The Fallout 3 Front Line

[CorvusE]

The Fallout 3 Front Line

Bethesda can expect their newly acquired Fallout license to put the studio under some intense scrutiny. Fallout fans are devoted to the original games and notoriously expressive in their critiques of studios that mishandle the franchise.

Managing gamers' expectations for the project is going to be a full-time job, and Bethesda already has members of the team on the forums, providing information and establishing dialog.

Gavin Carter, Fallout 3's Lead Producer, posted some details about the team that will be granting us access to the Wasteland once again:

Todd Howard, Executive Producer, is the final word on every decision made about the project.
Ashley Cheng is the Production Director for Fallout 3 and every other Bethesda title under development.
Emil Pagliarulo, Lead Designer.
Joel Burgess, Lead Level Designer
Steve Meister, Lead Programmer

I cordially suggest that Bethesda refer to the Fallout 3 dev team as The Hot Seat. While it must be exciting to take on such a well-respected franchise, the fan base isn't going to make it easy for them.

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[UCRC]

Because the fan base seen Oblivion. How could a guy who was making levels for games like e.g. Bloodrayne could be a lead level designer? We will see how this will turn out but Fallout III made by Todd YAY!HYPE! Howard does not sound sweet to me.

 

[CorvusE]

Rest assured, I'm part of the fanbase and I can't say my personal hopes are... well, I can't honestly say I have any for F3. But I'm willing to hold my judgment until such time as an actual game is produced. Until then, I've always got DOSBox!

 

[Andy Chalk]

Ah, the Fallout "fanbase." Rendering itself blatheringly irrelevant for nine years and counting. I think the truth is that they've made the job of making the next Fallout much "easier," because aside from a very few exceptions, they've become such a spastic and impossibly-demanding gaggle of howling cretins that nobody with any sense is going to pay attention to them anyway.

 

[UCRC]

When we speak about fanbase we don't mean Fallout fans, but RPG games fanbase. Because mostly the same people who were blaming Oblivion blame F3 now.
But talking about hopes... Funny part is that we could be sure that F3 would be good GAME im most parts. Because you couldn't possibly make too many things wrong with Oblivion-alike budget and such big and talented team.
'Only' concern is about game design. Because Oblivion showed off how can you make good game without making a RPG at all. Personally - I enjoyed Oblivion, really - because it was fun. But equally I hated Bethesda because it ripped whole series lore, atmosphere.
Bethesda have to face it - they are not making casual game, but they are making a franchise. To some point they just couldn't follow their own design, because Fallout is a series deeply set in certain atmosphere, RPG elements and even gameplay concepts. Decisions have to be made to either stay true to those things and try to revive series in the way they want (and nobody denies that they have right to!). My concern is that once more when they say 're-think concepts' they in fact mean 'OMG THAT CRAP ISN'T NEXT-GEN'. To some extent I liked the Oblivion hype and I was enthusiast, but as it turned out - fanbase support and pumping the hype turned out to be only encouragement for Beth devs to make game more simpler, less RPG-alike. Probably same will happen with F3.