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FALLOUT BIBLE UPDEIGHT
SEPTEMBER OR OCTOBER 2002 OR SOMETHING
THE FALLOUT BIBLE UPD-EIGHT
Here's the eighth Fallout Bible update - if you missed any of the
others, check the Black Isle main page (www.blackisle.com),
scroll down, and click on the "Read More News Here" section
(and scroll down or do a "Find" for "Fallout").
The first three updates have been collected into a sinister "Update
Zero" and the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh updates stand
on their own.
For those of you who haven't seen these before, the Fallout Bible
is a collection of background material and hi-jinks from Fallout
1 and Fallout 2 compiled into one document so the fans can take
a look at it. If you see anything wrong or if you think of anything
you'd like to see, email me at Cavellone@blackisle.com
and I'll see what I can do. I can't promise I'll answer your emails
immediately, but I will get around to it, usually when the weekend
hits.
Anyway, blah, blah, blah. This update contains an interview with
Fallout designer Scott Bennie, a crapload of questions, the original
draft of the EPA, the fury and flurry of nuclear winters, a little
bit about the old Wasteland "sequel" Meantime, why the
Corvega Highwayman has a fat ass, a bit on tribal societies, a new
mind-bending contest, the winners of two others, and more random
irradiated crap from the Fallout universe.
Thanks for supporting Fallout,
Chris Avellone @ Black Isle Studios
FAST FORWARD
Here's another list of stuff to start the update with. It's almost
the same thing as last time, so you can fast forward over this if
you're a veteran of these updates.
1. Again, any questions or suggestions for the Fallout Bible, send
it on in to Cavellone@blackisle.com.
Before you do, though, read #2, below, and "Questions
I Will Not Answer," after that.
2. Suggestions for material to include in the Bible, suggestions
for good Fallout fifties tunes, comments on why you like pen and
paper RPGs over computer RPGs, questions about Fallout events, and
suggestions for good source material are welcome, but there are
a number of things I can't or won't answer because I am busy and
I hate you. They include:
· Giving hints or walkthroughs for the game. If you need
a hint or a walkthrough, go to the Black Isle message boards at:
And within fifteen seconds, someone will post an answer to your
problem. The answer will occasionally be snide and sarcastic and
may be followed by the words, "silly rabbit" or "dumbass,"
but you will get your answer. So make your voice heard.
· Providing technical support. If you have any troubles
with your Fallout disks or other Interplay games, you need to
contact Interplay customer support at one of the following addresses:
· Answering questions outside of Fallout 1 or 2. Occasionally,
if I am lucky, I can answer Fallout Tactics questions. I don't
answer Fallout 3 questions.
· Reading fan fiction or fan-created material for Fallout.
· Providing any information, walkthroughs, hints, or support
on the Baldur's Gate series, Icewind Dale I or II,
Planescape: Torment, or Dark Alliance.
3. Thanks for everybody who sent in tunes - if you have anything
that strikes you as a good Fallout fifties ambiance, send it my
way at the email address, in #1, above. I'm always looking for new
music tunes.
4. There are a lot of questions sitting in my archive. If you don't
see your question here (especially if it was recent), I haven't
forgotten, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
5. Oh, and Robbie wants me to post a link to his website
in the next release of the Fallout Bible.
A reader corrects MCA on a few mistakes he made
in the last Bible, specifically concerning the BOS - stuff
about their installations, the Paladins, Elders and Squires...
as well as their dislike of mutants.
MCA denies the existence of horses in Fallout,
talks about the impossibilities of training Centaurs, says
how AC determines the "to-hit" of an enemy, shrugs
at the question "were the plans for more melee weapons
and melee perks?", and finally about the development
of NPC's and the possibility of them receiving perks.
MCA talk about the inspiration educational 50's
movies gave to Fallout, not being able to play craps or roulette
in Fallout 1, the locations of Vault 13 and 69, what a HoloTape
is, and what the Fallout / Wasteland relationship is.
The many mysteriously absent movie files in
Fallout 2 get explained, MCA takes a shot at explaining what
all the "party.txt" characters are, and then denies
that the Hubologists have anything to do with the Elronologists.
MCA explains what the strange computer in the
northen lab of the Shi Palace is supposed to do, helps a poor
reader to get Westin's holodisk, lists all of the "difficult"
perks to get, declares that it's impossible to ally with the
raiders, ponders why cockroaches weren't included in either
game and tells us what his favourite perk is.
MCA confirms that the BOS in Fallout and the
BOS in Fallout Tactics are indeed the same group and tells
us not to expect all of the towns from Fallout, Fallout 2
and Fallout: Tactics to make it into Fallout 3.
MCA says "oops" due to a mistake naming
Lydia, Therese and Lyle in the previous bible, says "yeah,
we DID know what we were doing" when it came to designing
the plot, thinks up a reason why we didn't see any steam trucks
in Fallout, tells us that Ian was originally meant to reappear
in Fallout 2 as "Crazy Joe", a reader describes
how to tip a cow and recommends a good post-apocalyptic book.
MCA dashes everyone's hopes and declares that
all of the content for unused areas like the EPA and the Abbey
no longer exists, so don't expect see anything else.
Other "goodies" like the Strategy
guide from New Reno are listed, and explanation for why only
New Reno acknowledges your good deeds after finishing the
game, Lenny's Dad, why tribals have explosives, what's up
with the vertbird in Arroyo, how to shag a Bishop woman without
angering the boss, a reader gives us hints on the Curtis quest,
how to get the Bozar, XL70E3 and strategy guide, as well as
listing what weapons you can upgrade in the basement of New
Reno Arms.
Where do the mutants in Fallout 2 come from,
what happens when you get addicted to "Tragic",
and are ghouls the product of FEV or radiation are all questions
MCA tackles.
MCA gets hit with a heavy barrage of questions
- stuff like what's the deal with the PMV Valdez and the Poseidon
Oil Company? How did the tanker's captain get out of Navarro?
What were those chemicals Metzger was storing in the church?
And what was in Moore's briefcase?
Is there some sort of cool story behind the
generator in Vault 15? And the forcefields? MCA dashes a young
reader's hopes when he responds with a negatory reply.
An obvious oversight to most gun lovers, the
10mm pistol "Each pull of the trigger will automatically
reload the firearm until the magazine is empty"issue
is cleared up by Chris Tayolor.
I figure this may hold off a lot of questions for you potential
game developers (or whatever) out there who want to do stuff with
the Fallout license. Before you read the following, keep in mind:
1. What follows is the best answer I can give you. It took a very
long time to get this answer for some of you, but here is the answer
I was able to get. Don't like it? Tough.
2. As long as what you are doing does not have a price tag associated
with it, you are not making money with it, it doesn't hurt or misrepresent
the Fallout license, there are still risks involved, but the risk
is much smaller. Get an intellectual property lawyer and ask them
some questions.
Now, if you will imagine the question as:
I want to do a MUSH/MUD/MOD/PNP/D20 Conversion
for Fallout. Can I?
Here's the official word, and the official word is that
(1) we can't give an official word, and (2) this should
not be taken as "no," but as a "if you want
to do it, you'll have to proceed at your own risk."
Confusing? Let me explain:
To give you an official word, we would have to sign contracts,
which Black Isle Studios doesn't have the time to do.
If you still want to use the Fallout stuff, you would have
to abide by trademark and copyright law regarding the Fallout
license, and to do that, BIS recommends you ask an intellectual
property lawyer.
Lastly, this is not official permission, but as long as
you don't use the Fallout license to generate income or
in such a way to misrepresent or harm the license (e.g.,
put it up on a webpage that advertises child porn), or include
misrepresentations or material that harms the license in
the Fallout game/mod/whatever that you're making, or make
it appear as though Interplay is the source of your material
(e.g., "This is the official Interplay-sponsored MUSH!"),
you should be all right.
Again, this is not official permission, just a guide for
what BIS suggests you do if you want to use the Fallout
license. We just want you to know if you choose to use the
Fallout license, you could potentially be taking some legal
risks.
So basically, you can use Fallout if you're willing
to take the intellectual property risks. This isn't a "no"
or an "official yes," just a "if you want to do
this, you'll be proceeding at your own risk."
I wish we could just come out and say, "sure," but we
don't have the time for contracts. In my opinion, as long as you
hold true to the Fallout license, make sure there's no money involved,
and don't claim it's an Interplay-sponsored or official thing, you
should be fine.
Anyway to get the balls rolling, David Camacho had a comment
on tribal societies from a few issues ago. And here it is.
In the July 10, 2002, edition of the Fallout Bible, someone
had questions about the re-emergence of tribal societies;
particularly in Arroyo.
There're a number of instances of European settlers 'going
native.' There's a tribe in Honduras, the Miskito, I believe,
who are descended from English settlers who were stranded.
They speak a form of pidgin-English, and live much like
a traditional hunting-fishing society in the region. There
is also a tribe in the Amazon that is descended from German
settlers, who speak a Germanic dialect that's very difficult
for native German speakers to understand.
My impression from playing the games was that the Vault
Dweller came across some people in the wastelands and led
them to Arroyo, where they resettled, and that these people
had already become tribal, possibly in the time since the
War, and might have been descended from people who never
lived in a Vault, but somehow managed to survive.
Also, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but there
is a town in California called Mariposa.
Thanks, David. If anybody else out there has comments,
feel free to send them my way, and I'll post them.
Welcome to the pie in the face section where you get to rub my
nose in bad facts. As promised, this will be a regular feature.
1. Will Toraason had some comments about the New York reactor
incident that I Homer Simpson'd in the Fallout Timeline:
I don't know if you're still updating it, but I have a
minor note for the timeline...
The June 2065 entry mentions a nuclear reactor in NYC that
"almost goes critical." A critical reactor is
a normal condition, meaning that the reactor is at a constant,
stable power level (the same number of neutrons are in one
generation as in the next, blah blah blah). An uncontrolled
supercritical condition is dangerous, implying that power
is rising at incredibly rapid rates, and can lead to meltdown
of the fuel, release of radioactive fission products to
the public, flipper babies, and the like.
So what's meant is something like "...a nuclear reactor
in NYC goes supercritical, almost causing a meltdown..."
Keep the mutants down,
Will Toraason
Your Friendly Neighborhood Nuclear Power Physicist
Thanks, Will.
2. I couldn't find the original EPA design doc last time, but I
managed to dig it up - this first draft was done by Jason Suinn,
who eventually passed it off to me...
...so there you go. The first draft of the EPA in all its scanned
glory.
I have two big winners this time, one for the deathclaws and the
other is for nuclear winters. The big winner for the Deathclaws
is (try to imagine the flashing lights and cheering crowds):
There you have it, Anthonie Wain was the BIG WINNER from
last time. His answer, correct, was the tarrasque. His answer boils
down to:
Blatantly Deathclaw = mini- Tarrasque
And to the bunches of other people who sent in their answers
- you were all right on the first guess.
Okay, I finally went through all the Nuclear Winter responses
and the winner is:
Although Mark was just as helpful about providing nuclear winter
info as everyone else, he was also very, very fast and very,
very patient, so he wins. Note I wasn't looking for a "right"
answer, just some explanations. Anyway, here's Mark's response:
In update 6 of the Fallout Bible you asked for someone
to 'illuminate' you in regards to the effects of a nuclear
winter. Well if you'd be kind enough to sit through the
next few paragraphs without falling asleep, I'll have a
crack at it. ;) It's the sort of thing that's only interesting
if you're, well, interested in it...
First off, I'd just like to stress that I'm only an amateur
nuclear war/post-apocalypse buff, not a physics major. I
just delve into this stuff because it fascinates the hell
out of me, but I only understand the most basic elements
of the physics involved.
