70°

'Not much' fan feedback used in Fallout 3 development

Speaking in an interview with VideoGamer.com, Bethesda Softworks vice president Pete Hines revealed that the developer instead prefers to rely on internal feedback.

Hines told VideoGamer.com that "you have to take feedback from the people who are actually playing the game".

When asked how much the series' protective fan base figured in the development of the game, he replied: "Not much. When you're designing a game, you have this group of people on the inside who are working on it every day and who know everything about the decisions that are being made. You don't just take a chunk of that, throw it out to the community and say, "We don't know how this question works, so let's ask the fans". You're working and changing every day - it's a constant, fluid process. It's not like we say, "Okay, everything is done now, let's see what they say then go back and change it."
jtorry - contributor
Published: 477 days 14 hours ago | News | PlayStation 3 | Xbox 360 | PC
 
 

Showing: 1 - 13 of 13 Comments
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Captain Tuttle - 477 days 14 hours ago
1 -
The hardcore Fallout fan is a special breed (NMA). They only have 1 vision of what this game should be and that's 2D isometric with turn-based combat, with huge dialogue trees and multiple paths for finishing ie. Fallout 1&2.

That being said, I'm afraid they were accurate when they predicted "Oblivion with guns", especially when it comes to NPC interaction. Oblivion was so stiff and lifeless in that department and it seems like Fallout 3 will be the same. It's a shame.
Still a day 1 purchase though.
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kenshin22up - 477 days 11 hours ago
1.1 -
more like Arena with guns.
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Skemo - 477 days 11 hours ago
1.2 - Agreed
I'm a apart of that hardcore group. Unfortunately from their perspective making a more accessible (and "safe") title (aka Oblivion with Guns), is more important than preserving the roots of the franchise. IMO, they should have came up with their own IP rather than sully the great legacy of Fallout 1 and 2.
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StephanieBBB - 477 days 11 hours ago
1.3 - @skemo
"IMO, they should have came up with their own IP rather than sully the great legacy of Fallout 1 and 2. "

Still you can say that because you haven't played it yet. If you play it and still think they've done a crappy job with it then more power to ya!
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cemelc - 477 days 11 hours ago
1.4 -
You can pretty much say how the game is going to be played by the thousand gameplay videos already on the web, the only video remaining is one seeing a guy push buttons and i don't thing anyone want to see that.

On the next note, yeah it looks a lot like oblivion with guns, and the only thing the company is doing is ovehyping that you can go from first person to third person perspective(oblivion anyone??). Its not like the game is going to be bad because oblivion was great, but fallout a total ripoff of oblivion is not good a thing either, and reviers should take this into account for their correponding reviews.
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f789790 - 477 days 8 hours ago
1.5 - I've got so many games on my list
That reason just bumped this game down to my bargain bin wait list.
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PS360WII - 477 days 14 hours ago
2 -
Probably because it would of been sent back to the drawing board if they listened to fans. . .
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butterfinger - 477 days 14 hours ago
3 - With all the negatives...
I will still be picking up Fallout 3 for the 360 on day 1. I'm just hoping the game has a bit more polish and is a lot less like Oblivion in certain areas than it seems to be.
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dimeford - 477 days 11 hours ago
4 -
No game can live up to the idealized image some fans have of Fallout 1 and 2. I loved those games but they weren't perfect and Fallout 3 won't be, either. It'll just be imperfect in different areas. People who gripe that it's going to be Oblivion with guns should realize that having a new installment of a game feel too much like a former Game of the Year isn't that horrible of a problem. At least it's still an open-ended RPG. Look at how badly some other franchises have been mangled in sequels - X-Com, for example, went from being a strategy series to an awful shooter.
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LeonSKennedy4Life - 477 days 11 hours ago
5 - well
Being part of that group...I can say I'm totally excited about this!

2D restricted the storytelling aspects of the game. Why would you do that again???

It's like turn-based RPG's...why continue to do those when we have the technology for real-time...which is much more exciting AND you can still use tactics??? (I'm gonna get a couple of disagrees on that one...)
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CrippleH - 477 days 8 hours ago
6 -
The people who hates the path that this game is headed reminds of of the Diablo 3 people that complained about the colors.

Things change.
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Charlie2688 - 477 days 7 hours ago
6.1 -
Not really, one is changing the visuals of the game (still same gameplay) the other is just keeping the name and theme and ditching pretty much everything else (which Bethesda is king of you can just ask the previous Elder Scroll fanbases...with emphasis on the S)

but you know what both have in common...the counter fanboys that without having a clue about either franchise or company will defend the game against (and attack) either fan or fanboy (both who have actually bought AND played previous games)
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IAm1Bearcat - 477 days 2 hours ago
7 -
when i first read this i thought, "great, now there will be no new features or any real advanced technology and creativeness in FO3 because they're not listening" but then i actually thought about it for awhile and came to the conclusion that since i havent played a damn second of this game yet, im not gonna judge.

if it sucks, it might suck for entirely different reasons, and to be honest, even if they did listen to fans, some fans have douche bag ideas (to be honest). so there's no telling how this will go.

still day one purchase for me :)
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