Interview Pete Hines on Fallout 3

[elander_]

_elander - with the codex doing the exact opposite and not being any less moronic in the course of it? Yeah, no shortage of retards on the internet, I agree.

Relax. Theres is a difference between being cynical and pessimistic and being a moron. Why don't you tell some game devs who salivate over games they haven't made yet to speak only when they have something to say. Nobody forces game developers to hype their games moronicaly either.

 

[Killzig]

but fallout isn't cool? Its kitschey? Good things Pete Hines isn't actually working on the game himself.

 

[HardCode]

More like "Sellout 3".

... but the problem is that when you come back to your house and there are items missing, it doesn't feel like somebody's stolen them, more like the game's broken.

Only the XBox morons who couldn't find Caius would think that. Then again, who is the target audience?

Bullshit! If you come back to your stashed loot and something is gone, you are gonna think it's a bug. In fact a bug like that existed with containers in Morrwind, I remember nobody posting about how cool the stealing in MW was. If you want to make this into a gameplay component, you have to make the stealing NPC leave traces of his activity, you have to program mechanics that allow you to play detective and find the thief. It would be a complex subgame, but not something you can just brush over.

As to Fallout; why don't you guys just wait until you have some actual information to bitch about? Ahh, but I guess this little vendetta is just too much fun, huh?

\

Give me a fucking break. How could you possibly defend that retarded reason? How hard would it be to script an event so that when you return to your "home" or open your chest, a message shows that it appears someone was here fucking with your stuff ... as long as the PC's skill is high enough, of course. Don't be an appologist for Bethesda. It's a short-lived career.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

More like "Sellout 3".

... but the problem is that when you come back to your house and there are items missing, it doesn't feel like somebody's stolen them, more like the game's broken.

Only the XBox morons who couldn't find Caius would think that. Then again, who is the target audience?

Bullshit! If you come back to your stashed loot and something is gone, you are gonna think it's a bug. In fact a bug like that existed with containers in Morrwind, I remember nobody posting about how cool the stealing in MW was. If you want to make this into a gameplay component, you have to make the stealing NPC leave traces of his activity, you have to program mechanics that allow you to play detective and find the thief. It would be a complex subgame, but not something you can just brush over.

As to Fallout; why don't you guys just wait until you have some actual information to bitch about? Ahh, but I guess this little vendetta is just too much fun, huh?

\

Give me a fucking break. How could you possibly defend that retarded reason? How hard would it be to script an event so that when you return to your "home" or open your chest, a message shows that it appears someone was here fucking with your stuff ... as long as the PC's skill is high enough, of course. Don't be an appologist for Bethesda. It's a short-lived career.

Well, have a fucking brake then, it's on me. A text message would fit into oblivion like a fist in your stomach. And then what, how do you handle the retrieval in any convincing manner? How do you handle the audio dialogue for it? Mark the thief on the magic compass after a successfull "forensics" dieroll as the ingenious Llama suggests?
Don't go steaming off in opposition to everything Bethesda says, use you brain first, or look like an idiot on a hate trip, you choice.

 

[Killzig]

there's plenty of methods you could use. Leave an item behind. Matchbook, scroll, footprint, beggar in the area who saw someone "PSSSTs you into the nearby alley to sell you the info."

not that I really see the sense of having a home in an RPG... you've got better things to do than cool your heels in your living room while stashing your l00t. There's a world out there and its not going to save itself!

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Well, have a fucking brake then, it's on me. A text message would fit into oblivion like a fist in your stomach.

It'd be an awful lot better than that "D00d! YOU FUxx0r3d teh main quest man!" text box they pop-up whenever you kill somone. Seriously though, burglars don't usually leave the place clean. They ransack the place. You'd come home and all your stuff would be everywhere. Your maid might even be locked in a room and might give you some information about the men who broke in "they had a unique tatoo..." (link to a certain guild) or "there were 5 of them, I heard them talk about something called 'Maritas'" (link to a city or place). If you don't have a maid, maybe a witness outside. Failing any witnesses, a door which "appears to have been forced" and broken glass is enough of a tip off. Then it's just a matter of hunting down the black markets, maybe from talking to local law enforcement that let you in on their knowledge about a special night market? Then you'd go there and look for that precious painting or artifact that was stolen from you, recognising it as yours and following it up with the merchant. Getting him to tell you who sold it to him and following them up. Eventually following all the clues back to the bandits hide-out where you break in and proceed to kick arse.

And then what, how do you handle the retrieval in any convincing manner? How do you handle the audio dialogue for it? Mark the thief on the magic compass after a successfull "forensics" dieroll as the ingenious Llama suggests?

No, you're just an idiot who has a limited thinking capacity. Not unlike several employees at Bethesda apparently.