The whole Nuclear Winter theory itself was first proposed
in 1982 by a German scientist called Paul Crutzen but it
was seized on by five other scientists; Turco, Toon, Ackerman,
Pollack, and Sagan. Their article for Science magazine entitled
"Nuclear winter, global consequences of multiple nuclear
explosions" made the theory into the culture-icon that
it is today. Anyway, from there the idea was quickly picked
up by Russian scientists and all of them together managed
to successfully convince the world that a US 'v' USSR nuclear
war would bring about a global, ice-age like winter. It
probably wasn't such a bad idea during the whole Reagen
cold-war revivalism period. Sort of a reminder to people
what a really -bad- idea nuclear war would be, at a time
when things were again becoming strained.
Unfortunately for Sagan et. al. (but fortunately for the
Fallout series, since it maintains the status quo) the original
Nuclear Winter theory has had some major holes poked in
it since it first became popular. Most notably in 1986 when
two American atmospheric scientists, Thompson and Schneider,
wrote their own article "Nuclear Winter Reappraised"
in Foreign Affairs magazine. They cited some major flaws
in the calculations of Sagan's group, and attacked Sagan
personally claiming that his politics (he was ardently anti-nuclear
well before 1982) had influenced his conclusions. They also
highlighted the fact that the Russian scientists mentioned
earlier had modified their own nuclear test data, overstating
the actual blast effects of the explosions to achieve a
more favourable result. Thompson and Schneider went on to
propose their own model of climate change concluding that
a large scale nuclear exchange would result in a worldwide
temperature drop of 20 degrees fahrenheit lasting a matter
of weeks, as opposed to the other group's conclusion of
a 60 degree fahrenheit drop lasting months to years. End
result, no nuclear winter... Just a few chilly (and radioactive)
weeks.
As for your 50's nuclear technology theory, it's partially
right. There is a big difference between the old kiloton
range weapons and the multi-megaton thermonuclear weapons
of modern times, but it's not quite as simple as you thought.
The smaller bombs generally loft larger amounts of material
into the air (relative to their size), and that material
is also larger in size. Only it's not lofted as high into
the atmosphere, and because it's larger it tends to return
to earth more quickly. In contrast the massive bombs of
today vapourize the materials into much smaller particles,
and loft them far higher into the atmosphere.
A simple analogy would be like firecrackers and a stick
of TNT... As kids a lot of us would have played around with
Tom Thumbs or Mighty Mites, blowing stuff up as fast as
we could light those little wicks. I know I always used
to love sticking them to the sides of (full) milk cartons,
and watching the result when they blew a hole in it. Anyway,
if you can picture what happens to the carton you'll get
my point. The small explosion rips the paper to shreds and
scatters it around, whereupon it gets promptly deluged with
milk... Now imagine strapping the stick of TNT to a comparable
milk carton and setting it off. The milk carton is completely
vapourized, along with the milk, the better part of your
front yard, and possibly anything below your lower torso
depending on how close you were standing. All that material
still exists though. You physically can't make matter cease
to exist... It's just been broken down so small, and distributed
so far that it's impossible to see.
It's the same thing on a grander scale with nuclear weapons.
The big bombs cause thin, long lived clouds high in the
atmosphere, while the small bombs cause thick, short lived
clouds in the lower atmosphere. I'm sure you can picture
how that would influence climate change respectively.
Then of course theres the difference between ground bursts
(which a lot of the old bombs would have been) and air bursts,
but I figure you've probably had enough already so I'll
spare you that... For now.
Hope this helped some.
TheCaptn.
AKA Cappy (to my friends), AKA Mark Ottow.
And Mark was kind enough to respond to a bunch of irritating follow-up
questions I had for him, so he wins the patience award, too.
Other contributors include:
NUCLEAR WARFARE 1
From Rhombus:
Hey!
The explanation I've heard to why no nuclear winter occurred
in the Fallout world is this.
In the 50's they didn't know about it, and since Fallout
is retro 50's, it's based on what they thought were the
effects of nuclear war the.. a scorched earth with lots
of mutated critters..
// David (aka Rhombus on the boards)
Cool.
NUCLEAR WARFARE 2 David Camacho (remember him from the tribals section?) had
this to say about nuking the world...
Regarding nuclear warfare, Nikolai Tolstoy (nephew of Leo)
hypothsized circa 1980 that the result of a nuclear war
would be comparable to the great plagues of Europe. Also,
if the Fallout timeline deviated from our timeline prior
to the development of the hydrogen bomb, the devastation
of the nuclear arsenals would be far lower. Conversely,
if the weapons used were predominantly neutron bombs, much
of the physcial infrastructure would survive, although the
initial radiation burst would kill off most living things
in the vicinity of ground zero. As to radiation being a
major permanent deterent, people have resettled in areas
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were bombed in the Second
World War. On a related note, the level of radiation in
the immediate vicinity of the nuclear facilities in Chernobyl
has less radiation than what is naturally occuring in Spain
and France, it was the radioactive isotopes of Caesium and
Iodine that was responsible for the high instances of thyroid
cancer in the area. These isotopes, hypothetically, will
return to safe levels after twenty years or so. There are
a number of people still living in the 'contaminanted' area
of Ukraine that was evacuated, and the adults are for the
most part healthy, if elderly, and the local animal populations
are thriving.
And now for my question: Some friends and I have a theory
that the rifle pistol in both games is based on the gun
Deckard uses in Blade Runner. Are you able to confirm or
deny this?
Thanks for the info, David. As for Deckard's gun, I can't find
an artist to confirm it, but it looks pretty similar.
NUCLEAR WARFARE 3 Robbie Crash throws in his atomic 2 cents...
I was just reading the updated bible and came across the
nuclear winter question. From what I've read based upon
the new threat of possible nuclear war, the idea of nuclear
winter has been all but abandoned. I don't have any hard
data on it only a half remembered Discovery Channel segment
on it.
What I do remember is that they said that in order for
there to be a nuclear winter every nuke in possession of
the USSR and USA at the peak of the cold war would have
to be detonated at the same time, and spread out for optimum
coverage. In which case nuclear winter would not be a problem
as everything on earth would be dead within weeks, if not
days.
I'll try to dig up some evidence on this and email you
a link to it.
-Robbie Crash
Thirsty and miserable,
always wanting more
And follows up with:
I just sent you an email about this and here's the link
I promised.
The gist of it says that there would have to be a huge
nuclear exchange for it to happen. It uses half the cold
war arsenal as a baseline figure for it. Stating that half
makes it possible. As I'm not sure exactly what the extent
of the Fallout universes arsenal would have been I can't
speculate as to what the possibility of nuclear winter would
be. If it were *that* big then that would sure account for
the terrain of the Fallout universe.
Robbie Crash
NUCLEAR WARFARE 4 Vipasnipa says:
In the FO Bible 6, you requested that someone with Nuclear
Warfare knowledge explain if a nuclear winter would occur.
I can tell you with great confidence that it would not.
The reason behind this is because the Theory of Nuclear
Winter, which was developed in the 50's, was just that,
a theory. The idea was examined for a while but almost all
leading scientists agreed that a large scale nuclear war
could not lift enough dust/dirt/matter to block out the
sky and substantially lower global temperatures.
The reason why people still believe a nuclear winter could
happen is because the Government used it as a ploy to stop
Americans from worrying too much about a nuclear war with
russia during the 50's and 60's. Why would the Gov't say
that? If a nucelar winter were to occur, all life would
be lost, so there would be no point to prepare for a nuclear
war and lower the Nation's worker efficency in the process
(Worrying about the saftey of yourself and family leaves
little room for work).
I hope this helps and please email me for clarification
if any is needed.
Okay, I have a new contest for you Fallout aficionados - the first
one to email me at CAvellone@blackisle.com
with the correct answer gets to be the BIG WINNER next time. This
one may require a little net research and some guessing, but nothing
that will cripple you for life.
In any event, the question is... drumroll, please:
The Ink Spots' song, Maybe, was not the first choice of
theme music for Fallout 1.
Rights to the first choice, however, were in dispute, so
the first choice was wisely avoided.
The first choice song, by the same group, was...?
INTERVIEW: GIVING SCOTT BENNIE THE "13"
I'm going to try and start interviewing old members of the Fallout
1 and 2 (and if I'm lucky, Wasteland) development team in future
updates.
Scott Bennie is an Interplay veteran who's worked on what
seems like five billion computer and pen and paper projects, and
wouldn't you know it, the crafty bastard did design work on Fallout
1, too!
I put "the 13" (questions) to him, and here are his answers.
1. Introduce yourself. Who the hell are you?
Scott Bennie. Veteran (which means "rickity" and
"crotchety") game designer. Been doing work on paper RPGs
since I sold my first piece to Dragon in 1981, and computer games
since 1990. I worked on "Lord of the Rings", "Castles",
and nigh everything that had Star Trek on it from Interplay that
didn't involve pinball.
Along with Dave Hendee, I constitute the Canadian contingent
of the Fallout design team. And when I saw the "Canada annexed"
part of the intro, I snickered and said "yeah right,"
just like every other good, patriotic Canadian Fallout fan. Though
I harbor secret ambitions to tell the real tale of what happened
in Canada, and to write the history of Dogmeat.
2. How did someone like YOU start working on Fallout?
Tim Cain asked me, and I had time after one of the various
incarnations of Stonekeep II fell through, and I had time between
that and Starfleet Academy, so I came onboard and did a few areas
and helped where I could. It was fairly late in the project, but
I did what I could. I wasn't a major player on the team, but I'm
proud I was a part of it.
3. Yeah, yeah, but what did you do on Fallout?
I'd worked on parts of the Hub (Jakes's, Locksley, Iguana Bob),
the above ground levels of the Cathedral, and wrote some of the
"owie, that hurts" messages for weapon damages. I also
came up with the Mysterious Stranger perk. Nice idea in theory,
though I wish it could have been more useful.
4. What was you most favorite thing, area, or item that you
worked on in Fallout?
The blackmail storyline at Iguana Bob's. Chris Taylor had set
up the whole Iguana Bob buying cannibal chunks earlier in the game,
and when I got to Bob's I thought to myself "what if, instead
of exposing him, what if you could blackmail Bob instead?"
I'd never seen an RPG that had ever allowed you to do that before,
so I worked with the scriptors to make it happen. Unfortunately,
when I moved off Fallout, the plotline fell off the radar, because
the player *should* have been able to report him to the police,
but Dave Hendee (who did the Hub Police) was busy with a *lot* of
stuff at the time. You know the saying about draining the swamp
when you're up to your ass in alligators, well the alligators in
the swamp at the end of any computer game project are like Jurassic
alligators, so I don't blame Dave if all the quests aren't covered.
It would have been nice to have patched it, though.
5. What was your least favorite thing, area, or item that you
worked on in Fallout?
I was never happy with Locksley. He was just too cutesy in tone.
The whole Robin Hood thing struck me as trite, so I think he's probably
one of the least memorable major NPCs in either of the games.
6. Any secrets or background stuff that you've been keeping
in your noggin that you want to share?
Well, there's Dr. Wu, the incredibly over-the-top and obscene
doctor at the Cathedral. I had always self-censored myself in my
writing before Fallout, but the post holocaust setting struck me
as a milleu which *required* high levels of obscenity for its grittiness
and dark humor, so I went for the "R" rating with gusto,
and I made Wu as the embodiment of all that's obscene. Medics tend
to be the one character that even dedicated killer PCs don't kill,
so I wanted to see how many people would forego the healing and
shoot Wu just because he's such a bastard.
Tim Cain *hated* Wu; he thought Wu went too far ("does
this guy have Turrette's?") and he asked me to tone him down.
