GamesRadar US publishes the sightseeing article from OXM US, taking us through New Vegas landmarks, describing and showing Dinky the Dinosaur, Black Mountain Radio Tower, The Strip and Helios One.
Above: Best. Sniper. Position. Ever.
Black Mountain Radio Tower
At the center of the New Vegas desert sprawl is Black Mountain, aptly named for its scorched ground. It was hit more directly by a nuclear blast than other areas (such as The Strip), so it’s populated almost exclusively by the Geiger Counter-lovin’ Super Mutants.
The Strip
You might not see a beam of light shooting skyward from the tip of a pyramid, but the main hub of New Vegas will still be hard to miss from wherever you are.
J.E. Sawyer of Obsidian has written a blog post about some important writing rules Obsidian dialogues are supposed to conform with.
* Dialogue should inform and entertain players -- inform them about the world and quests, entertain them with interesting characters and prose. If you aren't informing or entertaining, think hard about what you're trying to accomplish.
* Write an outline. Really. Just do it. You should have an idea of where you are going before you set out. If you don't know where you're going when you write your conversation, chances are the player is going to get lost at some point.
* Always give at least two options. At a bare minimum, you should always have an option that says, "Let's talk about something else," that leads back to a node where you can say, "Goodbye." You may think that your dialogue is riveting and no one could possibly want to stop reading/hearing it, but believe me -- someone out there does.
* Never give false options. Do not create multiple options that lead to the same result. It insults players' intelligence and does not reward them for the choices they make.
* Don't put words in the player's mouth. With the exception of conditional replies (gender, skills, stats, etc.), phrase things in a straightforward manner that does not mix a request for information with an emotionally loaded bias ("I'd like to know what's going on here, jackass.").
* Keep skills, stats, gender, and previous story resolutions in mind and reward the player's choices. If it doesn't feel like a reward, it isn't; it's just a false option with a tag in front of it. Note: entertainment value can be a valid reward.
* The writing style and structure are the project's; the character belongs to you and the world. As long as the dialogue follows project standards and feels like it is grounded in the world, it is your challenge and responsibility to make the character enjoyable and distinct.
In an awesome move, Popular Science has made its entire archive public.
We've partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It's an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology's incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
TheGamersHub is running an Ask a Dev for Fallout: New Vegas, so submit any questions you still have. It's not clear if this is a set interview since they have no deadline.
Those of us who know how Bethesda (and most companies) works, know that all screens we've seen in the preview come from a standard press package. Bethesda usually releases these to the public later on, but looks like they got beat to the punch, as someone forwarded the screenshot press pack to Duck and Cover. So we've seen all these before, but enjoy the quality.
Apparently our earlier look at Fallout: New Vegas excluded a last, speculation page, in which PC Gamer US speculates based on tidbits they caught. Genma:The Destroyerposted them. They wouldn't normally be worth posting but the first tidbit is of interest.
Will this Brotherhood of Steel be closer to the original, closed-off group?
"Avellone let it slip that you had to be born into the Brotherhood-no joiners. Our guess is this Brotherhood will be hardcore, and much less friendly to outsiders."
With the return of Fallout 2's Gecko's, will th gecko-skinning perk also come back to let us earn a few extra caps from selling pelts?
"Our guess? Damn near certain."
The doctor that patches you up and gives you his pip-boy also gives you a Vault 21 suit. Will you visit Vault 21?
"It wouldn't be Fallout without a Vault or two to explore. And that suit might just get you in the front door."
A few months ago Senpay created a script to export Van Burens resources and since then the Fonline team appears to have been very busy. The video and screen shots show fully animated VB critters and people:
FOnline: 2238 Announcement, Jumping into the 3d era
(or: how we learned to not be that flat anymore.)
A long time has passed since we released our last developer video and really, it was about time this changed. The new developers video features a topic that we have been working on for some months and we are proud to finally have it in a shape to present it to the public: 3D models.
We decided to move the FOnline engine from a pure 2d to a 2.5d engine, due to the fact that sprite editing is a long and tiresome job. With every change on the player characters, it is nesaccary to edit more than 10.000 single images, even if it's something simple like a different hair color or a new armor type. The use of 3D models helps us in developing more and diversified content in a shorter timer span and still keep the look and feel of the original games.
