How much Van Buren material is still missing?

Resardiv said:
Why would they know? Genuinely curious.
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Hexer works on the mod Fallout: Yesterday that is an attempt to recreate Van Buren as a total conversion mod for Fallout 2. He has access to stuff from the devs not publicly released if I understand it correctly. Like design docs. The same for Hardboiled Wanderer and his project Van Buren on the Unity Engine.
 
The_Proletarian said:
Hexer works on the mod Fallout: Yesterday that is an attempt to recreate Van Buren as a total conversion mod for Fallout 2. He has access to stuff from the devs not publicly released if I understand it correctly. Like design docs. The same for Hardboiled Wanderer and his project Van Buren on the Unity Engine.
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Wow, I didn't know they had that much exclusive access to such content. Thanks @The_Proletarian for sharing!

:clap: :ok:
 
Well that's just something I remember reading. You have to check the respective threads for the projects yourselves.

e: Read under the heading "Design" here. I think the same is true for Fallout: Yesterday.

Despite being unfinished, the production of Van Buren was foregone by an extensive pre-production process and thus most of the design had already been born before its actual implementation. In 2007, over 700 pages of the location design documents were leaked so the fans could finally get a general picture of the game’s story and narrative. We did not stop there, however. We established scarce yet very valuable contact with some of the original designers to help us fill up and resolve conflicting and/or missing information to be able to implement the game as close to the original intent as possible.
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hexer said:
@The_Proletarian is right. Are you looking for anything specific that you think is missing?
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One that comes to mind is Document 13 of Van Buren. Documents about Fort Abandon and Grand Canyon are also missing, IIRC. (I believe Document 13 is about both of these locations.)
I know that it was given to a "historian" on the Nukapedia and it was posted there for a couple of months before being removed. You can still see parts of it through the Wayback Machine, but it's not easily accessible, and can't be downloaded from anywhere.
 
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ArmagdoGaming said:
One that comes to mind is Document 13 of Van Buren. Documents about Fort Abandon and Grand Canyon are also missing, IIRC. (I believe Document 13 is about both of these locations.)
I know that it was given to a "historian" on the Nukapedia and it was posted there for a couple of months before being removed. You can still see parts of it through the Wayback Machine, but it's not easily accessible, and can't be downloaded from anywhere.
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Document number 13 is the Fort Abandon design doc you mention. I don't think that the Grand Canyon document was ever released but we know enough about the area and its purpose to faithfully transfer it to the game.
P.S. There are actually a couple of games out there that borrowed from Van Buren: FNV, F76 and most likely both Horizon games. So you can get your VB fix from them while you wait for fans to finish the masterpiece :-)
 
I guess I meant actual asset assets, like models and engine stuff. Other companies have had a ton of leaks like that recently. Like actually 'everything they had done in December 2003'
 
Yeah do anyone know if they had anything more than the leaked tech demo? Was it the tech demo that Tim Cain played when he was invited to Interplay?



Here's the documentary on Fallout: Van Buren that Tim Cain had watched prior to making his video:

 
The_Proletarian said:
Yeah do anyone know if they had anything more than the leaked tech demo? Was it the tech demo that Tim Cain played when he was invited to Interplay?



Here's the documentary on Fallout: Van Buren that Tim Cain had watched prior to making his video:

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There would have surely been other assets in existence, Van Buren was a big game and even being over a year from completion there would have been more than just what was in the demo. At the very least the source code used to make it
 
Uncle Phosgene said:
There would have surely been other assets in existence, Van Buren was a big game and even being over a year from completion there would have been more than just what was in the demo. At the very least the source code used to make it
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When I originally asked about this earlier this year elsewhere I was still under the impression the 85-90% complete thing was true(if it was that far all the assets would have existed, they'd just need to be assembled and patched up), now I know it was more like 55-66% complete. Still, you'd have more than a script and concept art at that point. I can't find exactly when the tech demo we have was assembled(I've heard November 2003?), but firstly there would obviously be assets and scripts not used in the tech demo for various reasons and the raw source code and whatever was made in the month or so after that.

If the community genuinely got their hands on 'everything' Van Buren we'd probably have a fan creation with 90% accuracy to the original vision by now. With just the concept art and 'most' of the script and planning documents you could make something that flows the same, but there would be disputes about a ton of the visual and presentation, 50/50. If the game had genuinely been 85-90% complete as used to be believed we probably could have made a 99% accurate version, bordering on 100% with help from people who were involved. With what exists? 90%, 95%+ with guidance.

If the dolphin noise Sailor Mouth audio can leak from Nickelodeon of all things then I wouldn't rule out getting everything else. We're pretty close.

And yeah I'm of the belief if you're trying to finish a canned game authenticity is the best approach. Don't try to remake it in the modern style(with scripts any old modder could do that with time) or alter stuff to fit with New Vegas or junk. Fricking make it on a Windows XP and follow everything we have and use the assets we have and the software they used in 2003 for modeling and art, and ask the people who were there on every idea or what a model would have probably looked like had they done it and consult the concept art and 1/2/T and the works. If everything drops, assets and source code and literally everything Fallout 3 Interplay had in December 2003, that's the approach I wanna see. Like an archeological restoration
 
Uncle Phosgene said:
If the community genuinely got their hands on 'everything' Van Buren we'd probably have a fan creation with 90% accuracy to the original vision by now. With just the concept art and 'most' of the script and planning documents you could make something that flows the same, but there would be disputes about a ton of the visual and presentation, 50/50. If the game had genuinely been 85-90% complete as used to be believed we probably could have made a 99% accurate version, bordering on 100% with help from people who were involved. With what exists? 90%, 95%+ with guidance.
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I don't think I agree. The English-speaking classic Fallout community isn't exactly known for being productive when it comes to making new Fallout games. 1.5, Nevada, Sonora, and Olympus all come from beyond what was once the Iron Curtain. And it's not like BlackDesigner hasn't read the Van Buren documents--Fallout Sonora has plenty of obscure references to it. He could make Van Buren if he wanted to, he's just chosen on bringing his own ideas to life instead of resurrecting old ones.

And let's face it: although Van Buren might be my favorite game I've never played, I think that whether it had released back in 2003 or if it were resurrected by modders people would take issues with it fairly reminiscent to how they take issues with Fallout 2 and even Bethesda's Fallout 3. Yet another story about mad scientists wanting to kill everyone with a virus, right? Except instead of Enclave it's NCR nationals. There is enough paranoid purity testing around the community for people to proclaim that Van Buren defiles the original game's vision.
 
The_Proletarian said:
According to the latest Patreon update for Fallout: Yesterday the development team have gotten exclusive access to the missing Fort Abandon design document. That's some great news.
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Anyone know if it's illegal for them to release it? From what I remember the design docs that got leaked way back when were technically still under copyright because Interplay existed at the time, but is that still an issue? Would Bethesda be able to DMCA posting the document online?
 
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