world that they've sucked the life and art out of the game. I have to admit that those landscapes look phenomenal. But then you walk up to any NPC and they look goofy. Monsters look like claymation and humans look like second-rate actors from some crappy fantasy movie.
I haven't seen a single NPC from Oblivion or any of the expansions that doesn't look goofy. They don't look like people who would inhabit a true fantasy world. They don't have battle-hardened bodies, some even have a chin fat like they've eaten one too many pop tarts. Many look like they probably Bethesda employees complete with the look of amusement at the fact that they're going to be featured in a game.
The tech demo feel never leaves me, what with the obsessive use of texture mapping. Almost everything in Oblivion has this lumpy wet look. It feels like it's there to impress the viewer as opposed to actually adding substance to the game.
Then there's the ridiculous gameplay mechanic of enemies scaling to the player's level. Doesn't that defeat the whole point of leveling up in an RPG? It seems like an ill-conceived solution to the leveling problems encountered in Morrowind. I'm inevitably left with the impression that the developers didn't spend much time thinking about gameplay.
Then there's the performance aspect. Oblivion is one of those games that can make a 1 to 2 year old machine feel obsolete. Buy a console and performance isn't even an issue. There's comfort in knowing that not only will the system handle any game designed for it but the games will almost certainly improve throughout that system's lifespan. Not so with PCs. I can't help but think this alienates many PC gamers. It alienates me and I much prefer PC gaming over console gaming.
But Bethesda like other PC developers are obsessed with pushing the limits of hardware. So gamers get stuck with the same old genres with not much to look for but increasingly realistic graphics with little style. World of Warcraft doesn't have anywhere near the graphical sophistication of Oblivion, but I think it's far more entertaining to look it because it has such a strong sense of character. I'd argue that a single screenshot of the most recent Final Fantasy game has more creative style than all of Oblivion, even if Oblivion is more impressive technically. But I just don't feel like there's a real sense of creativity.
I didn't really intend on getting on that sort of rant about Oblivion. But I think it illustrates what I expect from any new Fallout game. I expect Bethesda to apply the Oblivion approach to Fallout. It's going to be another lifeless tech demo that wont run well on anything but the latest hardware.
Game mechanics are what made Fallout great? Here I was thinking it was the storytelling, dialogue and setting that made Fallout great. Even for its time, Fallout had simplistic turn-based combat, terrible AI, and a horribly unbalanced skill system.
The ability to re-map keys doesn't make anything "self-evident" about Oblivion's development. Your precious Fallout didn't include the ability to re-map keys, and I doubt you'll be arguing that it was originally developed for a console. I'll give you that cross-platform development may lead to compromises, but the outright paranoia and hostility exhibited by the Fallout fan community is nothing but FUD.
1. Game balance: PLEASE, oh PRETTY PLEASE, make the game (monsters, items) not level up with the game.
/additional/ items the player gets given require him to do.
/informed/ consideration to the types of bonuses given by leveling, just picking stuff at random like someone who doesn't understand all those long technical words. It's not fun to those of us who ARE trying to achieve their best using your game mechanics (i.e. attempt to obtain the best "numbers" that the game mechanics allow us to). It's our way to try and get ahead, win. Your system encourages game mediocrity, and throws us to hell.
I realize it's a seriously cheaper solution than paying a group of people play the game many times to find the fine line between laughably easy (and thus not fun) and impossibly hard (frustrating and thus not fun), with properly controlling player's access to powerful items and monsters in an open-ended world. It's the ultimate challenge for someone who makes an RPG. Your choice in Oblivion did not sidestep the issue. It FAILED the issue. The game may have been fun to people who play it with a side-quest tick-list, not really caring what comes between tick and tick, but your core crowd, both oblivion-side and fallout-side, will be the people who diligently explore every nook and cranny of the virtual world, expecting to be rewarded by some meaningful (read: NOT scaled and otherwise easily-attainable) item that was scaled to their level anyway and could have thus been found in any easily-accessible container. You have done this in some places in Oblivion, you need to do it MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE. I've reached numerous hard location, and found nothing but items my level would have gotten out of any other, usually easier to come across, chest.
2. Random Treasure - NOT IN HARD-TO-REACH locations. Well-protected or Hard-to-get-to chests, whether in dungeons, some hard-to-find sunken ship, some well-locked-up merchant's house etc should NOT EVER be random. They should have unique and helpful items, to reward diligence in getting to the hard-to-reach location.