 

[Zomg]

You'd have to make the concept of an RPG house/estate etc. interesting before bothering to give it secondary gameplay. I've never seen it done in a nonstupid way - usually it's just a place for you to dump trash. Hell, most RPGs don't even make you strip off your 40kg of martial plate armor when you're not actually in battle, behavior that would probably kill or drive a man insane in a few days - the comforts of home seem a bit quaint in that context.

 

[aweigh]

Well in Suikoden you can use your castle to put on theater plays using your recruits as the actors, hold cooking competitions a la Iron Chef, have everyone blow off some steam in the castle tavern or in the hot springs and even visit dead comrades in the graveyard.

 

[kingcomrade]

I think I played one of the Suikoden games. Aren't they the ones with the funny TB battle, where when you attack, it shows an animation of two armies charging past each other and leaving dead bodies behind?

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Well, have a fucking brake then, it's on me. A text message would fit into oblivion like a fist in your stomach.

It'd be an awful lot better than that "D00d! YOU FUxx0r3d teh main quest man!" text box they pop-up whenever you kill somone. Seriously though, burglars don't usually leave the place clean. They ransack the place. You'd come home and all your stuff would be everywhere. Your maid might even be locked in a room and might give you some information about the men who broke in "they had a unique tatoo..." (link to a certain guild) or "there were 5 of them, I heard them talk about something called 'Maritas'" (link to a city or place). If you don't have a maid, maybe a witness outside. Failing any witnesses, a door which "appears to have been forced" and broken glass is enough of a tip off. Then it's just a matter of hunting down the black markets, maybe from talking to local law enforcement that let you in on their knowledge about a special night market? Then you'd go there and look for that precious painting or artifact that was stolen from you, recognising it as yours and following it up with the merchant. Getting him to tell you who sold it to him and following them up. Eventually following all the clues back to the bandits hide-out where you break in and proceed to kick arse.

And then what, how do you handle the retrieval in any convincing manner? How do you handle the audio dialogue for it? Mark the thief on the magic compass after a successfull "forensics" dieroll as the ingenious Llama suggests?

No, you're just an idiot who has a limited thinking capacity. Not unlike several employees at Bethesda apparently.

You are a true marvel of intellectual power! Well maybe not. What you describe is a wonderful but unfortunately completely scripted scenario. Which has no bearing on the situation we talk about, because that NPC who just burglarized you is just a random RAI driven NPC. Of course they can script a quest that involves an attack on your house, but the discussion is about AI driven actors doing this on their own impulse. So not only do you have to script the ransacking to go along with an NPC entering your house, you also have to have that "unique Tatoo" or something similar for every possible NPC, have a way to automatically drop you the hint, no matter if your house has a maid or not, and have all of those dialogue hints recorded for every possible permutation of the burglary story. Finally you have to obtain hints that allow you to find a random AI controlle actor thats moving about town somehow. So, Einstein, can you get it into your big head that this is a pretty complex undertaking? Is it possible - I'm sure it is. Is it necessary or cool enough to spend all the resources to do that? Err... no. Which is why no game has ever done it before (The UO example is moot , because its player controlle characters who do the stealing so there is actual PvP gameplay involved).

Oh, BTW, the kill message is no longer in, get your facts straight. Suxxors to be you.

 

[aweigh]

Well it depends. Suiko series features Final Fantasy-ish turn-based battles when with your companions, and KOEI-lite turn-based affairs when in Army VS Army mode. The earlier Suiko games utilized a hokey paper-rock-scissors system for the different units' weaknesses and strengths. Putting on plays in Suiko3 was the best thing about the whole game. It was lots of fun casting different characters in different parts, like men in a woman's role, or vice-versa, or children in older people's roles. They really went the extra mile putting in different dialogue for ever conceivable actor mish-mash you could think up. I think there were 5 plays you could put on in total, but I never got 2 of 'em cuz you needed the save data from Suiko2. I never played the 4th entry in the series cuz it looked awful and they did away with almost everything that made it fun, but the 5th entry looks like it's back on track.

 

[kris]

rant

Your inability to not be able to think out of the box is only matched by Bethesda, I think you should apply for a position there. Finding solutions to all things they called "problems" is not hard, including this one. I don't know why you want to have less gameplay moments in the game, but I take it as blind faith in Bethesda.

 

[Section8]

What's with the Ghan bashing? He's got some pretty good points, in that it does require a concerted effort to assure that NPC theft is accounted for by reasonable game dynamics. I'm disappointed that Bethesda haven't utilised RAI to the potential it offers, but at the same time, Pete's comment is probably the most sensible thing he's ever said.

