Fallout 3 Forum Tidbits

Fallout 3 lead developer Emil Pagiarulo has been answered some of the fans' more harsher questions over on the official forum. No Mutants Allowed has all the questions put together.
Question: Dungeonkeeper was a 2d sprite game with a 3d backdrop; but it let you play FPP as well.
DK2 was full 3d, but kept the original vantage, and kept the FPP mode.
[both modes were called for in both games at different times, and the FPP combat worked well with the Isometric]

Was this approach ever considered for Fallout 3? Clearly the engine can support Isometric 'like' game play. So why abandon outright, what could have been blended together if intended?


Gizmo -- Honestly, no, we never really considered making the game like that. And man, I loved me some Dungeon Keeper! But we really saw the game as third/first-person. Me, I prefer first-person by a longshot. It's my preferred perspective for any game. I'm a sucker for immersion, and for me, first-person is the way to achieve that; it just so happens I work with a bunch of people who largely feel the same way, and want to make the same kinds of games.

I mean seriously if someone bought Oblivion or Morrowind and changed it to TB ISO you guys would be a little "volitile" too. You know not all fallout fans are rabid deathclaws...

You know, that's the thing... that's the really tough thing. I CAN understand why some Fallout fans would be bitter. I CAN understand why some Fallout fans would feel like someone took their world and flipped it upside down (or, erm, pulled their camera in...). You know, I try to think of one of my favorite, "old school" games. Let's use Sid Meier's Covert Action as an example. If I found out someone had acquired that license and was turning it into, I dunno... an XBox Live Arcade puzzle game... I'd be pretty miffed too. So I totally get why some fans would be put off by what we're doing.

At the same time, we're not making an Xbox Live puzzle game. We're making an RPG, and I think a damned good one, and I think a lot of people are going to be really psyched to finally be able to enter into the Fallout universe in a more immersive manner.

Then why not just come up with "THEIR OWN" post-apoc FPS ( w/pause ) game ?

That's a really fair question, and one that's obviously come up a lot. The answer for us is pretty simple -- no other post-apocalyptic world would have been nearly as awesome as Fallout. No Vault Boy, no S.P.E.C.I.A.L., no futuristic 1950s vibe. We specifically wanted to make Fallout 3 for all those reasons and more; if the license weren't important to us, we could have made a post-apocalyptic game a long time ago.