Author Archives: gstaff

Developer Diary: Purkey’s Playthroughs

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World Artist Nate Purkeypile has a new Developer Diary up on the Fallout 3 Official Site. For this diary, he recounts his varying playthrough experiences in Fallout 3 with a cast of very unique characters. Here’s a preview of the first character he used, Edward the Cannibal.

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“Edward was always very talented with small guns and how to repair them, when he was growing up in the Vault he always dreamed of being a hero and making his father proud. Initially, he was just a good guy who was wandering the wastelands checking out all the wonderful things to see. Since he was mostly just roaming around and not doing specific quests for people, a couple of times, things went wrong. Sometimes, a grenade would be thrown, and someone who was not supposed to be there, died accidentally. Eventually he started to get a reputation as an “evil-doer”. This made him very sad, because he thought he was being a hero of the wastes. A clean-shaven one at that, beards were for evil people as far as he was concerned.”

To learn more about Edward, and four other characters created by Purkey, read his diary here.

Meet the Splash Damage staff

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For more than a year, we’ve been giving you an inside look at some of our developers here at Bethesda. Since we announced a partnership with Splash Damage earlier this year, I thought you guys might want to check out the dev interviews they’ve been featuring over on their site.

Head here to find staff members’ Things You Were Too Afraid to Ask interviews. Their latest featured dev is Level Designer Miroslav ‘Draska’ Slowik.

Fallout 3 Game Guide: Tour of the Capital Wasteland Overview

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David Hodgson, author of the Fallout 3 Game Guide, continues his series of blog posts today with an overview focusing on the chapter devoted to covering ALL of the Capital Wasteland.

Fallout, then Fall Over: Guide Creation Blog

Part 06: Tour of the Capital Wasteland: Overview

In an attempt to craft the most valuable guide imaginable, we went kinda crazy with this section. Clocking in at over 200 pages (just over two-fifths of the total pages in the Limited Edition guide), the Tour of the Capital Wasteland was to serve two main purposes: 1: To allow you to instantly locate an area you’re needing help with, and 2: To reveal the items available, so you can judge whether a sortie is worth the risk of possible (and almost always grisly) death. This took around two months of hard graft to achieve, but the results were definitely worth it: You have a complete atlas of the entire game world at your fingertips.

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Fallout 3 Game Guide: Overview on Main and Miscellaneous Quests

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David Hodgson, author of the Fallout 3 Game Guide, continues his series of blog posts previewing the guide — this time with an overview on chapters devoted to the main and miscellaneous quests.

Fallout, then Fall Over: Guide Creation Blog

Part 05: Main and Miscellaneous Quests: Chapter Overviews

Much of this book (196 pages, in fact) is taken up with a thorough and meticulous exploration of the Main and Miscellaneous Quests you can begin at any point during your adventure. Segmented into dozens of logical parts, the strategy guide has some key advantages for getting the most (or just the very basic facts) from any point in the game, whether you’re exploring the basement of Tenpenny Tower, or searching for your father and finding out more about your upbringing, and his plans for the future. Expect copious amounts of advice throughout these chapters, which includes the following elements:

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What we’re playing: So much awesomeness!

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As we near the end of the October, the list of games we want to play continues to grow. Devs are frenetically playing through the likes of Dead Space, Fable 2, Far Cry 2, and more — so they can move onto games like Wrath of the Lich King, Resistance 2, and Call of Duty: World at War when they arrive. Too much awesome!

Have a great weekend!

Cory Dornbusch, QA: Burning the Serengeti dry grass in Far Cry 2, running around Albion with my dog in Fable 2(I named him Dogma, get it! har har har.), and Dead Space to see how many ways Isaac can die in the most gruesome way. Kudos to all the dev teams that made these truly awesome games!

Joel Burgess: So much Fable 2.

Ryan Sears, World Artist, Zombie Aficionado: Fallout 3, Fable 2, a (hopefully) epic session of Fury of Dracula tonight, and maybe some Last Night on Earth this weekend.

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Burning the midnight oil…

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We put out a press release today letting everyone know about several launch events we’re having at Best Buy stores across the country. Check it out to find a location near you.

Additionally, Gamestop is having midnight launches at 1600 of their stores. These locations will begin their events at 10 p.m. (local time). If you want to know if a store in your area is having a midnight launch, contact your local store for details.