The question at hand is whether it's worthwhile building an implementation of stolen goods. In my opinion, it's yes, because I'm a big proponent of emergent gameplay and dynamic quest content, but there are also about 100 other things ahead of NPC theft on my "shit that I wish Bethesda had taken the time to implement" list.

 

[VenomByte]

Well, have a fucking brake then, it's on me. A text message would fit into oblivion like a fist in your stomach.

It'd be an awful lot better than that "D00d! YOU FUxx0r3d teh main quest man!" text box they pop-up whenever you kill somone. Seriously though, burglars don't usually leave the place clean. They ransack the place. You'd come home and all your stuff would be everywhere. Your maid might even be locked in a room and might give you some information about the men who broke in "they had a unique tatoo..." (link to a certain guild) or "there were 5 of them, I heard them talk about something called 'Maritas'" (link to a city or place). If you don't have a maid, maybe a witness outside. Failing any witnesses, a door which "appears to have been forced" and broken glass is enough of a tip off. Then it's just a matter of hunting down the black markets, maybe from talking to local law enforcement that let you in on their knowledge about a special night market? Then you'd go there and look for that precious painting or artifact that was stolen from you, recognising it as yours and following it up with the merchant. Getting him to tell you who sold it to him and following them up. Eventually following all the clues back to the bandits hide-out where you break in and proceed to kick arse.

And then what, how do you handle the retrieval in any convincing manner? How do you handle the audio dialogue for it? Mark the thief on the magic compass after a successfull "forensics" dieroll as the ingenious Llama suggests?

No, you're just an idiot who has a limited thinking capacity. Not unlike several employees at Bethesda apparently.

You are a true marvel of intellectual power! Well maybe not. What you describe is a wonderful but unfortunately completely scripted scenario. Which has no bearing on the situation we talk about, because that NPC who just burglarized you is just a random RAI driven NPC. Of course they can script a quest that involves an attack on your house, but the discussion is about AI driven actors doing this on their own impulse. So not only do you have to script the ransacking to go along with an NPC entering your house, you also have to have that "unique Tatoo" or something similar for every possible NPC, have a way to automatically drop you the hint, no matter if your house has a maid or not, and have all of those dialogue hints recorded for every possible permutation of the burglary story. Finally you have to obtain hints that allow you to find a random AI controlle actor thats moving about town somehow. So, Einstein, can you get it into your big head that this is a pretty complex undertaking? Is it possible - I'm sure it is. Is it necessary or cool enough to spend all the resources to do that? Err... no. Which is why no game has ever done it before (The UO example is moot , because its player controlle characters who do the stealing so there is actual PvP gameplay involved).

Oh, BTW, the kill message is no longer in, get your facts straight. Suxxors to be you.

Why would it have to be a random AI scritped NPC? Not everyone is the thieving bastard. Earlier today I walked past someone car with the key in the ignition and the engine on. I didn't nick it.

Whilst NPC's might pick up items left randomly in the street, I would have thought it would be perfectly acceptable to limit breaking into your property to members of the thieves (or other similar) guild and perhaps a few other dodgy characters. I'm sure RAI has, or could easily have, a variable for 'thieving bastardness'.

This would give a much lower required set of messages/dialogues, and the simplification fo the rest of the complexity dilema follows on from there.

Trivial? Perhaps not. Feasable? Certainly.

Probably easier than adding homing horses you can't fight on.

 

[Lumpy]

I don't get it. You guys are speaking so naturally about intelligent NPC behaviour and emergent quests from Radiant AI, as if every RPG has done it before, and Oblivion is a piece of shit for not doing it. Get a clue - it's extremely hard, and it's never been done.
VenomByte - there is a certain Radiant AI statistic that determines the NPCs lawfulness, called Responsibility. Low Responsibility NPCs will steal.
How on Earth would you handle a random NPC stealing from the PC's house? Random, that's what it's about, random burglaries, not scripted ones. A scripted one is feasible, a random one is not.
There's the matter of limited dialogue - you can't possibly have dialogue for every single situation. Also, what kind of clues would the NPCs leave? And how would find a dirty napkin at the scene of the crime help you to find the thief? Or a NPC seeing the burglars - way too hard to do.
A scripted burglary would be feasible. Emergent, solvable burglaries based on Radiant AI are not.

 

[Balor]

Ehm, SR2 did that. Rangers, traders, pirates - they are completely autonomous and live their own lives.
Of course, it happends in 2d space, but hey - you are talking about principle, don't you?

 

[Lumpy]

Ehm, SR2 did that. Rangers, traders, pirates - they are completely autonomous and live their own lives.
Of course, it happends in 2d space, but hey - you are talking about principle, don't you?

I was talking about emergent quests, not Radiant AI.
It's ridiculous to criticize Oblivion for not having those.

