[Galaga Bee]

I think a lot of the fans who are holdovers from the original series are in the same boat on this one, which is that whether they do or don't agree with the idea of making it a single-player, 1st person, 3D game, they are still big enough fans of the series that they will enjoy the game regardless.

I also don't want to misrepresent myself here, since Bethesda still has the ability to do quite a few different things with the license, up to and including making a top-down, iso-linear, party-based game, or something with any combination of different characteristics. Keep in mind that Bethesda hasn't released much info about the actual game yet, so it's still entirely possible that I could end up being the one who is playing a game that doesn't have all of the characteristics that I want it to have (rather than the other way around), or even more likely, that *everyone* will have at least 1 little thing that they wish was different about the game.

Another thing I should also add is that I see nothing wrong with creating a game that is virtually identical to Fallout 1 and 2; to paraphrase a thread on a diffferent forum I read once, if they were to simply add a bunch of new content and make Fallout 3 look and play identical to the first 2 games, I would be satisfied. However, that is not the subject of debate; the subject of debate is whether or not a version with different graphics, different gameplay, etc. is capable of being a fun game to play while still staying true to the original series, and whether or not it would be a "better" (a term that is both relative and subjective) game than the previous games.

(Edited: Actually, I think I would be a bit disappointed if the developers just made a Fallout 2 clone. Not that I wouldn't play and enjoy it, but c'mon, they can do better than that.)

I think that part of the problem is that it's been so long since a worthy, legitimate sequel to the game has been released (Tactics doesn't count, IMO; not that it was a bad game necessarily, just not quite a "sequel") that the changes which will take place appear much more drastic than they would if there were only a year or two in between the development cycles. By the time Fallout 3 is actually released, there will be around 10 years difference between the Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 release dates (Edited: hopefully closer to 9 years), and this inherently means that there will be major differences between the 2 games, for better or worse.

I also think that it's worth mentioning (without delving into too much developer worship here) that whatever the developers at Bethesda decide to do with the game, based on my past experiences with the previous games they have made, they will probably be the things that the developers feel will result in the most entertaining experience they can provide. To put it another way, I believe the developers when they say that their intention is to compromise as little as possible on the choices they make for each of the games they develop, and I don't believe that they would compromise the integrity of the game just to get it released sooner or to placate a small group of fans whose ideas may not reflect what the overall fanbase wants to see.