I did and handed the revision off to Leonard. However somewhere
in the process that Wu revision fell through the cracks, because
the one that's in the game is the original unpurigated, unfettered
Wu.
I almost regret not doing more with the Cathedral, but I did
my best not to throw in side quests because I thought at that time
the player would be pretty much streaking for the endgame and any
quests at this point would be more annoying than useful. There's
a time for speed bumps, and there's a time when you have to let
them cut loose. So the Cathedral's mostly for color. I tried to
come up with a few NPCs there who weren't despicable; I thought
it'd be more interesting if the cult attracted a few people who
weren't stupid and thuggishly evil. That way, they'd contrast better
with people like Morpheus (whose dialogue was written before I came
on the project) who *was* an opportunistic scumball.
7. Was there anything you created that didn't make it in?
Secret of Vulcan Fury? Ooops, wrong interview. How come none
of those Star Trek bastards never ever want to talk to me?
Tim Cain asked me to write a game intro, so I wrote this rambling
piece where some half-crazed fellow was ranting about his ancestors
and cursing what had happened to the world - what it must have been
like to live in a world where brahmin had only one head. What actually
went into the game was *much* better ("War Never Changes"),
but Tim wanted to stick some drunken barfly somewhere in the game
which spouted the original dialogue. It never happened though, and
the dialogue's been long lost.
8. Any personal stories you want to share from the development
process?
While there's the cruel memory of Tim Cain tormenting me with
chocolate chip cookies, because I'm diabetic. (I ate some anyways.
Cookies,
num...)
Then there's the one where I screwed up the formatting on a
big section of dialogue and Tim got really mad at me... no, I don't
think I want to remember that one...
I'm a bit of a method writer, and when I wrote the Cathedral
Cultists, I frightened some of my co-workers by getting into character
and telling people how reasonable the Master and his dream was,
and how Fallout isn't a heroic story at all, it's the tragedy about
the fall of the Master who was ruthlessly murdered by people he
was just trying to help but who are (sob!)too willful to accept
change. No one bought my interpretation. (That alone is a tragedy.)
Then there's the story of T. Ray, the waiters, and the waterglasses
at Club 33, where we went for the Fallout wrap party. But Mark Harrison
will probably kill me just for mentioning it, so I'd better shut
up now.
9. If you had one inventory item from Fallout, what would it
be?
I don't know about inventory items (maybe a G.E.C.K.) but I'd
love a small dog who's brave enough to bite a Deathclaw in the leg
on command and not shoot me in the back ("hi, Ian!")
10. What are you doing now? What are your hopes and dreams for
the future?
I'm doing some computer game and paper RPG writing. It looks
like I'll have a d20 system supplement out from Green Ronin next
Spring, and a Champions campaign setting from Hero Games next summer.
Please buy them both. Make me both rich and happy.
As for dreams, I really should get off my butt and at least
try to write a novel.
11. What question do you wish you had been asked about Fallout
that wasn't in this list of questions?
"How good are Tim Cain and Chris Taylor?" I suppose
it's obvious, but they're damn good. They made a game and had the
balls to try things - story and system wise - that I didn't think
were possible, and they made them work. It's a huge achievement.
12. If you had one wish, what would it be?
I wouldn't know where to start.
13. Is there anything you've ever wanted to say in an interview
that you've never had the chance to say?
Interview? People actually want to talk to me? Wow.
A FEW QUESTIONS
Here are some questions and some answers. If I didn't answer yours,
it's pending, so enough with the bitching, you pansy-ass whiner.
It's been a while that I played Fallout, so I hope I get this right.
1. Necropolis is supposed to be Bakersfield. But Bakersfield
is NNW from L.A. On the Fallout map, it would probably be on the
third square south of the Brotherhood. The only real-life location
corresponding to Necropolis now would be a small town called Baker,
at the Soda Lake.
2. Killian clearly states that Necropolis is south of Junktown,
the Hub to the south-west. It was obviously the idea that Necropolis
would be on the way to the Boneyard.
3. Either Ian or the singer in the Skumpitt gives you directions
in relation to the coastline. They do not match the map at all,
and put the Hub far nearer to the coast than it now is.
My personal conclusions were that the dialog was written long before
the map was drawn, and later never changed; and that terrain difficulties
originally were supposed to have a far greater importance in gameplay,
hence the stress on travelling along the coast.
Well, it seems I actually was the only one who ever noticed it.
I think the locations may have been moved at a later date to spread
them out better along the map. Necropolis is supposed to be Bakersfield,
but I'll see if I can check with Chris Taylor to make sure.
You're not the only one to notice this, however, the deadly DJ
Slamák noticed it, too (possibly from a post you made
on the BIS boards, if you're Bertcom):
DJ says: There's a certain discrepancy I'm wondering
about. In Fallout 1, the Vault-Tec Vault Locations holodisc
mentions three Vaults - Nos. 12, 13, and 15. Vault 12 is
supposedly located under the city of Bakersfield. The Master's
Vault in LA is definitely not it, and the only other "candidate"
is the Vault in Necropolis. The ruins of Necropolis look
pretty big on the world map, too. Therefore, we can assume
that Necropolis = Bakersfield.
However, as suggested by one BIS forum user (Ed:
Which may have been you, Theodor), while Necropolis
lies to the Northeast of Los Angeles, the actual city of
Bakersfield is not far to the Southwest of the BOS Bunker
(which is not a Vault, it's a military bunker, as suggested
by Captain Maxson's log). The location of Necropolis roughly
matches the town of Barstow.
Therefore, I'd like to ask, IS the Necropolis Bakersfield?
And if it is, why was it moved? Otherwise, why is Vault
12 "off-screen" and we get to see two other Vaults,
which are not mentioned in the brochure, instead?
Also, If you keep on playing F2 after destroying the Enclave,
the arms dealer in New Reno will offer you "special
prices" which are actually tenfold or more and increase
each time you address him, and will attack you if you ask
for modifications. That seems a bit weird for a bug, is
it supposed to be some sort of joke?
It's probably a bug. I know, I know, big surprise.
Sebastian Rushworth (the author of the pen-and-paper Brotherhood
of Steel sourcebook, BTW - check it out at http://www.iamapsycho.com/fallout/index.htm)
had some comments on my Brotherhood of Steel summary from Bible
#6 (thanks, Sebastian).
Thanks for the latest installment of the Fallout Bible,
I had a great time reading through it. I just thought I'd
make you aware of a few mistakes I found in the BOS section.
I'll go through them in the order you wrote them down (If
I've misunderstood something feel free to correct me :)
1. Brotherhood installations (Paragraph 4). The outposts
in Fallout 2 aren't proper brotherhood installations, they're
purely used for gathering information on the Enclave (Why
there is only one brother at each outpost), and I think
the chosen one is told this on speaking to the BOS character
in San Francisco. As far as I can make out, the Brotherhood
is still centralised around the Lost Hills bunker even in
Fallout 2.
2. Paladins (paragraph 5). The rank of Paladin isn't to
do with seniority. The paladins are the brotherhood's elite
soldiers, and are a separate class from the knights, in
the same way as the scribes. In Fallout 1, when you speak
to one of the brothers in the BOS bunker, he tells you something
along the lines that the scribes develop technology, the
knights build it, and the paladins use it.
3. Elders (paragraph 5). Becoming an elder isn't a rank
that is reached automatically as a result of seniority since
there are only four elders (and one high elder) at any one
time (Fallout 1). For this reason the elders must be elected
in some way, though how is never made clear. Just being
old doesn't guarantee being an elder ;)
4. You're right; squires are an invention of Fallout tactics.
By the way, I don't think the brotherhood really hates
mutants just by virtue of being mutants (after all, they
are the most enlightened people in the wasteland). I think
it's got more to do with the fact that the mutants tried
to destroy humanity ;)
Thanks again, Sebastien. My takes on the BOS were:
Brotherhood Installations: Understood - didn't mean to imply
those posts were full-on outposts. The installations and bunkers
I mentioned are elsewhere.
Paladins and Elders: Well, I couldn't find anything definite
on this, so I asked Dave Hendee, who designed the BOS:
1. Are the High Elders/Elders in the BOS council "elected,"
or are they just paladins that happen to become too old?
Dave Sayz: Elected or chosen by the elders, don't
recall which, but I don't think specifics were mentioned
anywhere so you can do whatever you want I'm sure without
running into an inconsistency that the players might find.
Sebastien - my take is that they're paladins elected
to the council, but in the Maxson line, they elevated mostly because
of seniority. You're right - the limited number of council members
would preclude becoming an Elder because of seniority only - though
you could also argue that BOS members don't usually live to get
"old."
2. When you're first talking to "Jerry the Mouth,"
he asks if you are an Initiate Knight or Initiate Scribe,
but he doesn't ask if you're an Initiate Paladin. Do you
need to be a Knight before you can become a Paladin?
Dave Sayz: Yes, Knight before you can become a Paladin.
Becoming a paladin is special.
My take on this is that the Brotherhood would want you to know
everything about maintaining your equipment inside and out before
becoming a Paladin. It would fit in with their technology-worshipping
culture. Knights still see combat, however, and even go on patrols.
Dislike of Mutants: Their dislike of mutants has mostly
to do with the BOS' position on the Fallout world map (Lost Hills'
proximity to the Military Base which has spawned a crapload of mutants,
and not just the Master's super mutants) and their military psychology
(if you are cooped up in a bunker for, oh, 80+ years, you really
need an enemy to focus your attention on, or you'll start fighting
amongst yourselves). It doesn't hurt that most mutants look butt-ugly
and are (mostly) blood-thirsty slavering beasts.
Ghouls are a different matter. BOS contact with ghouls (around
the times of F2) has been limited, but negative - it's difficult
for the BOS to respect a stumbling crew of emaciated scavengers
that tend to dismantle or FUBAR old world technology. BOS' anger
grew even further when various salvaging operations began in the
Glow (a location which the BOS came to regard highly both for their
fallen comrades and the Pre-War technology there) with ghouls at
the forefront. Most BOS members see ghouls as filthy scavengers.
I have some questions regarding the Fallout universe, which
probably has little relevence to the games themselves, but nonetheless
sparked my curiosity nonetheless. Feel free to ignore them.
1)Did horses (in any form) survive the Great War, within the
area of California? Arguably, I imagine that if they did, horses
would begin to replace cars as the main mode of distance transportation.
Nope. Some mules did (the poor mule killed by the raiders in F1),
but not for long. Besides, I think that mule was a discrepancy.
2) Assuming that horses did not survive the great War, can Centaurs
be tamed? One would think that the surviving human communities would
try to use the radiated animals and their increased bulk to help
them move cargo, as the lack of vehicles or roads for vehicles is
apparent.
I think Centaurs would be far too vicious to tame. I mean, they're
a mish-mash of humans and dogs (at least), and they can't be very
comfortable with how they've been, uh, mashed together.
You could, however, create a variety of Day of the Dead-style adventure
seeds of someone trying to tame a Centaur, but with less... successful...
results than Dr. Frankenstein did in Day of the Dead.
3)This is more of an engine question than a background question.
How exactly does AC determine to-hit of an enemy? Right now, I'm
playing a game and trying to build a melee monster(ironically, unarmed
combat seems to be more effective than melee weaponry). Now, assume
that my character(Let's call him Lil' Jesus) runs out to an Enclave
trooper and initiates combat.