After the release of the first 3d model converter for the Van Buren models (Van Buren - the code name of the cancled Fallout 3 by Interplay, for the ones who don't know it), we thought it was a great idea to reuse the material we could get out of the tech demo that has been released in 2007. Even if not complete, the build featured character models with already more than 90 animations and a lot customisations for body type or hair and beard styles.
In the third developers video, Anton "Cvet" Tsvetinskiy, FOnline main programmer, is talking about the details of how the new 3d critters are working and will work in the future of FOnline: 2238. Check it out:
The first update-wave will introduce 3d models for the animal creatures, such as models for the rats, ants, venus mantrap, thorn slinger, desert stalker or the lovely rad toads. Also a big content update is going to hit the server, which includes new game features and quests for both, PvP and PvE-friends.
In combination with this, the server has to undergo a full wipe. This will happen in approx one or two weeks at most, when the update will be available on the public server.
As an appendix, beside the video, here are some actual ingame screenshots:
- Cvet & Rotators
The FOnline engine will soon be made available for modders to create single player games of their own. This looks to be the future of all classic Fallout total conversion mods.
Some new Fallout: New Vegas bits were posted at Bethesda forum and at one of The Vault blogs. Those are from Swedish PC Gamer. Some of them sound quite doubtful, but they are posted along with already confirmed info, so I'm going to put those up too.
There is a mention of an abandoned school in the starting town as a training dungeon area.
You can solve the Powder Gangers problem by convincing Mayor Trudi to help you using stealth or small arms skills, or make the local trader give you dynamite using explosives skill. Also, you can use barter to convince the trader to arm the locals.
The robot seen in the intro is described as having a southern cowboy accent and talking very Ned Flander-ish.
There's a saloon called Prospector saloon. It is inspired by the real-world saloon. It is run by Trudy.
There will be a new sniper rifle.
You will be able to operate Helios One as long as the sun is shining.
The location with dinosaur statue is called Cabazon.
There is a location which is called Novac after it's broken "No Vacancy" sign. There's an old hotel.
There's a location called Air Conditioned Apartments, it consists of three men and a baby.
In the ongoing legal battle Interplay is fighting with Bethesda, Duck and Cover has a new court filing up with some information on Interplay's claims.
Here are the general points that Interplay makes:
Bethesda's Statement of Facts Contains Inaccuracies
Bethesda's Actions Reflect Bad Faith
Interplay is a "Prevailing Party"
The Attorney's Fees Requested Are Reasonable and Consistent With the Court's Standards
Basically, it appears Interplay is trying to argue that Bethesda only filed a Preliminary Injunction to mess with Interplay, and that since Interplay prevailed in that decision, Bethesda should pay the costs:
"The same arguments made before the Court at the hearing of Bethesda's PI Motion are reiterated in the Opposition [to Interplay's request for court fees] and have no more merit now than they did on December 10, 2009. Interplay disputes many of the alleged "facts" asserted in Bethesda's Opposition. More specifically:
Interplay did not forfeit its rights to use the Fallout mark upon termination of the Trademark Licensing Agreement ("TLA") as alleged by Bethesda, because it did not breach the TLA and hence, no termination occurred. Since there was no breach, Interplay did not forfeit its rights and could not have infringed the Fallout mark."
...
"Interplay contends that Bethesda has evidence ongoing bad faith in connection with the PI Motion and that the entire lawsuit is an attempt to deny Interplay the benefits of the APA merchandising rights and the TLA MMOG rights."
At The Vault the always busy Ausir gives us some details on the OXM US Preview of Fallout New Vegas.
Character creation is virtually identical to Fallout 3, with cosmetic changes like the Gene Projector being replaced by ReflectionTM, "You're SPECIAL!" by Vit-o-Matic machine and GOAT by a psychological test
The local super mutants are pretty tough and will keep you from wandering aimlessly in the early portions of the game - they tend to be tougher even than deathclaws
Sunny Smiles' dog is named Cheyenne. They'll assist you with the Powder Gangers in the Ghost Town Firefight quest if you help her kill some geckos.
The Varmint Rifle is a low-power .22 that does significant damage to limbs and has a high critical bonus
If your Barter skill is high enough, Chet the shopkeeper give you the 9-Iron golf club and some weapon mods
Every skill will have use in conversations at various points
Each firearm has a maximum of three modification slots. Once you affix a mod to a gun, it's permanent. Hunting Rifle modification examples given are scope, custom action and extended clip.
