Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Posts: 27468 Location: Liberty City, the Netherlands Status: Offline
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 22:25 Post subject: Penny Arcade talks on Fallout 3, socrates200x replies
Tycho of Penny Arcade had some comments on the Fallout 3 combat/viewpoint controversy:
I have seen opinions running the rage on the Fallout 3 Teaser, but I brave those forums daily - I'm well over the DRI for franchise-related anguish. The clip is not designed to shock or startle people, it has only one purpose - to deliver a high-pressure jet of fan service. Of course, many of the hardcore fans are actually irritated by such brazen attempts to placate them. And thus we see the heavy stone, and also the steep hill, and look! There's Sisyphus, waving madly. Is he greeting us, or warning us?
I consider myself a fan of Fallout, at any rate I did before, and I was grieved to see it ransacked at the hands of an increasingly desperate Interplay. But it's become clear that what makes it Fallout to me is very different than it is for other fans. We ran into the same issue with Tribal War over Tribes 2, culminating in a brutal conflict that pitted gamer against gamer. As it relates to Fallout, I am distinguished from what you might call the Orthodox fan of the series. One is that I simply believe that elements like Turn-Based and Isometric were artifacts of their time. There is nothing wrong with them mechanically, they do not want for elegance, and the genre is still going strong in Japanese titles that I play and enjoy. But I'm not going to create a religion out of it because tiled environments happened to be expedient a million fucking years ago.
Fallout is not - for me - defined by its perspective. It's defined by the unique setting, and the meaningful, satisfying choices I can make to affect that setting. I don't care where the camera is. If those things are intact, they can put the camera in geosynchronous Goddamn orbit.
(CW)TB out.
Turn-based and isometric are outdated? Not exactly original arguments. Since saying Brotherhood of Steel was terrible doesn't exactly give any Fallout street cred anymore, it's a shame that Tim of CAD didn't mention the topic in his post about the teaser, since CAD *does* have Fallout street cred.
Of more interest, Ricardo "socrates200X" Gonzalez commented:
[twocents]
I can see where people are coming from when they say "TB combat is a relic" by looking at where TB combat is coming from. Fallout was TB because GURPS was TB because all the original PnP games were TB because...why?
Well, originally, people wanted to create some sort of interactive story whereby players could affect the outcome with their avatars, or "role-play", in an exciting world filled with adventures and bad guys. But, once you introduce bad guys, you introduce combat, and once you introduce combat, you need some way to represent it in an organized way that still preserves all the tactical decisions the avatars would make were they in said adventures. You couldn't have RPG players feverishly yelling out battle commands in the heat of the moment with sharpened pencils and Mountain Dew within arm's reach; that's a recipe for disaster, but more to the point, very difficult to organize on paper without over-simplifying things.
So, we have the players and baddies take turns, turn-based tactics being well-established from the days of Go. But, looking at it this way, the decision to go TB was a limitation rather than an innovation. It wasn't that TB "just fit" with what the original RPG creators were trying to accomplish. On the contrary, they were trying to capture the essence of real-time combat with the tools of pen-and-paper and they had no better options at the time.
Putting on our "What If?" caps, we can ask what would have happened if the original RPG creators had in their game design toolbox the resources of, say, a modern video game development studio replete with state-of-the-art technology and competent developers, including one very erudite and devilishly handsome programmer? With the ability to implement real-time combat, the desire to ground it in innovative tactical game design, and the computation power to tie everything together, would they have still used turn-based combat? Or real-time combat? Or something altogether different? What do you guys think?
That being said, I don't think Halo comes any closer to capturing the essence of tactical combat just by virtue of being real-time, nor does GURPS or Fallout not capture it by virtue of being turn-based. And the argument that removing TB combat from Fallout could very well destroy it is a valid one and worth asking. But I don't think that makes TB combat any less of a work-around than it originally was designed to be.
[/twocents]
(...)
Like most peeps, I'm not pro-TB or pro-RT, per se; just interested in the interaction between the two concepts and their ramifications. Thanks for the responses, guys; it's given me a veritable feast for thought!