Lil' Jesus has 51 AC, but the Enclave Trooper has a default
chance of 160% to hit him with a plasma shot. Would the to-hit of
the Enclave Trooper be determined:
a)Enclave Trooper has 160% to-hit Lil' Jesus, which is then
rounded down to 95%. This 95% is further reduced by 51%, so he will
actually hit only 44% of the time.
or
b)Enclave Trooper has 160% to-hit, which is reduced by 51%,
making the Enclave Trooper's to-hit against Lil' Jesus "down"
to 95%.
B is the correct answer, as I understand it. Pumping your stats
above 100 is intended to help offset distance penalties, lighting
penalties, and opponents with a really high AC.
If its the latter, where can I buy a good funeral for the melee
lovers of Fallout?
Go to Redding.
4)This is related to the third question, but were there any
plans for more melee weapons or melee-specific perks in the game?
Well, Fallout 1 and 2 are done already, so no. If we ever did a
sequel, I don't know. Probably.
5)About the NPC party members. Was there any further plans to
deveop the character of the party members further? I notice that
the early party(Vic and Sulik) members get more development than
the later ones(Cassidy, Marcus), etc.
Nope. Pretty much what was in the game for them is what was planned.
I know I didn't want to do anything more with Cassidy because sometimes
you ruin a character if you develop him too much (Myron).
6)Finally, is it against the game engine for NPCs to develop
"perks" or special abilities? One thing that I always
hoped for was that Sulik might get a version of HTH dodge, or that
Marcus might find the metal armor of the Lieutenant in the Maripol
Millitary Base(Going in naked against the Enclave Derrik is too
hot for him).
I think that would have been cool. It's not really against the
game engine, but we just didn't put that stuff in.
Spawn_NER wants to know what's up with all those deserts.
Hello. One question realy pisses me off... Fallout2 is a "GURPS
post nuclear adventure", but after nuclear war there must be
global winter and very cold... and in Fallout there are desert everywhere.
Actually, based on feedback I've gotten, I don't think the world
of Fallout had a nuclear winter. It's part of the genre - miles
upon miles of scorched earth, inhabited by slathering, bloodthirsty
mutants
Firstly i think that your site is great and i really enjoy playing
the fallout games. the reason for the e-mail is to find out when
the war happened and why the cars and buildings look weird? I understand
that the war was ment to have happened in the future but if so why
are people dressed in 50's stuff and doing 50's things?
Hey, Rob - the basic theme of the Fallout games is that the world
of 2077 had a retro-50s feel when the nukes dropped - sort of a
"what people in the 50s imagined the future (and post-holocaust
future) would be like." This theme translates into the "look"
and the actual physics of the world (Torg-style, if you've ever
played Torg) - so anyway, you get giant radioactive monsters, pulp
science with lasers, blasters, vacuum tubes, big expensive cars
with fins, Art Deco architecture, robots with brains in domes atop
their heads, lots of tape reel computer machines, the whole "atomic
horror" feel, and it explains the artistic style of the interface.
Pawel/Paul Kranzberg sent me 31 questions, of which I chose
to tackle 8 (notice a theme?) of them:
Just like you, I earned money by working on Fallout :) I translated
about 70% of F1 texts for the local distributor in Poland - you
know, a part of Russia, where the local Russians are using Latin
alphabet instead of Cyrillic (feel free to quote me on that whenever
you want to piss some Polish moro... I mean 'patriots' off - I'm
of German origin, so my judgment is impartial ;-). I know the game
pretty well, but nevertheless have some questions about it.
1. I guess that's a rhetorical question, but in creating Fallout
were you guys directly inspired by those kick-ass 1950s educational
movies like 'Duck and Cover', 'Survival Under Atomic Attack', 'Atomic
Alert' and of course 'About Fallout' (downloadable from http://webdev.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php
)?
2. Is it possible to play roulette or craps in F1?
3. Was Vault 13 located under Mt Whitney?
4. What's the location of Vault 69?
5. Those holo-somethings, are they actually tapes or disks?
They do look like tapes...
6. Is Fallout in the same universe/timeline as Wasteland (as
the presence of Tycho suggests)? If so, why are the ruins to the
SE of Vault 15, which I assume to be the remnants of Las Vegas,
deserted?
16. Why does Dr Wu swear so much (at least for a Child of the
Cathedral)?
29. Since Necropolis is Bakersfield, how come it's to the NE
of L.A. and not to the NW? Don't you Yanks know that in the spot
where you placed Neropolis there are only some holes called Baker
and Crucero, and the real Bakersfield lies near the Lost Hill(s)
Brotherhood Citadel?
I'll try to answer your questions piece-meal over the next few
weeks, but here's some quick answers:
1. As I understand it, the feel of the game was very much inspired
by those educational movies.
2. I don't believe so, but I didn't do much gambling in F1 so I
could be wrong. I know that Chris Holland, one of the programmers
in F2, loved craps and roulette, so he scripted the gaming tables
so you could do it.
3. I don't know. I don't think so - but I'll ask the creators.
If any of the creators of F1 read this and know the answer, feel
free to email me.
4. I'll never tell. :) To be honest, there probably won't be answer
unless that specific Vault is actually placed in a future title.
5. Well, according to Vree, they are "high-density, laser-readable,
manufactured-crystal storage devices. Each one holds over 4,000
gigabytes of information." I would prefer them to be tapes,
but I'm not sure if you can read tapes via lasers. They are alternately
called holodisks and holotapes throughout Fallout 1 (and at least
once it's called a "holodisc tape"), and they all share
the same graphic, so I'd go with tapes, since those are more 1950-ish.
6. No. If it shared the same universe and timeline, then we probably
would have leaped at the chance to do Wasteland 2.
16. See Scott Bennie's interview earlier/later on in this update.
It should answer your questions about the nefarious Dr. Wu!
29. Apparently some don't. See the answer elsewhere in this exciting
update. Man, this question started rearing its head all over the
place.
Petruschka asks why the Fallout 2 car used to have a fat
ass:
Note: The screenshot above is an old one, when the car, well,
had a fat ass.
Matt Norton, lead designer for Fallout 2, says:
The car was originally going to be powered by fusion or
fission or something nifty and nuclear (something that would
allow us not to have to worry about running out of gas) and
those big tanks in the back were representative of this big
bulky power-source that was bolted on to the back of a '57
Chevy.
We had thought, at one starry-eyed point, that the car would
be something that you could upgrade with more speed, armor,
weapons, etc. and that it could be a more important part of
the game-well, the engine and programmer tasking weren't up
to the idea of having a moving vehicle (madness, I know ;)
in the game so all of that went out the window. The power
source was replaced by a much more mundane 22 cubic feet of
cargo-space (more than any non-wagon vehicle in its class!).
So basically, the Highwayman's powerplant was downsized in
order to meet with People's State of California emissions
standards. It's often the case that a prototype car isn't
exactly the same when it goes into production. ;)
Then Petruschka has an alternate answer to his own question:
Thanks for your answers. Just wanted to clear that rocket booster
on the place of the car trunk "mystery." Our reader and
contributor Jay Kowalski discovered some pictures of the Mad Max
car Interceptor with the same kind of fuell tanks:
So it was probably removed from the Fallout game because of
some copyright issues or maybe just because the player would be
deprived of the storeroom/car trunk.
Would you happen to know (or at least be able to dig up) anything
about these items from Fallout?
-- Tangler's Hand (FO1, item no. 114)
-- Field Switch (FO1, item no. 222)
-- Smith's Cool Item (FO2, item no. 264)
-- Trophy of Recognition (FO2, item no. 275)
Thanks.
The guilty pieces of art are:
Smith's Cool Item is not listed, because it's just a blue
box.
According to Tim Cain on Tangler's Hand and Field Switch:
"I am pretty sure that both of these items were part
of deleted quests. Tangler's Hand was used to prove that you
killed someone (duh, Tangler probably), and I think it was
in Adytum, which was heavily modified near the end of FO's
development. I am even less clear on the field switch, but
I remember we had lots of discussion on how to handle the
player bringing down the force fields in the Military Base,
so it was probably going to be used for that, but then got
tossed aside when another solution was used.
Mr. Taylor may remember these better than I.
Tim."
According to Chris Taylor on Tangler's Hand
and Field Switch:
"Tim sounds right on the money.
Those fields bit the tuber.
pax,
-Chris"
As for me, the only one I (Chris A) know off the top of my head
is "Smith's Cool Item." During the development
of Vault City, Feargus had determined that a result of helping Farmer
Smith in the VC Courtyard, a player was to get, quote, a "cool
item." Now the nature of this item was never locked down, so
we made a placeholder for it to make sure the quest worked. Toward
the end of the cycle, when requesting more art and more items became
a laughably bad idea, we switched Smith's cool item for a Desert
Eagle, but left the inventory item in the list.
No one knows what the Trophy of Recognition was for, although
I'll make a guess that it someone's joke at Dave Hendee's expense,
since we all got points on the white board for each time we were
able to make him burst out into tears.
HelloMy name is Butnariu Catalin, I'm from Romania and I'm a
big fan of Fallout. The reason I'm writting is I have a question
about Fallout 2: in Arroyo, in the area where you go to find the
dog, there is a big rock and if you look at it it says it is not
of natural occurence. I tried to blow it up with dynamite but it
didn't help. I didn't find anything about this in any walkthrough.
Does it serve a purpose or was it just meant to make me curious?
The danger of re-using art from Fallout 1 is that sometimes the
item and scenery descriptions will hang around on pieces of art
that otherwise seem like they belong. I'm guessing that that rockfall
was the same piece of art used at the beginning of the radscorpion
caves in Fallout 1. It happens with other pieces of art in F2, too.
Petruschka has allied himself with the forces of darkness to send
the following questions (also, he apologizes for his English - and
I don't think he realizes this, but it tends to be a hell of a lot
better than a lot of emails that end up in my mailbox).
I am an editor from one of the biggest Fallout sites in Czech
Republic http://madbrahmin.bonusweb.cz
(which means not much, if you consider the size of our country
IF you know Czech rep. anyway). Just a little reminder - I was asking
you for the blessing for translation of the Fallout Bible (which
is hell a lot of hard but enjoyable work) few months ago.
One of our readers - Jay Kowalski - was playing around with
the Fallout 2 files and discovered few interesting titbits:
1. In the \data\party.txt and \text\english\game\MISC.MSG was
a record with 25 party members including Maria (older version of
Miria?), a guy called McRae (Cassidy?), Doc (?), Chicken (?), Karl
(that old wino from Den?) and even CarTrunk (what the heck?). The
question is: are some of these unused party members or just older
alter egos of the present party?
1. Maria: Not sure. She could have been an older version of Miria,
I think.
McRae used to be Cassidy. (See the answers to other questions elsewhere
in this exciting issue!)
Doc: Don't know.
The Chicken was the NPC that was supposed to hatch out of the easter
egg.
Karl: I don't know.
Trunk: I don't know. It was probably set up as an NPC so it could
follow the player around and have an inventory, but I don't know
for sure.
2. Another mystery - what should mean this picture (mapper2.lbm)
from the \data file:
It looks like some kind of long forgoten developers editor tool.
Say couldnt it be possible to release this sweet baby for
the public use? OK - this was probably a naive question but the
hope never dies, you know
I asked one of our programmers, Chris Jones, and he says:
Chris Jones: #2 is the art that mapper uses for its
interface stuff. It was all just stored in one .lbm like that,
and the coordinates of each part were hard coded in the mapper
source code.
Chris is the one working on getting the editors
ready to be released. He is doing it on his own time, so please
send him money if you can.
3. Another one: these video names are from the naming.txt file
but are not in the master.dat:
timeout.mve - including this picture:
That is the "movie" that appears after you've played
the game for a crapload of years (game time - 13 years, I think).
There needed to be some "cut off" point for programming
reasons.
adestroy.mve - Arroyo Destroyed with Dying Hakunin?