 

[kris]

What's with the Ghan bashing? He's got some pretty good points, in that it does require a concerted effort to assure that NPC theft is accounted for by reasonable game dynamics.

Because he talks about it like it is not doable. Of course it takes effort, all except windowdressing takes some kind of effort.

EDIT - Was this only about radiant AI or about robbing the house? It seemed the latter to me.

 

[Claw]

Simplest solution would be to have a dedicated black market (i.e. at least a shop that sells stolen goods), and have unlawful NPCs bring stolen goods there, giving the options of buying or stealing them back.

I find it amusing with how much suspicion the idea of actually implementing any sort of interesting gameplay with Radiant AI is met.

I don't see why it should be so difficult to give the player a clue that someone broke into his house either.
Seeing Oblivion's design, the obvious *simple* solution is a special mouse cursor when you look at the door.
That's the least. You don't *need* anything as elaborate as DU described, of course. Just a simple, accessible solution, and like a specific place in every city where you can find stolen goods.

 

[Fresh]

I think Ghan has it right on this one.

While having NPCs stealing from you is a cool feature I'd suspect this would be much more cost-effective to do via scripted events. Like the time where your car is nicked in FO2.

 

[elander_]

I can understand this is a tipical design choice from Oblivion game designer KR. He just has his style and prefers to focus on other type of gameplay than this. Granted it's not something essential however it would be a bit weird when you get an house on the most dangerous city that is filled with thieves and assassins, you also don't lock the door and nobody ever touches your stuff. It's this "the player is not a part of the world feeling" that breaks up immersion. It doesn't look like a real house. Immersion is not just about filling the world with tons of trash, plants and trees or having npcs with tons of different haircuts. You have to feel like you are part of the world and not that the world is just a movie scenario setup for you to play that falls into fakeness whenever the player tries to do something so normal as locking the door.

No big deal if it was just for this detail in the new Elderscrolls series which follow their own mixed style. But this design style only puts more doubts into the quality of a future Fallout3. The way Beth devs defend their decision by saying it can't be done right and blablabla makes me wonder if they can do an hardcore rpg right like Fallout was. Saying that poping up a text label to give feedback to the player breaks immersion is the dumbest thing someone ever said. In Fallout you use your inspection ability all the time when clicking on something. You have repair, science, doctor, first aid skills and a perception attribute that influence the textual message you receive that depends much of your char. Somehow i doubt that these devs will keep a text feedback window or even some kind of inspection ability with text feedback for F3.

 

[Thrawn05]

Somehow i doubt that these devs will keep a text feedback window or even some kind of inspection ability with text feedback for F3.

They'll have the Great Gazoo with you. There would be a voice actor (JIM CARREY!!!) to tell you what you need know. That way Xboxers don't have to read anything.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Because he talks about it like it is not doable.

No I didn't. Read again, third to last sentence, I think. I said it's complex, and certainly not done by simply displaying a text pop-up.

 

[Vault Dweller]

How on Earth would you handle a random NPC stealing from the PC's house? Random, that's what it's about, random burglaries, not scripted ones. A scripted one is feasible, a random one is not.
There's the matter of limited dialogue - you can't possibly have dialogue for every single situation. Also, what kind of clues would the NPCs leave? And how would find a dirty napkin at the scene of the crime help you to find the thief? Or a NPC seeing the burglars - way too hard to do.
A scripted burglary would be feasible. Emergent, solvable burglaries based on Radiant AI are not.

It's easier than you think. If you can set an NPC's schedule to visit a tavern every day at 12pm, you can set up a schedule of a thief (Thief Guild's members) to try to break at random houses at 12 am (security skill check) and take some items based on their value. If the skill check is successful, you get a "Your door is open, call 911" message when you return or wake up. Those break-ins would also motivate investing in chests with tough locks. Anyway, then you pay the Thief Guild a visit and negotiate (kill, talk, buy) getting your stuff back. If you are a member of the Guild, your house is removed from the schedule.

 

[Solik]

But then that makes it relatively predictable. Hide nearby at your house at midnight every night to catch a thief. Doesn't feel very emergent.

Another thing to ponder is how this impacts the house-purchasing feature overall from a gameplay perspective. If the only purposes of houses are to have a place to rest for free and store your stuff for safe-keeping, then it better be good at those things. Houses are far more expensive than staying in inns in short-term (short-term being the entire span of the game), so it's not a great deal with resting. If your stuff can be stolen, then it's also a bad deal for stashing stuff. That means you'd need to add some new feature to houses to make them worthwhile. Considering that houses are best used for family-raising, social events, and long-term cost effectiveness (many years of saving on inn rooms), you'd have to change the game into a life simulator rather than an epic RPG to get any use out of it.