P.S. Given my NDA leash, it follows that anything I discuss probably has nothing to do with FO3. Using this handy fact, one could fairly accurately determine what is FO3 is definitely not and thus, as the number of dev posts approaches infinity, could reconstruct the game via process of elimination, given enough time and caffeine. Get to work!
Thanks Briosafreak. _________________ No Mutants Allowed, your Fallout resource - Fallout: New Vegas - Brother None counts down his favourite games
"There are two novels that can change a bookish 14-year-old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
The other, of course, involves orcs." --John Rogers
Last edited by Brother None on Sat Jun 09, 2007 1:55; edited 2 times in total
Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Posts: 27468 Location: Liberty City, the Netherlands Status: Offline
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 23:07 Post subject:
Fixed now.
Tendency to chuck those word-filters rising. They get hella in the way on newsposts. _________________ No Mutants Allowed, your Fallout resource - Fallout: New Vegas - Brother None counts down his favourite games
"There are two novels that can change a bookish 14-year-old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
The other, of course, involves orcs." --John Rogers
Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 49 Location: Where am I? Status: Offline
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 23:09 Post subject:
I kind of like them. They keep people from using netspeak / idiot. Also; what, if anything, if he oh-so-discreetly trying to suggest? _________________ {insert witty signature here}
Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Posts: 2648 Location: UK Status: Offline
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 23:31 Post subject: Re: Penny Arcade talks on Fallout 3, socrates200x replies
Quote:
Putting on our "What If?" caps, we can ask what would have happened if the original RPG creators had in their game design toolbox the resources of, say, a modern video game development studio replete with state-of-the-art technology and competent developers, including one very erudite and devilishly handsome programmer? With the ability to implement real-time combat, the desire to ground it in innovative tactical game design, and the computation power to tie everything together, would they have still used turn-based combat? Or real-time combat? Or something altogether different? What do you guys think?
That being said, I don't think Halo comes any closer to capturing the essence of tactical combat just by virtue of being real-time, nor does GURPS or Fallout not capture it by virtue of being turn-based. And the argument that removing TB combat from Fallout could very well destroy it is a valid one and worth asking. But I don't think that makes TB combat any less of a work-around than it originally was designed to be.
By that reasoning then the game adaptation of 300 ought to feature machine guns and grenade launchers because surely the original Spartans and Persians would of used them if they'd had them. Spears and arrows just being a workaround until real weapons were developed. Sheesh!
Sure if they'd had home computers back then, then there probably wouldn't of been pnp and thereforr no TB. Or chess would of been a hack and slash arcade beat them up if they'd had arcades. But does that mean a game that tries to capture the feeling of those bygone days is wrong? If someone invents a matter transporter will that make flight simulator or railroad tycoon any less valid forms of entertainment, just because the mode of transport they portray is outdated? _________________ Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Joined: 16 Oct 2006 Posts: 135 Location: Europe Status: Offline
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 23:47 Post subject:
so what he said is that the game is turn based because that was the only way to emulate a battle in PnP because of tech shortcomings.
chess is one of the oldest games in the world and is going strong. lets change it because we can emulate this battle game better with the new techology!
fuck tactical thinking! lets turn everything in fast paced reflex dependent trash! now techology allow us that! _________________
One is that I simply believe that elements like Turn-Based and Isometric were artifacts of their time.
Yeah Iso view is an artifact, just look at the sims. That game hardly sold any copies at all.
And those tycoon and city builder games would be so much better if they dropped the iso view, just imagine Caesar V in 1st person, wow it defies imagination.
Starcraft 2, a game doomed to failure, using the antiquated isometric viewpoint.
Also Tych, try this argument on the Diablo 2 fanbase will you, now that's an angry mob I'd like to see.
Yeah, it's better for games to dump the isometric view in favor of the 1st person perspective alright, just look what it did for Commandos! _________________ How high?
Fallout is not - for me - defined by its perspective. It's defined by the unique setting, and the meaningful, satisfying choices I can make to affect that setting. I don't care where the camera is. If those things are intact, they can put the camera in geosynchronous Goddamn orbit.
