Fallout 3 Interview

It’s already been over four years since Bethesda Softworks announced that they had acquired the rights to develop and publish their own version of Fallout 3, following Interplay’s financial troubles and cancellation of “Van Buren”.  The sequel has been in the media spotlight ever since, inciting both enthusiasm and criticism from gamers all over the world during its development.  With only days left until the game hits store shelves, we fired over a set of questions to lead producer Gavin Carter in order to get some last-minute details:

GB: The storylines of Fallout 1 and 2 are fairly basic, non-linear, and remain in the background of the game itself. Have you stuck with this approach with Fallout 3? Or have you chosen a more linear, narrative style for the main storyline?

Gavin: We want all of our games to have a compelling central narrative to drives the events of the gameworld along. To that end, the central storyline is a bit more structured than the rest of the game. The more linear structure allows us to build in drama and character elements, which suffer in a more non-linear arrangement. That said, we took great pains to make sure that the player is minimally constrained in their exploration of the world and pursuit of the plot. There are very few places that are off-limits until specific sections of the story.

GB: In Fallout 1 and 2, certain dialogue choices could potentially close off or open quests and dialogue paths. Will we be seeing this sort of thing in Fallout 3? If so, how often does it occur?

Gavin: Yes, we tried to implement choice as much as possible. Virtually all quests in the game have some branching aspect to them, and you can and will lock off certain quests and their rewards depending on the choices you make.

GB: The Fallout games have always sported an interesting array of weapons and armor, ranging from Brass Knuckles to Alien Blasters and Leather Jackets to Advanced Power Armor. Can we expect to see many of the same weapons and armor in Fallout 3? And, aside from the Fat Man, have you added any new weapons or armor that you can tell us about?

Gavin: We have a vast array of items to find in the world of Fallout. Dozens of types of armor, all of which you’ll see equipped on your character. Over 60 weapons total, including not only melee and ranged weapons, but also mines and grenades. We have a whole class of weapons that the player has to construct by finding schematics and parts. One of these weapons is the Railway Rifle, which uses some old metal piping and a pressure cooker to fire railroad spikes at enemies. The spikes can rip off body parts and embed them in nearby walls.

GB: We haven’t heard a lot about Radiant AI in Fallout 3. What has changed with the implementation of Radiant AI in comparison to how it was handled in Oblivion?

Gavin: The biggest change is that we now have years of experience in how to best use it. The Radiant AI system is not just a simple system that instructs NPCs where to stand at what time. It’s the entire framework that we use to create quest content in the game. Any action an NPC ever does runs through Radiant AI at some point. So what we’ve learned through Oblivion and Fallout’s development is how to extract the best behavior from the system and get it onscreen where the player will see it. We now more activities that NPCs can engage in, and things like sandbox packages, where we can instruct an NPC to interact with anything they find in a particular area instead of standing around dumbly. It adds up to better NPC behavior and a more lively atmosphere in the game.

GB: Detail your approach to player karma and reputation a bit for us. Does Fallout 3 utilize a karma system without a separate reputation system? If so, what exactly does karma represent in the game – reputation, a mystical sense of good or evil, or a combination of the two?

Gavin: Karma could be considered to be reputation in some senses. At a basic level, it is a value that we use to track the sum total of your good and evil actions in the game. It’s a way to communicate to the player which side of the line they fall on and to what extent. Certain characters will have different reactions to the player based on his or her karma. For instance, some followers will refuse to join you unless your karma matches their own personalities.

Gavin: The player is not locked into any course of action, so a good player can commit an evil act whenever they choose, or vice versa. It is up to the player to decide how their characters would react to certain situations. Each individual good, evil, or neutral decision can carry its own rewards or consequences. These all add into your karma level, which is an overall value that can also affect people’s reactions.

There’s no Oblivion-like factions in Fallout 3 that the player can join. The player is free to take quests and tasks from anyone they choose, though many choices (blowing up Megaton for instance) can cause repercussions down the line, locking you out of certain quests or rewards, while opening ones you may not have been able to obtain otherwise.

GB: Two of Oblivion’s most commonly criticized graphical elements are the somewhat stiff character animations and the facial modelling. What have you done to improve these particular elements in Fallout 3?

Gavin: While Oblivion was 100% hand-animated, we’ve been working on Fallout to mix in more motion-captured animations for more natural motion. For faces, we’ve managed to find ways to make the system more efficient, enabling us to give people more polys and higher texture resolution on their faces. We’ve also created an entirely separate base head for females so that we can build in more feminine features from the start.

GB: You ended up releasing a total of nine pieces of downloadable content for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Are you planning to release a similar number for Fallout 3? Can we expect to see DLC that adds entirely new quest lines and environments like we saw in Knights of the Nine, or will you be shooting for smaller cosmetic additions similar to what you gave us in Spell Tomes?

Gavin: For Fallout 3 DLC, we’d like to go the Knights of the Nine route. That is to say, we want to provide larger packages of content with a wider variety of new content, such as quests and gameplay areas. I can’t commit to any particular number right now. We’ll talk more about them as time goes on.

GB: As I’m sure you’re very much aware, it’s widely believed that Interplay is currently working on Fallout Online. Have you had any type of discussion with them on the direction they’re taking the game? Assuming the game eventually makes it to release, how does a Fallout MMO affect your plans for the franchise?

Gavin: We’ve had our hands full working on Fallout 3. I don’t have anything to do with that stuff.

GB: Is there anything new to report on the status of a Fallout 3 construction kit? Assuming one will eventually be released, are we looking at days, weeks, or months following the game’s release before it might be available for download?

Gavin: Nothing to report yet.

Thanks for your time, Gavin!