Just saw Land of the Dead. Quality film for the genre. The post apocalyptic setting --with widely separated settlements, martial law, and roaming zombies-- reminded me of Fallout.

There's much passionate debate about how awful F03 will be with the Oblivion engine, which makes me wonder why, with all the crying and moaning for another Fallout, or a game just like Fallout, that an indie developer doesn't make a post-apoc game like Fallout.

Fallout was turn-based, Fallout was isometric. An indie developer could, presumably, make a turn-based, isometric, post-apoc game, no?

There certainly is demand enough for it. Or just whining anyway.

Land of the Dead- I didn't like the "thinking zombies" in that movie. Zombies are scary because they are mindless brain-eating fiends. Their lack of thought is what makes them the walking dead; giving them thought and even emotion puts too much life back in 'em. I think LotD sorta took zombies in a direction I didn't so much like.

As for a Fallout type indie game: I think any setting is possible for an isometric RPG, be it historical, fantasy, cyberpunk, post-apoc...hell, I think a modern shooter set in the middle-east as a turn-based isometric game would rock. If E:B1 does well I think there will be many different types of games we will look into.

I don't have much faith in FO3. Bethesda screwed up the Elder Scrolls series with Morrowind, then further diluted it with Oblivion. I don't expect them to stay true to FO hardcore roots. Instead, I expect a mainstream title with real time combat, no challenge, and a focus on graphics over gameplay.

There are other designers that have made FO style games though. Unfortunately, they've all either went unfinished or were released overseas and never brought to the U.S.

Just google a game called "The Fall: Last days of Gaia" and you'll see what I mean/

Why?

Maybe because it's a huge amount of work. You could make a crappy game based on the Fallout 'atmosphere' where you just shotgun Geckos, chat up some hookers or whatever but nobody would play it. Putting in all the quests, dialog, context-sensitive descriptions and other interactions is what makes Fallout special.

Take a look at the Fallout game files and the hundreds of thousands of files. Look at how many lines you have for the simplest encounter. For an RPG graphics/technology should be 10% or less of the actual work.

But maybe you'd be interested in this: http://www.fifengine.de/

That's my point, actually. Fallout's graphics/technology is 10 years old now, so it should be easily within reach on an independent developer. And all the stuff that made Fallout great could make another post apocalyptic game great, without the brand.

I realize that games take work. I'm just surprised at how few Fallout clones there were. In fact, I don't think there were any, at least not successful ones.

Fallout was a groundbreaking game in its time and it still stands up well against new games today. I would argue that just because a game is 10 years old doesn't mean that a small indie studio has the finances or manpower needed to recreate it. Look here and check out how many people were involved with Fallout's design:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/fallout/credits

For Fallout to be made today, it would be a 5-8 million dollar investment for any studio. Most publishers (the people who generally invest the money for game development) are looking for big returns on their investments. They want a guaranteed blockbuster, not just a great game that might turn a small profit after a year on the market. This is why a Fallout-quality game may never be recreated: it is wholly above the abilities of most small indie studios and no publisher today would invest that much money on a niche-market game. FO3 is going to be a cross-genre action-strategy-RPG type of game because that will have the largest market appeal and make the biggest profit.

The shame is that this is the naked truth! We may never seen a game like Fallout again....*sigh*
Damn mass-market!

I cant wait to play Eschalon

That's exactly why I have *quit* PC Gaming. I would prefer to play games like Eschalon, dungeon Delvers, or even (the now old) Devil Whiskey.

Simply put, Indie developers are going to be the only place to get old school, turn-based, stat-heavy CRPGs. Which is sad, because I spent 4K on a brand new Alienware a little over a year ago to play all these new games with everything turned up, and now I don't see myself buying any of the next batch of games.

I might try Silverfall, Loki, and especially Two Worlds...but other then that, I'm not seeing much "roleplaying" in these upcoming RPGs.

I agree about Fallout. I only hope Bethsoft won't change too much of the old game. But I think they'll follow the same sad path they used for Oblivion.
I liked ES III and bought ESIV. I found a PSP game with autoleveling, useless stat machanism and useless rpg elements. All eyecandy, graphic fx, but non soul.
I think they'll mess with fallout the same way. They'll try to make it the more sellable they can bringing in a lot of graphic and useless things.

About Silverfall..... I'm from Italy. Bought it, played it...... Don't BUY IT. It's full of bug. The story is boring. The item choice is reduced to few useful things and at the end of the game you can't restart at a higher difficulty level. So, when you finish the game, you can erase your favorite character.

We'll see about TWO WORLDS.

Meanwhile, I'll play UFO AFTERLIGHT and UFO EXTRATERRESTRIALS.

Regards

Extraterrestrials has been on my 'most wanted' list for some time. I hope they don't delay it again... (meant to be out 28th February)

If you want some good X-Com style fun, check out UFO: Alien Invasion, an open-source project but which is fully functioning: ufoai.net

Also waiting for Age of Decadence (www.irontowerstudio.com) and for the new Geneforge to be released for PC.