Quote:
That being said, I don't think Halo comes any closer to capturing the essence of tactical combat just by virtue of being real-time, nor does GURPS or Fallout not capture it by virtue of being turn-based. And the argument that removing TB combat from Fallout could very well destroy it is a valid one and worth asking.
Unlike a lot of people here I'm not as concerned about ISO and TB. Don't get me wrong, I would love it if Bethesda created FO3 true to the original in every way, but I also love Half-Life 2. If it were possible to create a game like Half-Life 2 that stayed true to Fallout's setting and canon, and also remained a true RPG that was deep in choice and consequence, then I think I'd be almost as happy as I was with the original FO.
Am I the only person who feels this way? Are there any other people here who hold the RPG elements in higher esteem than the point of view and the combat style?
Joined: 09 Jun 2007 Posts: 12 Location: France Status: Offline
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 3:48 Post subject:
Mani wrote:
Tych wrote:
One is that I simply believe that elements like Turn-Based and Isometric were artifacts of their time.
Yeah Iso view is an artifact, just look at the sims. That game hardly sold any copies at all.
And those tycoon and city builder games would be so much better if they dropped the iso view, just imagine Caesar V in 1st person, wow it defies imagination.
Starcraft 2, a game doomed to failure, using the antiquated isometric viewpoint.
Also Tych, try this argument on the Diablo 2 fanbase will you, now that's an angry mob I'd like to see.
Yeah, it's better for games to dump the isometric view in favor of the 1st person perspective alright, just look what it did for Commandos!
Am I the only person who feels this way? Are there any other people here who hold the RPG elements in higher esteem than the point of view and the combat style?
You aren't alone, in terms of people who "hold the RPG elements in higher esteem than the point of view and combat style"
I would be one of them as well.
However, since I hate First Person Shooters, I wouldn't be accepting of Half Life in the Fallout Universe.
I would be willing to accept a certain amount of changes, but going to a full First Person Shooter, like Half Life would be way too far for me. _________________
Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 49 Location: Where am I? Status: Offline
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 7:36 Post subject:
The problem is that the combat style (TB) is by far the best suited for role-playing (this has been argued many times before; I've yet to see a really convincing reason why RT is decent for RPGs), and that isometric / top-down is generally accepted as best for turn-based -- or at the very least, third person. _________________ {insert witty signature here}
Joined: 06 Aug 2004 Posts: 182 Location: Novi Sad, Serbia Status: Offline
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 10:06 Post subject:
DGT wrote:
The problem is that the combat style (TB) is by far the best suited for role-playing (this has been argued many times before; I've yet to see a really convincing reason why RT is decent for RPGs), and that isometric / top-down is generally accepted as best for turn-based -- or at the very least, third person.
I really got disappointed when Obsidian released NWN2 without any option for TB. Wanted to play it really hard, but I just got through the tutorial and erased the game from my HD. Why? Because its unplayable, u can't react that fast, and I don't want to pause the game manually every 2sec so I can tell my idiot sidekicks to attack those goblins.
As a note: I played D&D for the first time 13 years ago when I had 12 years and I still do, although favorite systems are Cyberpunk and Rifts.
I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that TB is important for me because I don't want to play Diablo Fallout. My reflexes are good and I like FPS games but if I want to practice them I'll play Stalker. RT in RPGs really irritates me and after I few hours I'll just drop it all and never return to it.
When I first saw tactics I thought wow Fallout system in RT - that's GREAT!!! After 2 missions I realised it was unplayable simply because u can't fend off more than 2 enemies and most importantly u can't fully use all the combat options the game has to offer!
The biggest problem with the latest gaming crowd is that they don't want to think about what they are playing. If you don't want to think in the first place, that obviously means that you won't have enough brainpower left over to even read what characters say, thus the need for Beths' most recent trend of completely voiced dialogue. Another point is that turn based combat would not work for them, as once again - you actually have to plan what you are going to do *GASP*.
Not to mention that the isometric view would make it sort of hard to see what you're firing at, judging that you don't want to think, but have your gaming experience more like interactive TV.
Seriously, if any of you have ever played World of Warcraft, perfect examples of what I speak of. You require absolutely ZERO thought to be able to do anything in the game. - Found monster, push button sequence, monster dies, move onto next monster, rinse, repeat.