3. Your game system, XP (as in experience points, not the OS) and SPECIAL.
XP is a WONDERFUL concept. It is the utterly best coin by which you can reward a player. Better than gold, better than items. There is NEVER enough XP (and if there is, bump your level cap). XP should buy levels, and levels should buy abilities that COMPLEMENT those given by items, not require you to displace old items like
Oblivion had no XP system. (as a side-note, XP and levels were a bit on the uninfluential side, considering you didn't get any edge over anything by leveling up, if anything, even after all the new items that magically appeared around the world, you could still barely keep up with the monsters).
It had a leveling system that screamed macroing. If you'd stand in one place and jump 5000 times, you got more bonuses when you leveled up. It was geared towards semi-exploitation, i.e. do something the game allows to get more powerful, but spend a lot of boring game time doing it. So you choose between either boring yourself to death, or throwing powergaming out the window. BAD choice to impose on your clients. powergaming SHOULD NOT be made boring.
Further, if you accidentally level up (by practicing your chosen skills - this might be by running enough for example) before you practiced the skills that would give you the correct attribute bonuses, you MISS OUT on the bonuses. To anyone who is informed of his char sheet and future development plans, Leveling in Oblivion is an annoying minefield to be meticulously planned from day 1 and very carefully treaded throughout the game, instead of the satisfying gameplay perk it should be. I realize you can just play the game and ignore leveling bonuses, but that's no better than playing any RPG without proper
Enter SPECIAL, fallout's levelup/skill system. Like Oblivion, albeit in a very different way, it is classless (as compared to, say, classic AD&D). But it isn't jus
-
I am a huge fallout fan! I own all the games, and played them all through a couple times (including the Xbox game... which I would give a solid C-, it was mildly entertaining! It is definitly worth a $9.99 bargain bin purchase!), and I am definitly looking forward to Bethesda doing a new Fallout game.
:) ) Aside from Bioware, Bethesda are an excellent choice. I would rather see a Bethesda game than to let the IP become worthless and totally die out. What do you think are the chances of seeing another Starflight game? Or another Populus? Or another Elite? Or another Wing Commander? Or another Space Quest? Game IPs die out, you know!
Seriously, who else would you rather see do a Fallout game? (OK, who else would you rather see do a Fallout game besides Bioware?
I love some of Bethesda's attitude, but...
The whole point of an RPG is that you make decisions, and that resolution is based on your CHARACTER'S skills.
Bethesda has really stressed interfaces where combat resolution is based on the PLAYER'S skills.
I can't see this working out well for Fallout, where a great deal of the fun was being able to make characters with widely different abilities. Bethesda will give us a twitch-friendly game with realistic graphics but a combat system that's more FPS than RPG. And it will, no matter how good the graphics are, be a waste of time, because it won't be Fallout.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I have never seen such a pitiful bunch of whining elitist crybabies as I've seen in this thread. I'm thinking of applying to Bethesda just so I can work on Fallout 3, make it rubbish, and watch with glee as you fling yourselves off the nearest cliff, mewling with self-pity all the way down to the welcoming waves.
P.
Personally, I like Oblivion, but for every one thing I love I can name three things I hate. It saddens me to see that Bethesda now owns the Fallout series. It saddens me because I am sure it will turn out to be "The Elder Scrolls V...er we mean FALLOUT 3" where Bethesda takes the same tired, uncreative template and forces a great design into an old, bad mold. I would say that Bioware (or wherever the original dev team is now) could do it better, but I doubt it. I almost think Fallout 3 would turn out better if it were made by some no name developer who had a lot of experience with the original Fallout and was willing to take it in a new direction while staying true to what Fallout is.
I just don't see this happening at Bethesda. They already have it in their heads the game they want to make, regardless of the IP. Fallout 3 is just going to be the same old tired Bethesda game with a new Fallout theme. And, most likely, they won't give it the amount of time it needs and will just churn out a buggy, lackluster product. And I will go out and buy it. And there is probably no way that Fallout 3 could live up to anyone's hopes, which is why no more games should probably be made based on fallout, let the Franchise die with some decency. But we all know that isn't going to happen. It is like hoping for a good X-Men game - never going to happen.
I am hoping that all my speculation is wrong and that I am totally surprised by Bethesda's Fallout 3, but my hope hangs on by a thread called "past experience" and while past experience holds up pretty well over time, in this case it is certainly nothing to pin one's hopes on.
Future indie game developer of America (and possibly Canada)
Have a look at http://www.fifengine.de/. Looks promising.
I could swear the big fuss about this was three years ago. I think you guys are a little behind.
Blerg.
Same here. Add to that the Baldur's Gate saga, Ultima VII parts 1&2, and Star Control 2 and you've got my list of never-get-old, must replay games. Probably a few more.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
I could say more but I would be just repeating parts of your post...
I saw a radscorpion the other day...