Temporary followers, like the Goodsprings folks that can help you defeat the Powder Gangers, will also be controlled through the companion wheel
Concept art of Hoover Dam and screenshots of the Black Mountain radio tower and the character standing inside the mouth of Dinky the Dinosaur shown
With high local reputation at Goodsprings, you'll get a free bed to sleep in and a discount at the store
Neil, a super mutant who hates Tabitha, can help you storm the mountain
Tabitha is actually a male super mutant gone completely insane
"Skill magazines" you find in New Vegas will only temporarily boost your skills
There's a rollercoaster in Primm
The combat gameplay was tweaked to be more first-person-shootery
The Bethesda Blog notes Europe's got us covered in New Vegas previews, as quite a few European magazines are running New Vegas cover stories. They list a few we've already seen (like the French Joystick and German PC Games), don't list the Finnish Pelit for some reason, and add the Italian WinGiochi, Swedish PC Gamer, Hungarian 576 Kbyte and Turkish Level, all of which should be in the stands/with subscribers by now. I would assume they're all based on the same demo showing, just like previous previews, so don't expect too much new stuff, but any local readers willing to give us new tidbits, please do.
Apparently, there's some new info on New Vegas in the current issue of a Finnish magazine called Pelit. Obsidian's forums user Flouride cared to post about it here:
Some new? info from Finnish gaming magazine Pelit:
- Weapons have unique/individual qualities. Some cause critical hits to head, others will damage your limbs severely for example circular saw will eat your fingers.
- Death animations vary depending which weapon you are using.
- Different gangs and villages might evolve during your gameplay while you are not watching. For example random Raider gang might find a hidden weapons cache and rise to power.
- One new picture (at least for me) which shows concept art of an NCR Ranger Armor.
Fallhope is a Russian Fallout 2 Van Buren TC. This mod is fairly young but has made some serious progress in a short amount of time. They put out a press release in Russian yesterday, which I have "translated":
The wasteland has again generated forces that may bring mankind to the verge of extinction. Life is one continuous fight for survival; people have changed and they are now ruled by animal instincts. Society will never be the same. Strength and instincts are superior to reason, and survival is the name of the game.
When the hard days seem to never end; when it seems that life is becoming a living hell, and there is no hope for tomorrow, a new hero appears. A Hero who can change the course of history. A Hero who can change the fate of the world
The secrets of wasteland lie not only beyond the limits of the prison, but much nearer than than you can imagine... You have many mysteries to solve:
- Who are you?
- Why are you here?
- How did you get here?
To many questions you will find many answers, and only you can decide which answers are true.
New quests will help you find a new, huge and unknown world.
New towns and the characters will appear before your eyes.
True friends will help you overcome the dangers of the road, where the enemy could be just about anyone or anything. You will feel a new fallout consume you. Every second of the game will tell you one thing:
You've lost it...
But you live...
And if you think of the future, then it exists...
It is!
And if you want it, you'll see it...
You'll see the most important thing in life...
You'll see hope!
Fallhope is a brand new game based in the same Fallout, which surprised us once, and passed the test of time left in our hearts. It will be combined with the hopes and dreams of FO fans, that have been waiting for Fallout 3 for all these years.
We believe that Fallout is a work of art, and it deserves more than a dozen years of life. We have great respect for the people who created this game and will continue their work on this Van Buren project.
We are remaining true to canon, and already we have created new:
- Dialogue
- Quests
- Music
- Animations
- concept and in game art
When playing our game be sure to pay attention. In Fallout Hope you can play without searching under every stone on the side of the road, but by blindly moving forward and not paying attention, you risk missing out on a lot of interesting people and quests. Remember this!
They have released a couple of tunes, which you can grab here and here
There are some animated critter gifs and item art in the modding section discussion.
In other news .Pixote. has catalogued all of the art in Fallout 2 by mapper PID number, which is an insane achievement. This will help FO2 modders a great deal in tracking down pieces of art in the mapper, and it is also very interesting to see every piece of scenery used to build the classic Fallouts.