But yeah, in short the sad truth is that the newest generation of gamers are just stupid/supremely lazy. _________________
"Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism." (Hunter S. Thompson)
Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Posts: 2648 Location: UK Status: Offline
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 10:19 Post subject:
Mick1965 wrote:
Am I the only person who feels this way? Are there any other people here who hold the RPG elements in higher esteem than the point of view and the combat style?
Define RPG elements?
Define Film Noir?
If you remade a classic Film Noir movie with totally different camera angles and lighting, totally different timing. How much can be changed before it's no longer considered Film Noir? Isometric and TB are just as important to Fallout in setting the style and pacing.
Do you agree with this, it's a game so gameplay is a very important part of the experience? _________________ Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Am I the only person who feels this way? Are there any other people here who hold the RPG elements in higher esteem than the point of view and the combat style?
Define RPG elements?
Define Film Noir?
If you remade a classic Film Noir movie with totally different camera angles and lighting, totally different timing. How much can be changed before it's no longer considered Film Noir? Isometric and TB are just as important to Fallout in setting the style and pacing.
Do you agree with this, it's a game so gameplay is a very important part of the experience?
I will not disagree here, because turn based gameplay is crucial to what Fallout is. Fallout was based on a d20 system and as such must maintain its original gameplay style, where if you remove the TB system, the entire game falls apart. SPECIAL, your statistics, the range checks, checks, etc. It just does NOT work not in real time. Take a look at Tactics. Utter crap in terms of d20 gameplay. _________________
"Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism." (Hunter S. Thompson)
I'm really torn with what it should be. In a way I feel like Oblivion-style gameplay would help me immerse with the game world more. Isometric was nice for its time. First person also means you're actually witnessing things happening instead of watching some stick figure adventuring.
There were crucial things that went wrong in Oblivion. NPCs were dull, dialogue options were non existant, most quests were solved by killing everything that moved. Maybe I got my character to level 8 or 9, but after that I stopped playing.
I guess my opinion is that by doing Fallout with turn-based and isometric view, you can avoid certain problems. FO-game Oblivion-style would have to be humongous, which means a lot of content being poured into the game. Knowing my complaints about Oblivion, there are things that can go wrong, if Bethesda just focuses on quantity, not quality.
What I'd like to get out from in RPGs is from too much obvious attack rolls and what not happening in the backround. Real time gameplay looks so weird and clunky seeing attacking characters slashing with a knife, waiting two seconds, slashing again and then waiting another two seconds.
I believe I'll like what Bioware has done for Mass Effect. That interface and pseudo FPS looks cool with enough cinematic feel and immersion to the world.
This is just my opinion. I'm sure you all have your own.
I will not disagree here, because turn based gameplay is crucial to what Fallout is. Fallout was based on a d20 system and as such must maintain its original gameplay style, where if you remove the TB system, the entire game falls apart. SPECIAL, your statistics, the range checks, checks, etc. It just does NOT work not in real time. Take a look at Tactics. Utter crap in terms of d20 gameplay.
My preference is for a Fallout sequel that is true to the original FO in all respects, and I really enjoyed the combat system from the earlier games. I have played a lot of PnP AD&D, so I do appreciate that style of play. I guess my point was that I would be most looking forward to seeing the deep & meaningful RPG elements recreated from the original games, along with setting and canon. If these elements were missing then I wouldn't enjoy the game even if it had ISO and TB.
One of my favourite games from the past was the original Pool of Radiance, in which you could explore in first person mode, but the game then shifted to ISO & TB when you entered combat. I wouldn't mind this type of set up for a new FO game. I certainly don't want another mindless FPS, which I admit HL2 is, but HL2 doesn't always feel like a mindless FPS.
Real time combat would change the feel of the game and would remove the tactical aspect, and I can't imagine a first person turn based combat game, so it seems a FO RPG would be a lot better with ISO & TB. I hadn't really sat back closed my eyes and thought about it before, but next time I'll try to get the brain box working fully before I post random thoughts.
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and I still do, although favorite systems are Cyberpunk and Rifts.
