No Mutants Allowed

[Per]

Kieron Gillen is known from PC Gamer and also one of the writers on the gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun. This time around he takes a look at Fallout 3, the whys, hows and whatwillbecomes of it all.

I’ve said this before, but the nagging question is why they’d take up this particular poisoned chalice of post-apocalypse role-playing anyway. “A new game by the makers of Oblivion” is a much bigger story to the gaming mainstream than “Sequel to old PC game you haven’t played”. Hell, the “3″ even risks alienating people who’ve never played (or heard of) the original, dismissing it out of hand - there’s eighteen year old PC Gamers who’d have been six when the thing comes out. Even putting aside that, the friends it buys you will brook no compromise. The Fallout fanbase epitomised by the cheery souls of No Mutants Allowed, having had a decade to stew over disappointment after disappointment, are openly fanatical. As much as they’d protest it, no-one can see them accepting anything Bethesda would produce.

Ultimately, this pre-match discussion is a little pointless. We’re all going to play this.

Yeah, for some creative definitions of "all".

So why do it? Well, three reasons come to mind.

Firstly, I could just be wrong and Fallout is a much bigger deal than I thought and that little Pip-Boy is a key to a world of infinite money. I don’t think so.

Secondly, Bethesda may be as dirty fanboys as the NMA guys. It may just be as simple as plain lust for Fallout, the plain desire to write a sequel to a game they think is brilliant. This sort of things strikes even the brightest creative minds - look over at Comics, where there’s a strata of some of the medium’s brightest minds whose most heartfelt desire is to have a shot at Superman. They’re insane, and if they had any sense they’d be doing their own thing… but that they don’t have that sense means that it’s done as an act of devotion. This is actually a good reason to give a damn about Fallout 3. People working on something that’s genuinely invested in, on average, leads to better work.

Thirdly… well, one of the major worries about Fallout 3 from even less fanatical fans is that they don’t believe Bethesda are capable of wrestling with the actions-and-consequences aspects that have traditionally been involved in a Fallout Game - they’re fine with multiple mechanisms (Assuming they get the experience system right), but the payoffs are limited. Just as key is their limitations as creators of fiction - while they’re good at verisimilitude and a sense of place, the fiction - dialogue, plot, whatever - of the Elder Scrolls have been merely acceptable at best throughout. This has lead some people to think that Bethesda, by definition, can’t do it. Thing is, by buying Fallout 3, they cover their weaknesses. They don’t need to create a world from whole-cloth - they have an inspiring world. They don’t need to work out how people act and talk - they have a game which shows the interactions between individuals and whatever. Buying Fallout actually acts as a crutch for Bethesda’s traditional faults.

Spotted at Fallout 3: A Post Nuclear Blog.
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Game help can be found in my Fallout guides.

[Brother None]

I agree on his third point:
That’s not really up to them, though, Bethesda isn’t a very creative company (if you don’t understand what I mean by that, consider that Bethesda hasn’t created any original IP since Weaver left, that apparently ZeniMax didn’t trust them to make their own IP and instead had to purchase one), and that stifling influence comes from PR and the producers.

[Per]

[Brother None]

Oh, indeed, he's wrong when focusing on dialogue, which is kind of not a point and Bethesda already shows they don't get it (swearing is lulz!)

But beyond that, when it comes to setting creation, this is a definite crutch. And perhaps they can rip off examples from Fallout. Didn't SuA say that about the bar dude? Gizmo ripoff?

[The Dutch Ghost]

Thats is also one of my problems with Bethesda's Fallout 3 fiction, they find it easy to copy character types from the earlier games and situations such as Super Mutants marching around, but they add nothing new to it.

The dialogue is one of the things I really feel we are going to be disappointed about it, characters constantly using swear words as if its a standard part of everyone's vocabulary.
Not for the sake to make clear how characters feel about a situation or person but because 'shit' and 'fuck' has to be inserted for the sake of insertion.
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[Mick1965]

[Mungrul]

Kieron's a nice guy, but his opinions are a bit iffy to say the least.
One of his reviews was responsible for opening my eyes to the infiltration of game journalism by hype and marketing.
I'm talking about Deus Ex: Invisible War, a game universally derided by the gaming community as being a bit shit really.
Kieron gave it 92%.