Each individual artwork has a corresponding number (PID order from the Mapper), name/description, and for the walls their individual direction (i.e. East/West). These files could be considered very useful for modders, (when they need to find individual artworks without having to scroll through the several thousand that were built by Black Isle) or for any fan who would like to appreciate the beauty of the original artwork. There 23 files all up at with a combined size of 22mb. You can down load each individual file, or all of the images in one compressed file…enjoy
Man we've gone international with that stuff. French gaming magazine Joystick was apparently also on the list for world-exclusives. Details from BGSF user yoomazirhere. It's nothing new or interesting, but for his claim that the PC is indeed an amnesiac, which had J.E. Sawyer - hero of the downtrodden - step in and say "no, he's not".
Just a quick clarification: your character does not have amnesia or any sort of memory loss.
It's that time again, when the odd preference of giving exclusive to magazines - apparently on the assumption that people still read them - drives us all to scan, scan, scan, hurray! [Future Inc Senior Editor] became a fan of No Mutants Allowed.
[Future Inc Senior Editor] commented on No Mutants Allowed's link.
[Future Inc Senior Editor] Remove these scans of our content from your website. It's illegal to redistribute copies of our pages without our permission. Scans removed as per above hilarious sequence of events.
The court schedule for the Interplay v Bethesda case is on display at Duck and Cover. Nothing to see, other than it showing you shouldn't expect the case to end any time soon.
And yet another preview with even more details on the next Fallout game. This time, Ausir has posted a summary over at The Vault
The box on the first page of the preview names Bethesda as both the publisher and the developer, while the article text itself gives due credit to Obsidian and discusses the devs' work on Fallout, Fallout 2 and Van Buren.
New California Rangers wear modified LAPD riot armor. The trenchcoat guy from the teaser is identified as one in the article.
Gun modifications will increase damage, ammo capacity, accuracy, rate of fire and more
The player will be able to have two or three companions in their party
With Raul the ghoul in your party, you'll start to pick up clues that he's more than just a simple mechanic
Unsurprisingly, deathclaws and radscorpions are mentioned
From the screenshot, Fore! indeed looks like an attack on the head, not groin, as mentioned in an earlier preview
The dinosaur casino is identified as Dinky the Dinosaur
NCR is described as large and powerful but bureaucratic.
Chris Avellone: "It's a very amusing location design-wise. Vegas is like a whole city-wide amusement park. We can play on different themes, different styles. It's fun for the artists, it's fun for the designers... I don't know how much fun it's going to be for the programmers"
J.E. Sawyer: "The Karma system is mostly the same as in Fallout 3, but checked less often. Mostly we rely on reputation, because that's what people know. Karma is just a general indicator of how much of a sonofabitch you are. If you murder people in secret, your reputation doesn't go down because no on knows you did anything, so you can maintain a good reputation but your karma has tanked really heavily. Karma does influence some things, but reputation is usually what most people in the world base their opinions of you on."
Avellone: "We recognized that one of the strengths of Fallout 3 was that so much of the game revolved everything around Washington, D.C. That's your signature city. And to be honest, adventuring in post-apocalyptic D.C. is interesting. You're like, OK, I get it. I know what D.C. is like in the real world, I'd like to see what it's like in the real world when mutants are running around in the streets.
So, if we have a western version of Fallout 3, what's a key signature city that people will immediately gt when they hear the title. And also, what's interesting to us? So individually, Vegas came up for a number of people without a community discussion about it. That kept coming up. So we said, OK, if within this small sample group that city keeps coming up, and we understand why, that's the city to use."
NMA user Arden is a good candidate for best first post ever, as he posted in NMA's PC Games preview thread - scans now removed - to provide the non-German speakers with a lot more details from the preview.
Page 1: Introduction and reference to fallout 1 + 2. And mentioning of the fact that the old games played on the westcoast and FO3 on the east
Page 2: Mentions the char creation. Most of it was mentioned already in other threads here. You get shot in the head and buried in the Mojave. The Robot shown in the teaser digs you out and brings you to Goodsprings. The interface for appearance selection seems to be unchanged apart from a slide to set your age.
There are some speculations about rumours on this page too: The Origin-like Backgrounds for Characters remain unconfirmed. Chinese Agent Faction and/or Origin remain unconfirmed. Ghouls are present in FONV but PCGamer thinks it unlikely that you can play a ghoul (don’t know what leads them to that assumption). Vehicles remain unconfirmed but they think it possible, since the terrain isn’t as urban as the Wastelands of the capital. Caesars Legion is in Control of NV or at least a part of it (Vegas Strip). This leads to some speculation about Arena-fights and betting.