--random Fallout 3 NPC
If they did do it Oblivion FPS style, imagine how awesome it would look the first time you were ambushed by a Deathclaw. Or come around the corner to find a supermutant wielding a flamethrower.
/me misses him some Krrldraav.
I liked Oblivion, but other than the fact that it barely ran on my computer, I didn't play it long enough to hate it or find all those bugs people complain about.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deeply or not at all."
Thaat rumour has been verified by several people.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I'm kind of struck by the fact that Interplay actually sold the rights to Fallout, when they had already sold the license a couple years ago. This kind of sounds like they don't have the funds to work on their Massive online version. Could this be a desperate move for some quick cash? I doubt that we will ever see that Fallout Online version. More than likely, Interplay will fold like a deck of cards. Shame really...
Didnt know what to think about Bestheda getting getting the rights to Fallout, I knew it wasnt going to be isometric and that worried me, but after playing through STALKER I have to say I am looking forward to what this game might become. Stalker was able to make a great First Person Shooter that wasnt too linear and told a great story with a great atmosphere. Creepy, desolate enviroments, I can look at Fallout 3 and think of getting attacked my a Bloodsucker in Stalker and applied it to be a Bloodclaw instead.
The humor and the inside jokes need to remain tho, hopefully whoever pens the script for the game has a clue, as well shitty voice actors wont be appreciated either.. blowing your cash on getting Patrick Stewart to say like 5 lines and letting the rest of the voice acting suck ass wont do.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Cautiously optimistic I think nicely sums up my feelings.
Really, both arguments are pretty valid. We have all seen crap from Bethesda, and we have also seen gold. Some of us like the games, some of us deplore them. It should go without saying, but we all have tastes and personal preferences and developers know they cannot make everyone happy. That being said, we all need to remember that devs are people too, and these guys (and implicitly gals) making the game are, in fact, gamers. Or at least were. Or have some investment in gaming. These guys know what kind of fanbase they bought with the rights, and I cannot assume that they will botch it too badly. (of course, I could very well be chewing on my hat when these games come out, like I said, I am trying to be optimistic here)
All that being said, I was uneasy at the thought of a non-isometric Fallout game. When one thinks of Fallout, on thinks of isometric view. However, everything evolves, things change, and technology is better. Thinking about it, I look forward to exploring the world from a more natural perspective. Being able to look up at buildings, the walls of Vault city, or across a landscape are all things that are immersive, as well as being snuck up on by bandits or deathclaws. I look forward to more detail in the world, and being able to stride through the Wasteland.
However, I do worry about the implementation of XP, perks, skills, etc. The main thing I worry about is dialogue and individual characters. I felt that the Elder Scrolls series is pretty lacking in memorable NPCs. Granted, Fallout had plenty of identical villagers, but there was a pretty hefty slew of characters.
Worst case scenario we stick Fallout 1 and 2 back in the old CD tray. Nothing will ever be better than the originals, eh?
In what I can only see as good news, the Fallout IP has been sold to Bethesda Softworks.
This is correct, if you havn't actually played Fallout before. If you have, and you're hoping for a real follow up then it's really the worst news you could recieve. Bethesda Softworks have made a lot of good games, and a lot of people love the elder scroll series. But they have never, in any of their products, displayed any of the morbid humor, dusky moral or brilliant dialog that made Fallout into Fallout. They are not alone though, noone has ever really captured the essence that is present in all Black Isle (later Trokia and Obsidian Labs) games, but Bethesda Softworks probably couldn't be further off than they are.
Of course this doesn't mean Fallout 3 is going to be a bad game, it may dissappoint Fallout fans by the hordes, but the newer generations of gamers are probably in for a sweet experience. A quick stroll around the Fallout fan community will show you that I'm hardly the only one who thinks Bethesda Softworks making a Fallout is going to turn out bad - there are pages of fan written arguments as to why it's a bad idea on communitie like NMA - and it makes me wonder why Bethesda Softworks simply didn't build their own post apoc world from scratch.
But we'll see what happens, hopefully I'm wrong.
I'm afraid Fallout is merely a name for a vision brought forth through a group of guys at Black Isle. I predict the future Fallout's will suffer the same fate Zelda had when Nintendo sold it's rights to the CDi project. You got a new Zelda game... it sucked, but you got a new Zelda game. I will stand corrected if some of the same guys at Black Isle are working on these new Fallout projects but somehow I don't think any of them are. Kind of like how I noticed James Cameron had nothing to do with Terminator 3. Sure, I was watching Arnold shoot guns and follow the whole Terminator story in a movie but the visionary (Cameron) of the first two cinematic masterpieces were obviously not there. Same with Fallout. But I still have hope...