Since then, I've not been able to take much of what Kieron says too seriously.

I'm always interested to see what he says, if only to see if he's able to regain some of his credibility. After all, he's a good wordsmith whose articles are fun to read.

I also don't consider myself an NMA-er (yet), but I've come to realise that quite often NMA is unjustly labelled as being a bunch of raving fanatics. I think this reputation exists purely because of the outspoken attitudes of some of the older, now less active posters.
Nowadays you guys take a much more measured approach to things.

Unfortunately, it seems it's trendy to mention "the fanatics over at NMA" at every given opportunity in every Op-Ed devoted to Fallout 3. It's kind of like covering your arse so the developer doesn't take too much offense to your criticism:
"Look, I'm going to say a couple of bad things about Fallout 3 and raise a couple of niggles with it, but woah, at least I'm not as bad as those weirdos over at NMA!".

[Black]

[MrBumble]

I just LOVE it when people picture us as embittered and vindictive freaks. What will it be when Fallout 3 is released...
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[Kukident]

[TheSHEEEP]

[Mord_Sith]

They don't care about anyone past 22, as they are a smaller margin of gamers than those 16-18'ers who are looking for a quick stim experience before they go to bed.

Games of the past were innovative and created fierce fanbases, and honestly the devs of those days didn't have PR departments or market analyzers, they were in it because they had an idea and thought that they could make that idea a reality, and make money off of it.

Make no mistake, all of our beloved games were a shot at the pot so to speak, however the demeanor that they went at it in the past is far different than today, nowadays you see them instead of fighting to meet deadlines, they constantly push them back expecting the fanbases to wait, and usually they do.

They set their own schedules, ignore what others say, and are generally self-righteous gits, as companies go, their treatment of customers is rock bottom as they don't even have to see their customers.

Then we get to the PR and Market Analyzers, the bean counters and naysayers, any independent thought is quashed by these two devils in soothsayer's garb, whispering what they believe the market will promise to have the most sales and repeat purchases to the CEO of the company in order to maximize profit, and have no real working as to why the fanbases actually exist, only that they exist to be exploited until the last fetters of fandom fade and they move on to another IP.

All in all, gaming production is becoming a machine, a terrible machine that eats up independent thought in favor of increasing market share by another 2% for their stockholders. Heartless men quashing the aspirations of the programmers and story-writers to increase the profit margin of the company, yes their pocketbooks are important, but when they're destroying a game to make it have more 'market appeal' is simply wrong.

Give me back my Westwood you evil conglomerate EA!
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I'm not crazy, I'm just a wicker chair!

[welsh]

I suspect that Bethesda´s ambitions are a bit more complex-

-THey don´t go with an original post apoc game because that´s too risky. Fallout has many of the elements that fit into a nice post-apoc game- there is action, interaction, mutations, monsters, quests- a post-apoc fantasy game. This is weighed against the danger of alienating most fallout fans (of which the hardcore seems a marginal group to them).

- the benefits of drawing in a new group of fans to a rather stale market.

- This gives them the chance to develop a new engine and test it (in a smaller game world) that might be applicable to other RPG genres - (crime noir/scifi/ horror/ fantasy).

- while potentially opening a way to more fallouts based on Fallout 3.
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"The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but someday the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
HP Lovecraft.

[TheSHEEEP]

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

[Briosafreak]

Kieron Gillen says hi! to NMA

[Per]

Killap is now Bear Dude on the whole internet.

Edit:

[Brother None]

[SuAside]

[draeke]

ok well flame twice for the same post but i appreciate the nnpen mindedness ya we all have our opinions why fo3 is going to suck but in a way it's refreshing to hear new opinions from non-nma personnel shrug you know they tried to include us with the pseudo 3rd person isometric so how we hate on them for that but it still seems their intention is to produce a fps fallout maybe a more a more apt title would be oblivion:fallout lmao oh yah remove strikes that was like over 7 mos ago iirc
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A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords at dawn

Vote from the rooftops