Well, there’s no reason for consumers to even be thinking about the politics behind game demos and how publishers/developers have to balance things to try to keep from getting on someone’s bad side. It’s just that this time a small handful of the people covering the game want to make an issue out of it, without giving any context for how all major games are handled. It’s ridiculous, and I hope it hurts the guys who are trying to do the whole “But they only gave us 30 minutes and you know what that means wink wink nudge nudge” thing. There’s absolutely nothing unusual that I have seen in how they have handled the press for this game.
Yet, there are several previews out there based upon several hours with the game, and they are overwhelmingly positive.
I was at EB on the weekend and the counter-monkeys there were telling me they had a guy in on Saturday who tried to talk their ear off about how Bethesda had ruined the Fallout franchise and how everything he’s seen from the game is shit and how Fallout 3 was going to be the worst game ever made yadda yadda yadda.
I said, “This guy didn’t mention a website called No Mutants Allowed, did he?”
“Yeah, a lot. Why, you know him?”
“Nope. I just know his type.”
garin
3424
Well, the stat is called ‘Karma’, not ‘Notoriety’ (earlier Fallouts had a seperate ‘Reputation’ stat, right?). If its purpose is to track how good/evil your character is, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to only count actions observed by others.
Sarkus
3425
The other thing to consider about the 30 minute demo is that it’s possibly, you know, a demo. In other words, they may have deliberately set it up so that you can experience a lot of things in a short amount of time. For example, just because you can kill a super mutant at level 3 in the demo doesn’t mean it’s that way in the game. In fact, here’s a quote from Emil that NMA itself posted:
[That you can complete the game at level 1] is absolutely not true.
One important thing to remember about Fallout 3 is that the game uses an experience points based system of leveling; you don’t level up based on skill usage. And, you get the majority of your XP from completing quests. So on the main quest path specifically, we are much better able to determine what level you’ll be at – especially your minimum level – when you get to any specific quest.
So while we do some level scaling on the main quest, things are generally at the player’s level anyway, because we know your minimum level along that path. And even where things are scaled to control difficulty, it’s not like a Super Mutant is going to scale down to level 2 anyway. Most of the level scaling stuff we do is just to eliminate frustration at the lower levels.
In other words, I agree with what Angie said. Some people seem to be going out of their way to treat the six months prior version of Fallout 3 as if it’s a final version and that everything is fair game to critcize.
Yep. I remember Bioshock’s demo. Sure, much of it was like the opening area, but they very deliberately shoved some extra things into that opening area so that you got a taste for the most important game systems earlier than you would in the game proper.
I’m surprised they got access to the demo after their first preview. The US Bethesda propaganda team would have banned them. That probably explains why 95% of the negative previews come from Europe.
Sarkus
3428
Yeah, it’s always a conspiracy when they disagree with you or NMA.
Squee
3429
Yep. Karma was mostly your good/evil marker, and reputation was on a per-town basis. So you might be loved in a place like New Reno and still get a big karma hit for all the nasty things you did to become loved.
Though if I remember right, they didn’t mean much in game terms. Karma only came into play in a few specific cases, which were entirely NPCs who could join you. And your reputation in a town didn’t amount to much of anything at all unless it got so bad they all went hostile.
That shit’s been modded like CRAZY in Oblivion. One of the very first mods that came out was called “No Psychic Guards” and set a minimum radius that guards had to be within in order to hear you kill or attack someone. That way you could GET AWAY with a murder for once.
Tons of other things have been changed, too, from the ability to sell stolen goods to many other people than the Thieves’ Guild fences, to the way Sneak works, to adding backstab modifiers to different weapons, and so on.
Modders have made a solid game brilliant, and I have no doubt Fallout 3 will be the same.
Kunikos
3433
Yes, I like the one that came out afterwards as well called Renier’s Guard Overhaul which offers more variety of levels of guards, types of default equipment, interesting details for officers armors, etc. There are also mods that do systems for the notoriety stuff, so if you rampage in one town people may hear about it in nearby towns right away but further out not as many people know, hanging out outside of that town for long periods of time will gradually reduce your notoriety, etc.
I have doubt. No plans on mod tools as of yet.
Eh, Bethesda’s been very good about modding tools in the past. I bet they release some for Fallout 3, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes them a while to get around to it.
Populated by ex-KGB officers, no doubt.
They were there by week two with Oblivion, right? I seem to remember a separate download for the Construction Set.
Anyone remember their company line on the CS before Oblivion came out?
salwon
3439
I played Fallout for the first time the other day on Gametap. I was very excited, spent a bunch of time creating my character, worried about how I was going get my Vault its water and then…spent 30 fucking minuted killing rats. I hate this shit. Oblivion pulled the same fucking thing with the Sewers. Just let me play your goddamn game already. WHY do developers do this?!
I should note that the second I left the cave I was much happier and started to see why people love it. But so many games just start off so terribly, I can’t imagine who thinks its a good idea…
Killzig
3440
you can sneak past the rats.