What it says - nothing remarkable. .
car.mve - Starting the car?
They wanted a movie for when you started the car. Vrroom. Vrrroom.
This movie was actually done, but it ended up being so shitty,
we cut it. Or to quote Scott Everts:
According to Scotty Everts: As I remember the "car.mve"
was actually done but turned out so bad that we dumped it.
cartucci.mve - Family Cartucci dealing with Enclave?
That's the movie for the vertibird à Salvatore meeting outside
of Reno. Cartucci was Tim Cain's old name for the Salvatores, I
think. We decided the event didn't need a movie, and a "cut
scene" would work.
dethclaw.mve - Seeing the DeathClaw leader?
There was supposed to be a Deathclaw boss in V13 in the original
design, but it was scrapped.
enclave.mve - Prisoners in Enclave escaping to tanker?
Just what it says - we just ended up not doing it.
4. And the last one is - Why is the Hubologists base in some
files called the Elronologists base? I don´t know - it´s
maybe some kind of "US only" joke, but could you please
make it clear for the rest of the non english speaking world? I
know about the Hubologist = Scientologists thingie (OK-OK - to be
politically correct - Hubologist ? Scientologists of course
not oh where is the free hippie spirit of the USA? :) So,
who or what are the Elronologists?
You might think that the Elronologists were the original name for
the Hubologists, but any relationship between the groups is purely
coincidental.
i found a .txt file in the master.dat file and theres a line
"Cartucci family dealing with Enclave", any ideas what
is cartucci family. I think that was suppose to be a movie clip,
but it was left out of the game.
Cartucci was the old name for the Salvatores in New Reno. There
was supposed to be a movie of them dealing with the Enclave (mentioned
above in "Questions from the Czech Republic").
1 I dunno if it is a bug of my comp (I don't think so) but in
the shi palace when I go in the northen lab and "use"
a comp they tell me I'm fucking lucky and then I got only 1 dialog
option : - more
when I click on it it simply takes me back to the upper view. What
does it normally do?
and what can be really done whith the comps of the shi ?
If I recall correctly, if you have a high Luck (8 or higher, I believe),
you have a chance of guessing the password. It depends on the computer
you're using (the Biology computer and the Physics computer seem
to check this).
2 the guy who said the comp of the sierra a. b. (2° level)
did not turn of the force fields is right it disables the shock
plates instead (hate that).
Got it.
3 I got a horible bug with lynette she will never give me the
westin holod. and even if I transform an item into the disk using
a trainer Westin doesn't take it (no dialog option) what can I do?
(I don't play whith the CD I use Huge install Is that the reason?)
I really want to finish this quest to see if gecko & VC will
be saved ( I think it's the biggest hidden quest of the game)
Are you sure it's a bug? In order to complete the quest, you can't
just make the item, since it checks states in the game, too. You
need to:
a. You need to find and defeat the raiders.
b. Find the account books in the raiders safe. Now here's the trick
- the account book by themselves only mean that Bishop hired the
raiders, they don't say *why.*
c. You need to open Bishop's safe on the top floor of the Shark
Club and get the holodisk there, then bring that back to Lynette.
d. Once she has all these items (and you should be able to present
her with this stuff incrementally, not all at once), ask her if
there's anything more you can do to help, and she'll tell you to
take a holodisk to Westin.
Now, when I played it last, I had defeated the raiders, found the
account books, and got the holodisk from Bishop's safe and presented
her with them all at once, and the quest worked. So let me know
how it goes. Just hacking the item isn't enough, though, the game
has some internal checks to check the stages of the quest.
4 are there very difficul pearks to find VC innoculations was
really well hidden I got reaaly luky when that radscorp hit me.
Vault City Innoculations is one, there's the Shit Shoveler perk
in Broken Hills, the Gecko Skinning perk in Klamath, and I believe,
Vault City Medical Training in VC as well (hey, doctors needed something
good in the game). If you want, you can post the question on www.blackisle.com,
and I guarantee someone will give you a full rundown within an hour,
along with details about how to get each one.
One extra perk: If I recall correctly (and my dialogue file
for Dr. Troy is corrupted, unfortunately), once you are Captain
of the Guard in VC, you should be able to get Marcus into the Auto-Doc
at Vault City.
When you do:
Dr. Troy: "My, your mutant friend had a great
deal of bullets and shrapnel lodged in his body. It's a wonder
he didn't have lead poisoning. I finally managed to get it
all out. Here it all is."
...and he'll give you a shitload of ammo.
5. I'm trying an evil carracter is it possible to alliate with
the raders?
No, although it is possible to ally with Bishop.
why are there no coakroak in the game they are the most powerful
survivalists of the world since the dawn of time...
We didn't do cockroaches, I don't know why. Probably time.
more personnaly What are your favorite pearks?
I am deeply in love with the Empathy perk, even though it's not
used consistently. I wish there had been more perks like that, but
Empathy was kind of a pain in the ass to implement.
I was reading version 5 of the Bible, and found a bit of a conflict
with current knowledge... In one of your anwers, it was said that
it was random whether the FEV increased intelligence or not. However,
as far as I know, FEV increases the growth and integrity of ALL
cells consistently, by doubling the amount of genetic material in
the cells. In this case, an increase in brain size (assuming a healthy
brain to begin with) and intelligence should be regular. Another
theory could be that, as the mutant's brain grows, the mass of the
mutant's body increases exponentionally and the brain would not
be big enough to control the whole body and sustain the throught
process of a human body. Also, it is possible that while intelligence
does increase initially, the brain does not gain the resistance
to radiation that the body does, and the mutant develops brain damage
and shows reduced intelligence. Are any of the above true? PS There
is a very good report documenting the effects of FEV and how it
was developed on the No Mutants Allowed message board (www.nma-fallout.com).
PPS I don't know about any so called 'purists', but i am hugely
interested in the fallout world and would love to FOT background
in the Bible.
About FEV:
That might be why some of the super mutants (such as the Lieutenant)
are smart (or remain smart) - but generally, for some reason (I
don't know off the top of my head, nor do I know if it's spelled
out anywhere), they're about 30% dumber than a normal human being,
if Vree's research disk in the Brotherhood of Steel is accurate.
I wouldn't be surprised if the dipping process caused brain damage
in dipped subjects - it's a hell of a shock to the system.
Furthermore, everyone's favorite introspective machine intelligence,
Zax, has the following to say about it:
When inoculated into an individual with significant genetic
damage, such as through radiation, it [FEV] will cause the
body's systems to suffer massive overhauling, leading to organ
failure and death. In a genetically viable individual, it
re-writes portions of DNA, causing accelerated mutation, usually
leading to recursive growth due to the FEV's own patterns.
This recursive growth leads to an increase in muscle and brain
mass, but is often accompanied by disfigurement and damage
to existing neural patterns, causing loss of memory.
Other possible factors that might be causing the
super mutants' stupidness:
- Most mutants have some degree of radiation poisoning, which may
cause problems and brain damage, as mentioned above.
- The process is unsafe - the mortality rate on "dippees"
is pretty high. This is likely due to radiation poisoning.
- Memory functions are "sometimes" impaired by the dipping,
and intelligence loss may occur as well. Harold's memory wasn't
in the best of shape after exposure.
From the Pre-War experiment tapes, it looks like some mammals did
display consistent increased intelligence (raccoons), while others
didn't (the dogs) or even suffered brain damage (the chimps and
the seizures). However, in an old Scott Campbell doc, there was
a note that later subjects injected with the FEV (especially the
chimps) hid their enhanced intelligence from their captors (or in
the case of the raccoons, made a break for it).
Furthermore, the FEV tests at West-Tek were done through injection,
not dipping, so it's possible the dipping process itself that causes
the brain damage. Possibly with the increased brain mass in the
skull, the brain is "squeezed," and all that tasty juice
runs out the ears.
Still, on the other hand, a lot of the animals Grey talks about
in his experiment tapes that were running around the Military Base
were getting smarter from the FEV, and he himself became supra-intelligent.
So there's a long-winded series of random answers. Moving on!
I am probably missing something obvious, but I still havent
figured out what happened to the Enclave base at Navarro, is it
still there with a few Vertybirds and (if you didn't kill them)
a bunch of Enclave troops, who are figuring out a new plan how to
free the world from mutants?
No one knows what happened to Navarro after Fallout 2 - with the
destruction of the Enclave, the base may not have been able to maintain
itself for more than a few months before needing to move on or change
its operations.
Hello I have some questions about Fallout especial Fallout Tactics
I now that BlacIsle did't create FOT but the history must be the
same
1. The BOS!!! Are the old Brothehood is this brotherhood from F1
or in FOT is new history and have no connection to F1 and F2?
1a. If the history are the same then why the Vault Dweller or
Chosen One did't go to Vault 0 after all this was a Super Vault
for sure their have more Water Chip's or more GECK's?
2. Are you really aren't produce F3 (in net all fans of Fallout
are talking that in F3 will be 3D engine zooming rotating)or you
just don't want to sey about it but if it's true I can do only one
I'M BEAGING ALL INTERPLAY BLACK ISLE START WORKING ON NEXT PART
OF THIS MAGNIFICENT GAME
2a. I have idea why history in F3 will have connection for all
Fallout game ( F1,F2,FOT) I mean place all city's from all Fallout's
(I know that is very much work but all city's + some new will be
this what all fans expected from Fallout 3 )
I know now you think ah next sucker for colection but I'm just wirte
what i fell and don't think that I'm only played FOT I've played
all of Fallot part and I finish it more the 5 time now i have request
can you answer on my e -mail
Actually, the FOT and the FO history/world physics aren't the same
- there were discrepancies, especially with regards to some Vault
theories and the deathclaws, but that pretty much puts it on the
same level as Fallout 2. But let me try to answer your questions:
1. The BOS in FOT are a splinter group of malcontents from FO1,
I believe.
1a. The Vault Dweller only knew about Vault 15; he didn't know about
Vault Zero, and neither did anyone in FO2. It's kind of like how
no one in F1 knew about the mysterious organization known as the
"Enclave."
2. See Fallout Bible #6 for the answer to this question.
3. That would make a VERY big game; I don't know if that would be
possible.
All these were prompted by instalment No. 6, the latest one.
If I'd known from the start that you'd put my questions in the update,
I'd have made them smarter. :)
To everyone: If anyone ever doesn't want your questions in, let
me know. Chances are, I'll publish it anyway.
* In the "Pie in the face" section a timeline entry
mentions "Lydia, the head of the 'return to the surface' faction"
and her supporters, "Therese" and Lyle. In F1 TheresA
is the head of the rebel faction, Lyle is not identified as a rebel,
and there's no one named Lydia. I suppose she could have orchestrated
the whole thing from inside a locker or something.
::Ducks pie.:: Thanks for the feedback, I stand corrected - and
thanks for the heads-up. I think I referenced an old walkthrough
to get their names right. Or am just getting senile.
* I like the phrase "Vault 13 refugees from Vault 13".
:)
* The fact that you never found out where Ed got the Vault 13
flasks is something I've been wondering about, and then I mean in
a game design sense as opposed to a game world sense. The whole
"Vic thread" starts in Arroyo, but in Vault City it just
dies, although you do get a lot of other towns on your world map
in the process so that you can continue exploring. Was there never
an intention of having one uninterrupted thread of clues and connections
leading through the entire game for those who wanted to follow it?
Basically, the gist of clues was:
- Water Flask from Vic in Klamath.
- Go to Klamath, find out Vic is in Den.
- Go to Den, rescue Vic, discover he got flask from Ed.
