Fallout: purchased, readied and nearly MMOed.

I never played Fallout, although I liked the look of it over a then-boyfriend's shoulder. He swore by it, and apart from a 2-year love affair fatal attraction to EverQuest, he had pretty good taste in games. In pretty much non-news today, the Fallout IP has been bought from Interplay by Bethesda, who made Oblivion: not so interesting yet, but this bit is:

As part of the agreement Interplay now acts as a licensee of the IP as it continues to ramp up production on its own Fallout-themed massively multiplayer game, first announced in 2004 alongside Bethesda's sequel, and shown via internal documents as recently as December to have a projected $75 million dollar budget and launch date of 2010.

Unfortunately, it seems Interplay haven't actually started work on this MMO yet. They have two years to sort themselves out there:

In a special clause of the purchase agreement, Interplay agrees that "full-scale development of its FALLOUT MMOG will commence within 24 months of the Effective Date of this Agreement" and that "Interplay will have secured financing for the FALLOUT MMOG in an amount no less than $30 million" within that time frame or forfeit its license rights for the MMO.

... which would mean a post-apocalyptic Fallout MMO could be as far away as 2012 (which weirdly has a nice post-apocalyptic ring to it, but is still way too far away).

It's a pity. Post-zombie holocaust or post-apocalyptic earth is an MMO I'd love to play. Scavenging? Building? Foraging? Perfect. Earth starts again? Flying machines! Limited technology. Goggles! Lots of leather and dogs on strings. Oh it'd be too good, bloody hell, I'd give up orcs and goblins for post-apocalyptic in a heartbeat.

Speaking of zombies, the sequel to 28 Days Later is blatantly advertising itself in graffiti on London pavements. Cheeky.

Comments

[Vincent]

And surely a post-apocalyptic MMO would be a perfect opportunity for a game where the players scavenge for materials and build their own settlements (and destroy other people's), rather than make-do with another static, pre-built world.

[Alice]

That's what I'm thinking. It's got creativity written all over it..

[bob]

"...a perfect opportunity for a game where the players scavenge for materials and build their own settlements (and destroy other people's)..."
Yeah, but one would have thought the same thing about a Warcraft MMO, and look what they did with WoW. This could all too easily turn into a formulaic MMO where "mini-gun" replaces "magic sword" as the loot the bandit drops (and "green mutant" replaces "orc")... It all depends on how bold the designers are feeling; we'll have to wait and see (and hope).

One thing that really disappointed me about Fallout was the designers didn't have the courage to maintain their vision for the game. It starts out as a funny, original, retro-futuristic 1950s vision of the future, but then immediately degrades into a pastiche of post-apocalyptic (and western/samurai) movie cliches. It went from fresh to familiar, instantly, and though I enjoyed the game, I would have enjoyed it even more if they had maintained their originality. This was one of the games that made me realize that game designers too often fall back on cliches as a shorthand way of describing the world for players, and it's too bad.

[IgwanaRob]

The thing that made Fallout so popular was the campy humor, and the fact that you weren't tied down with doing thigs in any set way as far as the character was concerned.

"Speaking of zombies, the sequel to 28 Days Later"

Why does everyone think that movie had anything to do with zombies? There were no re-animated dead people in any part of that movie. No zombies = not a zombie movie

[Duncan Gough]

Every six months I check out Exanimus in the very same hope:

http://www.exanimusthegame.com/

[bob]

I'm also eagerly awaiting a good horror MMO (especially a zombie apocalypse game), but the designers are going to have to seriously rethink the MMO if they're going to pull it off.

28 Days later was most definitely a "zombie movie." Zombie movies are about people turning into ravenous, cannibalistic, mindless monsters, and how the few normal people deal with it. Whether the "zombies" are live, (un)dead or something in between is just a superficial detail. The whole genre was heavily inspired by Matheson's 1954 story "I am Legend," in which a bacteria infects the population, and in "28..." it's an obvious influence. "28 Days Later" also falls into the British "survival sci-fi" tradition ("Day of the Triffids," "Survivors" etc.), and those narratives had an clear influence as well.

[Alice]

Thank you Bob, you took the words right out of my mouth ;)

[[fritz]]

In fact i played Fallout over and over, both pt 1 and 2. And tell you what: our memories will never be matched by any new game. Fallout had no zombies (just mutants), but a fair share of bizarre humour, pickpocketing and selling your body for money (not in a medical but social sense).

There is one MMO that's somewhat matching Fallout, started in 2002 and still running: Neocron. No orcs, no elves, but plenty of laser, plasma and bullet fun. Wars over outposts in the post-radioctive wastelands, brain-implants, armed hovercrafts and what you like. Think of it as Counterstrike-gone-SciFi, or as EveOnline-for-pedestrians and give it a try.

[Stephen]

I'd love to see a great post-apocalypse MMO. We almost managed it...

In the meantime, check this:

http://www.fallenearth.com/

[Owwmykneecap]

It turns out that the pr company apparently didnt registar the URL

if thats true, they is stupid
if thats a lie they is geniuseseses