Fallout 3 Fan Interview #2
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2) Are children and otherwise non essential or non-quest related NPC's vulnerable or invulnerable to accidental or purposeful (deadly) harm? And how about quest essential people? Please elaborate as much as you can, especially on why you choose to do it that way.
You will not be able to be a child killer. There are several reasons for this, some of them are very basic, like we wouldn't be able to sell the game, anywhere to anyone, if the children could be killed. I'm not using that as a scapegoat. We never wanted the game to offer any incentive or desire to be blowing kids away, so from our initial designs, we didn't know how we were going to handle if you shot them, we just knew it was going to be a big no-no, especially with a system like VATS and the graphic fidelity the gore has. Anyway, when attacked, all children flee and any regular NPCs friendly to the children will instantly attack you, so it feels good in the game, in that there is an appropriate response.
In regards to essential NPCs, it works like Oblivion, in that when they "die" they get knocked "unconscious" and get up a little while later. It worked well in Oblivion, so we kept that system, as you can still attack everyone that you want, and get at least a small benefit (being able to avoid them while they are down). I will say that the number of essential characters is minute compared to Oblivion and we've gone to pretty big lengths to cover a lot of people's deaths, but sometimes that's just not possible.
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9) Will the PC version of the game include some sort of SDK or level editor like Elder Scrolls games have? If not, might one become available via download in the future? And how about the console versions, what have you done to give them the same options PC players have?
It will definitely not be included on the disk. If and when one is available, it will be a free download. I wish I could promise that an editor will be coming and when, but I can't. Our focus is first and foremost the game, and it's a major undertaking getting an editor ready for release, and making sure the game plays nice with the data users create. That being said, we'd love to see it happen. We're really proud of our tools and what the community has created for Morrowind and Oblivion, it's really awesome stuff. It's one of those things that even if only a thousand people use it, they create enough great stuff that keeps the larger audience interested and going. I always found it a great "pure" RPG experience, creating your own stuff and sharing it, like a good DM. I still have "Stuart Smith's Adventure Construction Set" for the Apple 2 on my shelf. I have no doubt that Fallout would benefit from such a thing as well, so we'll see what happens, it's not something we can just throw out there.
As far as consoles go, that's not happening for this game and user content. It's something we keep talking about with Microsoft and Sony, but there are a lot of barriers there right now, from delivery to security. We'd love to see that happen. I'd love to see Oblivion content created by PC users available to all platforms, because the data is the same, most of them would pretty much "work" right away.
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17) How much can you tell us about the stats, skills, traits and perks featured in the game? And what skills/perks were carried over and which were dropped from previous Fallout games? And why choose the ones you did carry over and why did you not choose the ones that were dropped?
Big question, and I can't discuss all the specific stats yet. I do know the skill list is coming out in a few weeks, perhaps by the time you read this. Perks will not be until much later, as we're still doing some final tweaks on them. I think when you see the skill list, the choices will be obvious, and they're the ones most of you would agree with.
Ok, time for some, perhaps, bad news. Traits have been rolled into Perks. That was a hard decision for us, and one that took, literally, years. We kept coming back to it, and re-discussing it, and once we were playing the game, found that the difference between the two systems was so similar that even half the entries in the community "design a perk" contest were actually traits. Take "Bloody Mess" for example, probably the most famous trait. Is the game really more fun if that can only be taken at the very start? Why can't you pick it at level 6? What's so important about having it only at the start? The perk choice is probably one of the most fun parts of the game, and to relegate certain ones to only be chosen when you first start, before you've even played the game and know how any of it feels, just didn't prove as fun to us. How do you know you want Bloody Mess if you haven't seen how bloody the current mess is? (did I just type that?) Anyway, trust me when I say this one was a debate, a long one, and a decision we're not naive enough to think will be understood or applauded by everyone.
Anyway, many traits from Fallout return, but as perks. And many perks return, as perks. Another change over the last year is that you now pick a perk every time you level, and the perks have been balanced accordingly. Like I said before, we found the level-up-pick-a-perk experience to be so enjoyable, it was actually confusing people why they couldn't do it every level. Perks also still have prerequisites for certain stats, including your level. New perks open up at even levels, so while you still get to pick a perk at the odd levels, you won't see any new ones based on your level, but may see a new one based on say, your Science skill.
The good news is that there are a ton of perks, around 100 if you include the multiple ranks. And with a level cap of 20, you still have only 19 times you get to pick one, so you need at least 5 playthroughs of the game to use them all. It was important to us with all of this, that the choices were hard for the player, no matter what the skills/traits/perks were, and that you couldn't see it all the first time through.