- Go to Vault City, find Ed, find what you think is the Vault. From
there, you realize:
a. Maybe it's V13.
b. Realize it's not V13, but it might have clues to V13.
- Go to Gecko in order to get into VC Vault.
- Go back to Vault City. Get into computer room.
- The computer room identifies V15.
- Go to V15. This puts the player so close to NCR that chances are,
they will explore NCR, too.
- From NCR + V15, there's a bunch of ways to find V13.
I guess it may not seem obvious, but yeah, there was a plan. Also,
you're right, you're not forced to do this. You can choose never
to bring the GECK back to Arroyo for the whole game, and that was
intentional - it's not very Fallout to force the player to do things
in a certain order. Torment was just a different experience, and
it was much more story-exploration-focused than world-exploration-focused.
* For some reason I liked your mention of the steam trucks from
F1. They've puzzled me a bit since that was the only mention of
vehicle technology anywhere in F1 as far as I know, and it was odd
that a bigger deal wasn't made of the fact that the super mutant
army actually had them. You'd only ever hear about them if you found
that ghoul refugee behind the bookcase.
It may have been embarrassing for them to mention it. It may have
been a very ugly-looking vehicle.
They probably didn't make a big deal of it for art reasons and
gameplay reasons. ("Where's the steam truck?! I want to drive
it!")
* Another possible pie in the face... Ian was supposed to be
in the Abbey, right? Or was he momentarily moved to the Den after
the Abbey was scrapped?
Ian was actually slated for the Abbey and the Den that I know of,
but something that Ausir (I think) pointed out, he was actually
in Vault City before he was cut from the game. Man, that old fuck
Ian sure gets around when he's not blowing holes in you with his
SMG. Thanks to Ausir for "Old Joe..."
"OLD JOE"
{100}{}{You see an old man with a crazy gleam in his eye.}
{101}{}{You see Old Joe, the local idiot savant.}
{102}{}{Hello. Haven't seen you in a while.}
{103}{}{Do I know you?}
{104}{}{Ah, yeah. It's been a while. What have you been doing?} {105}{}{Well, it has been a while. What have you been up
to?}
{106}{}{This and that. Where do you know me from?}
{107}{}{Look, old man, I don't know who the hell you are.} {108}{}{Sure has. Well, I've been around; finally ended
up here in this god-forsaken place. Not like the good old
days. No sir.}
{109}{}{Yeah, the good old days. Remember that time we...}
{110}{}{It hasn't been the same lately, that's for sure. Now...
what did we do together?} {111}{}{Don't remember me, do you? Well, you do seem to
be a bit young.}
{112}{}{What are you trying to tell me?} {113}{}{You look so familiar, though. Ah, must be my old
eyes. Well, good day to you.}
{114}{}{Uh, yeah... goodbye.} {115}{}{Yeah, we sure gave the Master hell, didn't we?
Shit fell apart after you left, though. Had to move around
and change my name. Where'd you end up?}
{116}{}{I've been living up in a small village.} {117}{}{Well, you better be careful around here. Things
ain't as clear as they once were. You best watch your back.}
{118}{}{Okay, thanks.} {119}{}{Yeah, I looked for your Vault for a while, but
never found it. So you got any good stories for your old friend
Ian?}
{120}{}{Ian?} {121}{}{Yeah, Ian. Don't you remember me? It's been a bunch
of years. You'd think someone wouldn't forget his best buddy.
Well... except for the shooting in the back thing. Sorry about
that again.}
{122}{}{I am sorry, but you must think I am the Vault Dweller.
My village was founded by the one who came from the Vault.} {123}{}{Well, that makes a bit more sense. Well, it's good
to hear my friend did well. Well, old Ian's got some advice
for you. You be careful out there. This place ain't as peachy
as it seems. }
{124}{}{What's going on here?} {125}{}{Well, the Vault Citizens think very highly of their
bloodline and don't care much for people like me and you.
You take this gun. It'll protect you if things get a little
out of control. You probably shouldn't be seen talking with
this crazy old man. Best get on your way.}
{126}{}{Thanks for your help.}
{127}{}{Let an old man rest.} {128}{}{So familiar...}
{129}{}{Leave me be now.}
{130}{}{You better get going.}
{131}{}{They'll get suspicious if we talk anymore.}
{132}{}{Go on, get. Make my old friend proud.}
* About cow-tipping: that effect was actually in F1 as well,
but there you had to use a Booze or a Beer on a brahmin for it to
tip over. I assume most players wouldn't have tried that. (And in
F2 cows are actually pushable, only they'll tip over instead about
50% of the time.)
Got it.
* Here's an addition to the Fallout library I thought of. In
the late 70s and early 80s some French guy named Claude Auclair
wrote a post-apocalyptic comic in five parts called Simon de Fleuve,
or Simon of the River. It's been translated into several languages
including Swedish, Dutch and Norwegian, but not, it appears, English.
It includes among other things: a nomadic tribe which is attacked
and brought into slavery by militaristic government remnant forces
packing tanks and hi-tech fliers; a race of ghoulish dwarf-mutants
living in an old atomic power plant which eventually blows up; a
bunch of shaved, bespectacled scientists who all look *exactly*
like the Doc Morbid character model. :)
Thanks - another book to add to the post-apoc collection.
Hey, Chris, thanks for answering my question. I'm glad you
were able to find some time in your intricate timetable to answer
it. You know what, I was a bit at a loss when I saw a letter addressed
to my Mom. As you may have already understood I'm using my Mom's
e-m@il so that's why it was subscribed by her name. So my name is
Dmitri Polioutinne and Nina Pastoukhova is my Mom. Hoping to see
my name in the next update. Thanks in advance. Now on to business.
Just a word of warning - when I get an email from someone, I'm
always going to assume it's from the name in the email. If it is
not you, then be sure to put IN CAPS at the front so my old, withered
eyes can tell the difference.
- I'm sending a fixed version of my question with a fixed spelling.(with
a patch installed, just kiddin'). Hope you'll insert the fixed one
'cause I don't want to look like an illiterate asshole.
DMITRI'S FIXED QUESTION BECAUSE HE IS NOT
AN ILLITERATE ASSHOLE.
I really appreciate the Fallout Bible project and I think
it's a marvelous idea. I've read all the updates and still
I'm curious about one thing. Why the Sierra Army Depot is
not mentioned at all? I think the Sierra Army Depot is not
an insignificant part of the game's plot. Just on the contrary
I believe that it has something to do with the F.E.V. experiments
or with development of futuristic weapons and armor. It
doesn't look like it's just a weapons storage facility.
Otherwise why was it inserted into the game if it has no
particular reason?(or a place where one can find some stuff
to sell and gain an NPC(probably one of the best)) So my
question is: What is the role of the Sierra Army Depot in
Fallout and what it has to do with the F.E.V. experiments
and weaponry development or maybe some kind of an artificial
intelligence development?
- Besides I wanna be aware of one more thing.(Don't
think I'm too insistent) Everybody's mentioning the EPA, the Abbey
and the Primitive Tribe(Village). Is there any tiny possibility
of these additional locations ever being released or a crack to
unpack them? As far as I'm concerned the data of this locations
is included into the Master.dat, if I'm not mistaking. So there
must be a way to reveal them and make them playable, right? It
will do several days of complete enjoyment. I guess you know how
it is valuable for the fans.
Nope. There's no data in the .dat file either, except slots for
them. Other than the documentation I presented in the last update,
nothing exists but a paragraph description for each one, no dialogues,
no maps, nothing.
A few from the Drunk Monk who needs to lay off the snake
squeezin's:
Sorry that there is so much stuff, i'm obsessed with fallout and
I just discovered the bible. Fallout bible questions and additions
1. I know about the bozar gun in ncr, and the XL70E3 in the
tanker. Are there any more secret guns?
Not that I know of.
1a. Also, I found the "Fallout two strategy guide"
in new reno. are there any more things like it?
There's a few: Talk to Lynette (with a smart and stupid character
at the end game), just about everyone in Reno, there's a computer
at the bottom of the Vault in Vault City in the NW corner, talk
to Father Tully in Reno, and Miss Kitty. Everyone should say what
a great guy/gal you are. I don't know of any others.
2.I noticed that you changed dialouge for new reno people (i.e
you sure kicked ass on the enclave!") after you beat the game,
but not for other towns and citys. Why? Did you run out of time?
I was the only one who did it, and we didn't talk about it as a
group because we were all too busy surfing for porn. There was some
debate about letting the player keep playing, so no one knew if
it was worth it. I think Matt and Ferg were thinking of cutting
the Reno "after game" stuff out since it was inconsistent,
but I begged and pleaded so we were left with the inconsistency.
3. When you are in golgotha, you can dig up a grave that reveals
a living ghoul, who has been buried by racist new renoers! Who is
that guy?
He's Lenny's dad (one of the ghouls in Gecko, sharing a hut with
Harold).
4. In the den, you can pay to see a mummy. What is that thing,
just a poor ghoul?
Yup - you can get the quest to find him in Gecko, I believe.
5. Why are there so many damn random encounters? I want to know
what are the chances of hitting something, because when i'm traveling
I cant go through 1 square without having at least 3 encounters!
Do I just have bad luck?
The wasteland just loves you.
6. In the temple of trials, you use plastic explosive to blow
the door. How do tribals out of contact with civilization have military
grade explosives?
Don't even ask. They probably had it sitting around, along with
that handgun in the Elder's tent in the opening movie. The entire
Temple of Trials thing is one big mystery and is pretty implausible
- the sliding mechanical doors are what really confuse me. I think
it came down to an art decision.
Anyway, the story I'm sticking to in the official universe is that
the Temple of Trials is actually built on an existing abandoned
church - or museum.
7. In klamath, whats up with the vertiberd crash? Pilot failure?
Foreshadowing? Also, the robot sometime says, "I Can't let
you do that, matt." Another programmer joke?
Matt Norton put it in Klamath to foreshadow the presence of the
Enclave (a good call, I thought). "I can't let you do that,
Matt," is a reference to 2001: "I can't let you do that,
Dave," except Matt just used his name instead, I think. More
2AM development wackiness.
8. On the desktop, the icon for fallout two is the fallout warning
icon. When I look in the folder in program files, the icon is some
guy! No its not the pipboy! Another programmer joke, and if so,
who is it?
It is Tim Cain, who worked on Fallout 1 and 2. Chris Jones, one
of the programmers, put it in because past his stone-faced exterior,
he likes to laugh as much as the rest of us.
9. Is there a way to do bishops wife and/or daughter without
him getting angry? (Easter egg, sortve: In the end game speech,
it says that mrs. Bishop had a baby, the father was never known,
and he ruled the bishop family well. If you do it, of course.)
Yeah, get on Moore's good side in Vault City, then deliver Moore's
briefcase (the good one) to Bishop, and you'll be allowed to wander
around on the top floor of the Shark Club without Bishop getting
mad. Then you can sleep with whoever you want without him freaking
out.
Of course, if you have killed the Raiders, then any conversation
with Bishop has a chance of him snidely bringing up the fact that
he heard you were responsible, then guns start getting pulled out,
and there's bloodshed and woman and children crying.
And here's some hints he would like to pass on to the community:
stuff that people probably know, but I am adding it for those
who dont. If you want just pick the good ones and copy them into
bible, that would be awesome. If theres no good ones thats ok.
Fun little quest
remember joshua in vault city? you had to rescue him for his wife.
now think of his son curtis - the one who talks about mr. Nixon.
This explains his little quest. Look near the bar where cassidy
is, on the ground. you will find a mr. nixon doll. Give it back
to curtis(100 xp), and watch his dialouge with mr nixon. He says
"Should we dig up daddys wrench?" And tells you that its
right behind the bar. Go near to where you found nixon, and there
is a pile of rocks in the open. When you click on them, the use
item should show up. dig it up and get a free wrench for your troubles.
