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Chris Taylor: I'm Chris Taylor, and I'm a maker of games. Previous work: Fallout 1, Stonekeep, SFC and some other titles (one or two which should have been melted into tiny little lumps of plastic).
CT: Big influences are easy: Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Wizardry 1-4, Tapper. I'm currently playing way too much EverQuest (way, way too much!), some Vampire (need to finish it soon), Combat Mission and Unreal Tournament. I'm really looking forward to Arcanum, Warcraft III and Black & White.
CT: You start with one character that you can create from scratch (or pick from a handful of pre-generated archtypes). You also have a small pool of NPCs to choose from. That pool grows as you play the game, advance in rank and find characters to join up with you. Some members of the Brotherhood of Steel, your organization, will automatically enter your character pool as your gain rank in the BoS. Other characters need to be adventured for.
CT: You gain experience for defeating enemies, solving quests and using your skills successfully. As you gain XP, you increase in levels. As you gain levels, you gain more skill points and access to things called Perks. Perks are special abilities that improve what your character can already do or give him/her access to new abilities. Rank is separate from Level. Rank gives you access to more followers and better weapons/armor back at the BoS bunker.
CT: The game is divided into chapters. Each chapter has from 1 to 5 missions (or so). Using a world map, which shows the current bunker plus the local area, the player can select from 1 to 3 of those missions. They appear as areas on the world map. The player simply travels to that location. Completing a mission successfully may unlock a new mission for that chapter. Once all missions are completed in a chapter, the next chapter of the game begins. What the player does in a mission may certainly influence future missions. If the player kills a bunch of ghouls (which are normally neutral to the player) in one mission, future ghouls might not take so kindly to the player.
CT: The terrain varies as the player moves from the start of the game (the Chicago area) to the end of the game (the Denver area). Ruined cities, tribal villages, wastelands, mountains, snowy mountains, desolate highways are just some of the areas encountered. I like some of the underground and city maps. Narrow passages make great killzones! Strangest: Well, you'd have to play the game to find that out.
CT: Ammo will indeed be limited, but there are many different kinds of ammos and many different weapons, so they player will be more likely to switch weapons than to run out of ammo completely. The player has a barter skill and it can be used in some missions. Of course, the most probable way of acquiring equipment is to steal or scavenge it off of the corpses of your enemies.
CT: The background story of Fallout Tactics is as strong as any of the other Fallout games. And it is very true to the Fallout universe. Being a strategy game (more specifically, a tactical combat game), Fallout Tactics doesn't have as much character interaction as the RPGs. But the story is there and comes across as the player completes missions.
CT: Yes, Fallout is a Mature-rated game. It allows the player to act in many different ways, with all the different possible consequences of those actions. It is not as open-ended as previous Fallouts, mostly because there are certain tasks that must be accomplished to win a mission. The player does have some freedom about how those tasks are accomplished. I'm a pretty nice guy, so I don't usually do mean things. I did waste a village that I was supposed to save, since they didn't reward me as well as I thought they should have, but I lost the mission... Oh, well.
CT: Shhhhhh.
CT: A few from the Fallout games, of course. No specifics.
CT: CTB just means everyone goes at the same time, action points are still used but they regenerate over time. The familiar turn-based system is still there. It's an option that can be switched to at any point the character is not in combat.
CT: The 2D look still works best for Fallout at this time. It was the best way to keep the traditional Fallout style. The future may bring about a change, but for right now we think it was the best decision. We support 800x600 and 1024x768. Computers with 3D cards will see some speedier lighting effects and so on.
CT: We're releasing the same tools that we used to build the game.
CT: The demo is coming very soon. The full version is coming Q1, 2001. And nothing else has been announced.
CT: Thanks! Moooooo!
GO: It's always interesting to hear what games people in the industry play. What games have influenced you the most? What games are you playing now? What games make your most wanted list?
GO: Okay, let's talk Fallout Tactics. How many characters will you start the campaign with? What will you have to do to recruit new team members?
GO: How will experience work? What benefits will characters gain from battles? There has also been talk of awards and military promotions, any word on that?
GO: What will the mission structure be like? Will the outcome of one mission influence others, and if so give us some examples?
GO: Give us some examples of the kinds of places where battles will take place in FT:BOS. What is your favorite setting? What is the strangest?
GO: How will resources be handled during the campaign? Will ammo be in limited supply? Will there be people to buy equipment from? Will players be able to scavenge from fallen foes?
GO: Fallout has a tradition of rich story elements, and there's a lot of concern from the Fallout fans that FT:BOS is going to be light in that department. How do you respond to that?
GO: Wearing the Mature rating like a badge of honor, the Fallout games have always allowed you to be as moral or immoral as you like. Will FT:BOS continue this trend? If so, what's the nastiest, vilest, most despicably wrong thing you've done so far while working on the game?
GO: Fallout has given us some truly strange scientific creations: Stealth Boy, The GECK, PIPBoy 2000, Mr. Handy (He's so handy!). What can we look forward to in FT:BOS?
GO: Will FT:BOS have any familiar faces or tie-ins for fans Fallout 1 & 2, or even Wasteland? Personally, I still owe Faran Brygo a thing or two. And don't say, "That would be telling," I'm wise to your tricks.
GO: There's been some confusion about what exactly "Continuous Turn-Based" means. How will this new combat system work, and will players still be able to use the old fashioned turn-based system instead?
GO: Everything seems to be 3D these days, why the decision to stay with 2D tiles? What resolutions are supported, and will people with 3D accelerators see any differences in the graphics?
GO: With the mod community being such a force on the Internet, will any mission editors or software development tools be packaged with FT:BOS?
GO: So, okay. Enough already, I'm sold. When are we going to get our hands on this thing? How long until we see the demo? The full version? Fallout Tactics 2? *cou-Fallout 3-gh*?
GO: Thanks for taking the time to sit down and answer these questions. Let me speak for all the Fallout fans when I say we really appreciate it. Good luck finishing the game, we're all looking forward to it. Would you like to leave us with any parting remarks?
(For more info on Fallout Tactics check out Interplay’s official web site at www.interplay.com/falloutbos)
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