JediNeophyte wrote: What the hell are you people talking about?!
There is no better development company in existance, save maybe Obsidian itself, to give the rights to Fallout 3. They're using the same engine as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, FFS!
I just don't see it. I realize a lot of people liked Morrowind (even though I didn't), and I really enjoyed Daggerfall, but Fallout is nothing like either of those games. To be Fallout it has to have a defined story with attention to detail. It has to have extensive dialogue trees with colorful characters, and unique locales. Yes, Fallout games also have an exploration and open-ended angle and nobody does that better than Bethesda, but the open-endedness is within a set of boundaries and the choices are binary or trinary.
When I envision Fallout 3 done by Bethesda, I picture a game that is first-person or over the shoulder third-person, that has a go-anywhere, do-anything attitude, but that does not have a strong and always-present story like a Fallout should, that has too many locales that are not detailed, colorful, and diverse enough, and that has too many characters, none with enough depth to be worthy of Fallout. I also see too much departure from the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. character creation system and the Fallout combat system. Something similar to the Elder Scrolls' combat model applied to Fallout, for instance, would be a horrid mismatch, and would end up feeling like Vampire Bloodlines (you can read how I feel about that game in its thread).
What I would have liked to have seen is a 3/4 top down game with a fixed camera, but 3D polygon graphics, a combat system similar to the continuous turn based system in Fallout Tactics (which I thought worked beautifully and would have been even better in an RPG where you only directly control one character rather than 6). Other than those changes, the character creation, skills, etc. should remain mostly the same. I'd be surprised if the game that Black Isle had mostly finished didn't strongly resemble what I've just described. I'd be
astonished if the game Bethesda is working on were even close.
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