(Note - You cant dig up the wrench before you learn about it, not
even with dynamite.)This quest helps with vics daughter, in vault
city. She needs a wrench and pliers, so you dont have to go all
the way to Reno anymore. Yay.
Easy gold - this doesnt help much, but its a start. Look in
the pot in aunt morliss' tent and get $100! This isn't much, but
in the beginning of the game it helps. There is also a shovel outside
her tent.
In klamath, look in the golden gecko. There is a closet with a locked
door, and if you pick it, you get an elvis picture worth $300! Again,
good money in the beginning of the game.
Fuel cells - in vault citys vault, there is a vent on level two
that rattles. Look in it for some micro fusion cells.
THE BOZAR - Weird name, huh? this awesome weapon is found in
the NCR Bazaar.
Search (steal from) the guys in combat armor gaurding the midgets
Shop-tent. You should see a big metal machine gun. Do however many
saves and reloads it takes, This gun is the best machine gun in
the game, maybe the best weapon in the WHOLE GAME, even if it does
run through the .223 fmj. You can also get this from new reno arms
later in the game, but its just not free.
The XL70E3 - another gun. This is not a very good gun, but its
fun to have. Search the girls with black hair on the tanker (If
i'm wrong, search everyone) and one of them should have the XL70E3.
THE FALLOUT STRATEGY GUIDE - After and only after you have beaten
the game, travel to new reno. Talk to father whats-his-name in the
church (The alchoholic) He will congratulate you on sticking to
the game, and most gamers wouldn't do it these days. He rewards
you with an awesome book - it gives 10,000 xp each time you read
it, and sets all skills to 300%! This is no joke!
Algernon - In the basement of new reno arms, you can find moldy
ol' algernon! He is a weapon savant (I think that means good at
one thing, moronic at everything else) and UPGRADES WEAPONS FOR
FREE! Here is a list of weapons he can upgrade, I think I got most
of them but i probably missed some. Also look in the corners of
that basement for containers, holding:50 micro fusion cells, hard
leather mark 2, and an electronic lockpick.
Hunting rifle -> scoped hunting rifle.
Desert eagle -> Expanded magazine
Magnum -> Speed loader(Only 2 ap to reload)
Fal -> Night Scope
Plasma Rifle -> Turbo plasma rifle
Assault rifle -> Expanded mag
Cattle Prod! -> Super cattle prod
After you beat the game, some new reno junkies have up to and
over 30 packs of jet! And since there stoned, its a breeze to steal!
At 25$ a pack that adds up! I don't know if this was meant to happen,
or if it is from junkies with respawning inventorys.
Nah, it was something stupid I forgot to check.
After you beat the game, you can go back and do miss kitty.
Nice.
Sorry theres so much stuff but i'm a HUGE fan, and I just learned
of the bible last night. Hope I didnt reveal too many secrets ;)
Hello again - some questions (1) super mutants in F2 where they
come from (I know Master created they) I'am asking becouse Vault
Dweller destroy main base of mutants and the master hideout and
in F2 is huge number of them are master realy created so much super
mutants (2) My character addict of "Tragic" I pleyed it
once and now a have addiction what it do becouse I don't see anything
happends with my character? (3) ghouls are they "product"
fo FEV and radiation or only radiation and why they live so long
1. The super mutants in F2 are the remnants of the Master's army
that fled east after his destruction in F1. He made a lot of them,
and not all of them were at the Cathedral or the Military Base.
A lot of them could pop up in random encounters, which may have
made them seem more numerous.
2. The addiction doesn't do anything - it's harmless. It's a joke
related to "Magic the Gathering."
3. Radiation according to Tim Cain, FEV + radiation according to
Chris Taylor. Based on points brought up by several fans (including
Mr. Carrot and Red_Nmmo), I'm now in the ghouls = radiation camp.
And no one knows why they live such a long time - they just do.
Well, as long as they stay hydrated.
Chris Avellone had a question for the old producer of the
Wasteland engine sequel, Meantime, Bill Dugan, who is expecting
a little Dugan girl in the near future. The question was asked on
behalf of Ausir and Jason Mical, and it boils down
to, "tell me about Meantime."
Yeah, I worked on Meantime. Alan Pavlish was the lead on
it while it was on the Apple II. Mark O'Green (MCA: Who
did the voice-acted dialogues for Fallout, I might add.
Can I say that enough? No! Because I love the VO dialogues
for Fallout) and Liz Danforth were designers on it.
I produced the DOS version for a while. It was based on
the Wasteland code. The great new thing was that Alan created
a map editor (!), and the scripters/designers could actually
create maps in it instead of having to know assembly language
and use graph paper like on Wasteland.
The plot was that you would go all through time and pick
up exciting personages throughout history with their own
specialties. Clearly it was the inspiration for Bill &
Ted's Big Adventure. Most of them ended with questionable
fates and you had to rescue them, so you didn't mess up
time by taking them along with you. You got to rescue Amelia
Earhardt from a Japanese POW camp. There were plenty of
characters who were just cool; Cyrano de Bergerac had maxed
out Fencing skill. There was a group of bad guys trying
to screw up time by slightly influencing various events,
and you had to leap in and fix things. In one scene, Werner
von Braun was about to be captured by the Soviets at the
end of WWII and you had to get him into the party and help
him escape. As I type this it reminds me of GURPS Time Travel.
There was a great piece of box art that was created, I
remember. It had Albert Einstein on it; you got to recruit
him into the party at some point, I think.
So the whole thing was built for the Apple II. If I remember
correctly, probably 75% of the maps were done, then Liz
Danforth quit, and then the Apple II and C-64 markets fell
enough for Brian to cancel it. Then he had me try to bring
it over to the IBM. We hired a contractor named Bill Besanceney
to port it from the Apple II to DOS, and had an in-house
artist do EGA graphics for it, and it went pretty slowly,
and then Ultima VII came out with its 3D characters and
lush graphics and I recommended we cancel Meantime with
its top-down, non-animated graphics. It wouldn't really
have had a chance.
I can almost hear the Buggles singing "Video
Killed the Radio Star" during that last paragraph.
Sagittarius A squeezed out a crapload of questions:
Hi, Chris. Another list of questions.
1. Why is PMV Valdez using fuel instead of fusion cells? It's
relatively new (it's carrying a Vault door, and is fully automatic)
and it fits perfectly into Enclave's dock. I think the tanker should
have been modified by Poseidon Oil to use fusion power instead of
burning valuable oil or another flammable fuel.
2. What IS Poseidon Oil company? It owns nuclear stations, marine
vessels, gas (sorry, fusion energy) stations, prints maps (like
the map of L.A.in FO1). It even has it's own network, which connects
NORAD stations (!), Iron Mountain bunker and even the Enclave. Is
it some kind of state corporation?
3. The Captain (the head of the punks) tells the player that
he was a tech in Navarro. How did he run away from there? And where
was the fob located before he was reclaimed by the Enclave?
4. And why NavComp can be found in V13? And about poor Ed (who
was dead).
5. Wasn't the Vault Dweller the first man who had ever left
the V13? Or was Ed from another Vault?
6. What chemicals did Metzger store it the church? I remember
they were from VC and were to be delivered to NR, but what for?
7. And how did Metzger get to know about radio transmissions
between Salavatore and Navarro?
8. And, finally, which part of VC was in Moore's briefcase?
1. I may be missing some statements from within F2, but my opinions
are:
A. Despite the fact that is carrying a Vault Door and is automated
doesn't mean the tanker is "new" - it may be old/very
old by 2070s standards and not incorporated any fusion technology
into its design - and it may be too difficult to retrofit the tanker
to run on fusion (although getting the fob was easy). It is not
known whether there were any tankers incorporating fusion power
sources in the 2070s, although military vehicles would be a different
story.
B. Poseidon Oil (during the Pre-War years) would not want its tankers
using fusion cells because that would run contrary to the image
of the company, despite its practicality. Plus, the idea of something
so big running on something so small hurts its self-confidence.
C. Fusion cells are very easy to get (in the game) and thus would
undercut the adventure seed of connecting the fuel and the necessity
of dealing with the Shi and Hubologists.
D. On some thematic level, the fact that the tanker runs on fuel
helps drive home:
i. The fact the player is going to an oil rig.
ii. Brings up images of the real-world Valdez.
iii. Suggests the dinosaur-era technology of the tanker and it also
provokes some images of the desperation of the Resource Wars, if
you're a Fallout history buff.
E. The fact that there is a Vault Door aboard the tanker does not
mean the tanker itself is new.
2. Poseidon Oil was supposed to have the feel of a larger than
life Pre-War conglomerate - kind of like the business-centered evil
empire in cahoots with some of the darker and more selfish sections
of the federal government. Whoooooo... scary.
3. The Navarro Base has had plenty of deserters (including Dr.
Henry in NCR); once exposed to the mainland (even in all its trashiness
and monster-ridden wastes), some people prefer a life there to the
steel bunker walls of Navarro and the lifelessness, sterility, and
closed-in oil and stale smells of the Enclave (reminding you of
The Amtrak Wars yet?). And that electric maze at the bottom, which
was used extensively for hazing purposes.
4. NavComp in Vault 13: I don't know. I think someone told John
to put it in there so the player would be forced to go to Vault
13.
5. Ed, according to Chris Taylor, was a Vault Dweller who went
out before the PC. And maybe before Talius, I guess. So you might
be the third person out. As for Ed, he's covered in Bible #6, I
think - just so a search for "Ed."
6. Metzger: It was just a generic, unknown "chemical"
required for the Jet distillation process, since all that brahmin
shit needs some processing, too. It's a "McGuffin."
7. Metzger and Radio: Beats me; Dave Hendee knows for sure. He
may have had a working radio before he busted it and needed Vic
to build him a new one. Metzger mentioned it to help foreshadow
the Enclave -> Salvatore ties, like the crashed vertibird in
Klamath.
8. It was two separate things: (1) two super stimpaks should appear
in Bishop's inventory after you deliver the right case (super stimpaks
are valuable, no matter where you are, and Bishop's always in danger
of suffering head trauma from snipers - or his family), and (2)
some downloads from the VC main database - which Bishop requested
from Moore, although Moore didn't realize that Bishop wanted the
current roster of all VC guards so he could see if he could "get"
to one of them with drugs or other "convincing."
Sagittarius A had a question on the Raiders section from
Fallout Bible 6:
In FO Bible #6 you say that "They are eager in combat to
prove their worthiness to the clan by engaging in hand to hand combat
with fists or clubs. The Khans carry very few firearms (since they
are for cowards)." But as far as I can remember, the Khans
were mean gun thugs in FO1. Why were they changed?
The answer is, I don't know. They may not have been tough enough
with just melee weapons - and as far as I know, the designer who
initially wrote the concept of the Khans (Scott Campbell, I think)
wasn't the one who finally implemented them (Chris Taylor, I believe).
It's mostly a game logic reason - Chris T may have wanted them to
have guns, or maybe they were too weak with just melee weapons.
I was wondering about V15 generator in Fallout 2. You can't
do much with it, apart from repairing it. Was it originally a part
of some quest, that doesn't exist now? Are the forcefields installed
just for fun? Maybe, if the player rapaired the generator, the Squaters
coluld move in and use the forcefields to protect themselves from
the outside world?
I checked with the designer, and he said:
"I don't remember much about this. I think that if
you repaired it the lights came on. However, it also turned
on all the defenses for the vault and you then had to overcome
them. Anyway, that's all I remember and I'm not sure about
that."