So where will we be at the strike of midnight? If you’re able to make it to the Rockville Pike Best Buy (1200 Rockville Pike), we’ll be having a special event at the store. After purchasing the game, you’ll be able to get your copy signed by Todd Howard, Emil Pagliarulo, Istvan Pely, Gavin Carter, or any of the other devs that might be out there. Additionally, we’ll have the Fallout Airstream on display. The festivities start at 10 p.m. Monday night. Hope you can make it out.

Around the web: interviews, podcasts and more

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Here’s a load of new coverage for you to read up on before the release of Fallout 3 (T-minus 4 days!!!).

Russ Frushtick from UGO put up a new blog post covering the delivery of a Brotherhood of Steel statue arriving at their office. Having helped pack/unpack one of these, I can tell you, it’s quite the production.

New interviews with Emil can be found at both Gaming Nexus and GameSpy. Here’s a snippet of the latter, entitled The Art of Writing:

GameSpy: How much effort went into creating the main storyline versus encounters and characters found off the beaten path?

Emil Pagliarulo: I’d say it was a pretty equal division. I laid out the miscellaneous quests and the main quest at pretty much the same time. You know, we wanted to get everything on the table as soon as possible, for scheduling and practicality purposes as well as any creative reasons. But that was just the baseline. The other designers certainly fleshed out all that stuff throughout development, and things like the random encounter system came later, and really complimented the gameplay we already had.

Moving along, there’s a new interview with Todd at Paste magazine. Head here to read it.

For more news, hit the jump…

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Fallout 3 Game Guide: Bestiary Chapter Overview

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David Hodgson, author of the Fallout 3 Game Guide, has a new blog post about the guide’s Bestiary. Read his overview below…

Fallout, then Fall Over: Guide Creation Blog

Part 04: Bestiary Chapter Overview

CAUTION! Some minor spoilers ahead!

Although not the largest chapter in this gargantuan-sized strategy guide, this is perhaps the one that packs the largest concentration of thoroughly enjoyable and tactical goodness. If you’re wanting to know what just rammed into you and defiled your corpse after an ill-fated Wasteland wander, this is the chapter to peruse. Basically, you’ve got all the information on every single living entity in D.C.’s smoking remains, and the surrounding area. Rest assured; there’s stats aplenty here.

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Post-Nuclear Partying

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Last Thursday we held a Fallout 3 Launch Party in downtown Los Angeles at LA Center Studios. A great time was had by all — from walking the Brotherhood of Steel-protected red carpet to rocking out with the Foo Fighters.

Being that it was LA, I certainly found myself stargazing a bit at the event. I ran into Gerard Butler (Leonidas from from 300), James Marsden (Cyclops from X-Men), and several other folks from Tinseltown. It wasn’t until I got to the party that I learned that Courteney Cox (who attended with her husband, David Arquette) was actually once an employee here at Bethesda waaay back in the day. And if you’re wondering…no, I didn’t get a chance to talk with Lauren Conrad from The Hills, who attended as well.

Special thanks to Pete, Erin, Tracey, Kate, and everyone else that made the party such a blast.

Hit the jump to see more pictures from the event.

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Fallout 3 Game Guide: Training Chapter Overview

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Over at the Prima Games Author Blog, David Hodgson, author of the Fallout 3 Game Guide, has a new blog post about the guide’s 40-page training chapter. Find out more below…

Fallout, then Fall Over: Guide Creation Blog

Part 03: Training Chapter Overview

Delving a little deeper into the guide, and moving chronologically through the pages, we begin with the Training chapter. Over 40 pages are dedicated to preparation for surviving and thriving in the Capital Wasteland, and there’s an incredible amount of useful detail for both character generation, and general overall tactics. It all begins with the Primary Statistics; the seven S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes that form the basis of your avatar. As these statistics influence other skills, we reveal exactly how everything is inter-related, and the precise modifications a higher or lower statistic brings into play. Want to know what skills your Charisma influences, and by what amount? Then consult this section. Next up is a section on Derived Statistics; a set of values automatically determined when you choose your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. values. These include how much weight you can carry, your chance to inflict a critical hit, how your health is influenced, your resistance to damage, Action Points in V.A.T.S. combat, and more. Say you want the most Action Points for your takedowns; you’ll find out the statistic you need to raise, by how much, and what modifiers and Perks you can use and choose to help augment this statistic.

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