Page3: Char creation again. FONV will have about the same size as FO3. Your first Goal is to find out why you were killed. Your adventures will have a significant impact on the development of Vegas. Weapon modifications. Most of this was mentioned already. You can put an extended clip and a scope on pistols. Pistols are only effective at close range because of a big spread at long range. Rifles can be further upgraded by a mod that increases RoF. There’s a mention of the fact that in FO1+2 weapons could be modified but FO3 achieved this only through Fan-made Mods.
Page4: Mentions Pipboy and the hardcore-mode. Some aspects of hardcore are: stimpaks heal over time. You can die of dehydration (there was some speculation on NMA if dehydration would lead to death or only to stats-losses. So don’t forget taking some water with you)
Ammo has weight and crippled limbs need to be treated by a doctor.
Some places like goodsprings, hooverdam and McCarran Airport are mentioned. Area 51 remains unconfirmed. The solar-array can be used as weapon or powersupply, a choice to be made by the player.
Some Graphics comparsions. As mentioned by buxbaum666 the animations and faces seem to be slightly worse than FO3 but they mention that there’s ample time for Obsidian to improve this.
Page5: History of Obsidian, Games they made and the fact that a lot of the people that made FO2 are working at Obsidian now.
In Goodspring you get to do the tutorial. The tutorial can be skipped (thank god).
Page6: Combat System. VATS remains unchanged so far. Except that each melee-weapon now has a special attack. You can side with the powder gang or assist the people of Goodsprings to beat the gang off. The stuff about the companion-wheel was already mentioned.
Page 7: Mentions that the dialog-system has been reworked. Apparently each and every possible answer is shown even if your skills are too low. The way the options are written should give the player an idea if they are likely to succeed on a skilltest. If an answer contains a lot of stuttering or insecurity the player should choose another option. You don’t get punished for failing a test directly. You can also retry the speechoption again later when you have increased the relevant skill. The NPC’s respond believable to your insecurity by low skills.
Page 8: Combat again and weapon-mods again. Then some info on the reputation-system (with a mention that Players of FO1+2 will recognize this). Instead of karma you get reputation for different locations and factions. There are 3 factions: NCR is based at the McCarren Airport and is allied to BOS. Ceasers Legion is based in Vegas-Strip. And then there are the people of Vegas, based in… well, Vegas.
Page9: confusing bit: barter is not used solely for trading but represents your ability to persuade (don’t know what happens to speech). Mention of Black Mountain and supermuties, nothing really new. Some are smart some are stupid and you can take advantage of this and sow some dissent. And some, of course, are night-kin.
Page10. You get a companion in Black Mountain. Some stuff about companion-management.
First Impression of Weber: I liked Fo1 and 2. I was excited when Bethesda announced Fo3 and made that excellent game (quote of Weber, don’t burn me). The chap was disappointed at first when he heard about FONV because he hoped for the next evolution of FO after FO3 (don’t know what that would be exactly in his opinion, something like FO3:BOS 1st Person with IMMERSION-Engine™). But after an hour of FONV he lost the bad feeling and cant wait now to know how the story goes on and how Obsidians changes will feel.
The interview with CA:
PG: Why Vegas?
CA: We wanted to take the player away from D.C. and far to the west. So that the feeling was more of the wild west instead of the feeling of “rebirth” of FO3.
PG: some of you worked on the old titles, how do you feel about being able to work on FONV?
CA: Very happy. Loved FO1, was happy to work on 2 and was happy too when Bethesda came around the corner asking him to do FONV.
PG: So Bethesda asked you? You didn’t go to beth?
CA. yes, they approached us. But with our background this wasn’t surprising. We showed that we can do good games based on existing material. And many of us have worked on Fallout.
PG: Whats the biggest difference between FO3 and FONV?
CA: The focus in NV will be on interaction with the factions. There will be lots of ways to piss those off or get on their good side. Moddable Weapons, Companion-Management and new dialog-system.
PG: (intelligence) So I can ruin my reputation easily in NV?
CA: Well, its like real life: different people react differently to your actions. Sometimes the player will realise immediately that he fucked up, sometimes consequences will show hours later. Same with the dialog: some npc’s will react different to different skills and they respond accordingly.
PG: Will we be able to correct our decisions?
CA: Absolutely. If you later got the skills or stats then you can certainly try to get things straight.
PG: How is the progress on the Game?
CA: Good. Right now we work on dialog and places. The rest looks pretty good.