If I find out anymore, I'll post it in a future update.
Oh, and nothing will protect the Squatters from the outside world.
Their lives are harsh, victimized ones.
Dave had a question on the only combat-focused NPC ally
I did for Fallout 2:
Howdy Chris Avellone. I was wondering if you could find someone
to verify this for me. Y'see, I have this little theory that Cassidy
(from Fallout 2's Vault City) is the son of a character MacRae(from
Fallout's Boneyards). Evidence:
Same sprite for a start,
Both good at unarmed combat,
About the right age difference,
When you try to sell Cassidy as a slave, his name comes up as none
other, than MacRae.
Can you find the guy who made Cassidy and find out if he really
was meant to be MacRae's son please? And if not, why do they bother
showing Cassidy's second name when you sell him?
The answer is no, he's not MacRae's son. Cassidy is a stand-alone
man of the wastes. However, all of the reasons you listed above
are good examples of why you could make a case for it. Most of the
confusion lies in:
- The model.
- The "McRae" name. Basically, "McRae" is an
inside joke, since it's Feargus' (our division director's) middle
name. He designed a lot of the Boneyards, put McRae in, and he also
did the second pass on Vault City in Fallout 2, and he put McRae
as the name of the bartender.
- When I took over the area, I liked the name "Cassidy"
better, so I gave Cassidy that name and designed his character to
be a gunfighter who likes to drink too much.
- The reason they show Cassidy's second name when you sell him
is a bug.
Henri had some questions about the birds and the bees...
In Fallout Bible's timeline you say that the Vault Dweller was
born in 2141, right? Then somewhere in the net (I don't remember
where, it could be one of those bible updates) I found a .pdf file
which included a "poster" in which read the rules for
living in a Vault. One of the rules said that because the Vault's
resouces are limited, the people in it are not allowed to reproduce
during their stay there. That would mean that the Vault Dweller
would have had to enter the Vault when the bombs dropped in 2077.
Or are the rules wrong? I mean, Vault 13 was designed to stay closed
for 100 years and only few people live that long, so they had to
reproduce.
Ed Note: It turns out the pdf files was from the
Vault City sourcebook for the Fallout PNP game (which is going
through a super revision, see: http://pub90.ezboard.com/bfalloutpnp53576)
The next question is that in your Fallout Bible
you said that the Arroyo Elder was Vault Dweller's descendant.
However, in the game the player, the Chosen One, says all the
time that the Vaul Dweller was his ancestor. That would mean the
player and the elder were related, maybe even brother and sister,
or that the elder was his mother. BTW, why does the Chosen One
speak of the Dweller as an ancestor? It's only 80 years later
than Fallout1! I hope you now understand how confusing this is.
Here's the problem with Vaults and no reproduction, though:
1. War starts in 2077.
2. Vault 13 lets the Vault Dweller out in 2161.
3. So you're right - if no one in the Vault is allowed to have
children, then there's some weirdness going on. So my opinion is
that people within the Vault were allowed to have children, but
the births were strictly controlled so as not to interfere with
the equilibrium of the Vault population and fuck up the whole closed
system.
The Arroyo elder is the daughter of the Vault Dweller, and the
Elder is your MOM!
The word "ancestor" is used because it sounds more cryptic
and tribal-ish. Oooohh.
You said in the fourth Fallout Bible(i think) that the Enclave
could remotely go through the logs of the vault's inhabitants and
their Pipboys. So wouldn't they have been able to monitor the location
of the original Vault Dweller and then the main character in F2.
You would think that if they saw him in San Fransico then running
around in Navarro at about the same time their Vertibird plans disapeared
they would have disposed of the character. Did I totally misunderstand
what you said? am I crazy? do I need to go outside more than one
a year?
Yup - under ideal conditions, they probably could have monitored
both. But there are problems with doing it in F1 and F2:
(F1 is kind of irrelevant, since the Enclave wasn't really an idea
then. Nor were the Vaults "experiments" then either, I
believe, so let's shelve the Vault Dweller issue.)
Before we go into an annoying list, the Vaults were an experiment.
The experiment is useless if you can't collect the results. Some
brainiac came up with the question of "hey, is there some way
of collecting the results without compromising the experiment?"
So why didn't they track the Chosen One?
1. The Enclave machinery, all the way down to communications, is
not up to spec, at least as far as the Enclave guard's complaints
in Gecko are concerned.
2. The computer networks weren't able to access all the Vaults
remotely after the war - like the network log in the computer in
the Gecko reactor, most links between systems were shut down or
destroyed. They were the ones who sent the "all-clear"
to the Vault 8 Overseer, though, which Lynette tries to explain
- and can't. They also were able to transmit an "all-clear"
signal to Vault 13, getting them to open the door. Once the President
made the decision to go take the V13 inhabitants as test subjects,
the vertibird teams scrambled, sent the signal and waited. No one
did a search on all the PIPBoys.
3. Reading information on the PIPBoys within the Vaults is one
thing, but tracking them (while possible) is a different story.
They probably could (1) if they knew what frequencies to look for,
and if (2) they had bothered to read the PIPBoy specs. My feeling
was that they wouldn't even have considered trying to hunt him/her
down with the PIPBoy - what would a tribal be doing with a working
PIPBoy? As for a Vault 13 PIPBoy, they already had all the members
of V13 captured anyway, or so they thought. Plus Arroyo is many,
many miles from Vault 13.
Also, I have no idea what happened to the player's PIP Boy while
it was laying at the bottom of the Temple of Trials. I doubt it
was up to spec anyway. :)
4. No one in the Enclave (i.e., Chris Avellone) was really bright
enough to think about this idea. Only a few people in the Enclave
knew the in-depth secrets of the Vaults and how the inhabitants
were monitored. This may help or may simply be more confusing. If
it's more confusing, let me know.
And sure enough it was confusing, so...
As for the players pipboy being not up to specs, cant you bring
it up to specs at the Vault 8 computer if you have high enough perception?
Or does reformatting not count? Or the fact that theres wires hanging
out of it not make it up to specs? and I was also curious about
the button on the pip boy that is scratched out, is that actually
supposed to say something or should I stop looking at it so hard?
You can bring its programming up to spec, but not its mechanics,
if that makes sense.
I think that button was for another interface screen, but I'm not
sure. I think only the artists on Fallout 1 know for sure. Let me
ask, and see if I can get an answer for you.
A. In FoT were the 'bots at all based or inspired by the bots
from wasteland? (not sure if you know anything about design elements
of FoT)
I don't know.
But I asked some of the designers from FOT, and they say, "no."
So, no.
B. Who suggested that there be a 'real' currency type (gold
coins as opposed to bottle caps) in FO2 and why. Was it just that
the team thought that enough time had passed to start making money
again or what?
Somebody (not me) didn't like bottle caps. I personally love bottle
caps. But I am not allowed to be lead designer since the toilet
paper incident.
C. Was there any specific reason the Shi's vine (it was a vine
right?) wouldnt grow in other soil (im talking about the radiation
eating one in the end movie).
I think it was intended so the plants couldn't "cure"
the rest of the world, since we wanted to keep the rest of the world
a nice and irradiated desert wasteland. It was just game-based reason.
D. Can you direct me to FOB 4?
Update 4 should be after Update 5 in the Other News section on
the Fallout boards. Just do a "Find" for the word "Fallout,"
and you should find it.
MR. POSTMAN
Geraldo/Darkblade has some questions:
I´m just another Fallout junkie (name´s Geraldo)
and I´d like to thank you and everybody about this "Fallout
Bible" thingie, this is just up my alley, getting to know pratically
everything about my favourite game! And so, I´d like to "contribute".
My questions are simple:
1 - Was the Fallout game inspired by Kevin Costner´s movie
"The Postman"? I recently watched the movie and I must
say I loved it, and found some things similar to Fallout, especially
the "nameles hero roaming the wasteland" Postman-Wanderer
thing. Yes, I know that fallout´s main inspiration is the
game "Wasteland" (i´ve played it a bit, but it´s
a bit tricky), but I guess the team had to get some ideas from other
places as well.
2 - More technical question: I was playing Fallout 2 recently,
and came upon Metzger, the slaver, with two npc´s by my side,
Cassidy and Vic. When I asked to Metzger if he wanted to buy any
slaves, Cassidy was listed as MacRae. What gives?
3 - And a last but not least: in the latest bible updates, you´ve
been adding info about the several stages of the npc´s. My
question is, is there any way we can check which stage is an npc
at? Also, how do they level up? I had gone through four levels already
and the damn npc´s never said those white "floats"
of the levelling up.
4 - Minor thingie: can you list the songs that people have been
recommending to you for fallout pen & paper?
1. Nope. The "Postman" movie has some good Fallout ambiance
stuff in it, but the book is a lot better. It's possible the book
had some influence since Senor Cain and Senor Campbell are pretty
well-read.
2. (Mentioned above) MacRae was Cassidy's old name. Feargus originally
called him that. MacRae is also Feargus' middle name (or one of
his crazy ancestors) as it turns out. We changed it. Cassidy went
through a crapload of names in the MacRae --> Cassidy transformation,
but all the others sounded like pussies. So Cassidy it was.
3. There's no way to check to see what level the NPC is except
with the Alertness perk (which should check current hit points).
Then you can contrast with the level info and see where the NPC
is. The NPCs should have a chance of leveling up when you do, depending
on their level up rate - don't know why it wouldn't be happening
in your case.
4. I will in a few more months. I haven't gotten a lot of responses,
and some aren't really 50s tunes - I can still post them in a later
update, though.
Shards (no relation to MMORPGs shards, I believe) had a
"quick, stupid question" that was nonetheless easy to
answer... well, easy for Chris Taylor to answer, that is:
The 10mm pistol, although being an automatic, has a revolving
chamber, and the description even says "Each pull of the trigger
will automatically reload the firearm until the magazine is empty."
Why the discrepancy? Miscommunication between the artists and the
designers?
Chris Taylor (who recently received a well-deserved promotion
at his new place of work, so send him cookies) says:
The answer is: DOH!
The longer answer: Miscommunication. I think the text was
written before the art was done, or the art was redone and
the text wasn't updated (it's a little fuzzy).
Should be "...until the cylinder is empty." But
I'd probably want to rewrite the description completely.
Alex Lim (also known as Alexsi the 13th) had a question
about having sex with Fallout Tactics.
Does the relationship with the Reaver go anywhere? - Its in
Newton when you save the female Reaver (Glenda Close) using a male
character. The objective is to save the 4 Reaver elders.
Well, Alexsi, we've consulted many of the FOT designers, all of
them who have tremendous amount of sex on a regular basis, and they
say:
Dan Levin: Even though the Glenda Close professes her instant
and undying love for the character (either sex would have the same
result... I think) she still ends up in the interment camp/brotherhood
inquisitors regardless (which should be mentioned in the mission
debrief).
This fatal attraction was a spin off Fatal Attraction (starring
an actress with a similar name). It also illustrates the no nonsense,
heavy handed approach of Brotherhood rule. Hope this helps.
Ed Orman: I'm not sure. I think Dan may have written her
to be, shall we say, slutty, and she might have tried to come on
to the player in her dialogue. But it wouldn't have ever eventuated
in anything (such as her waiting for you back at the barracks in
a slinky negligee).
John Sellars (On Da Bounce) had a question about those wacky
Union of Atomic Workers.
The Union of Atomic Workers are mentioned by the gun merchant
in the Old Town Section of The Hub. IIRC his name is Jacob. [Sorry,
I don't have the whole game memorized. ;) ] I appreciate any information
on them, it sounds like they would be an interesting aspect of the
FO universe to develop if there isn't much on them.
Professional game designer and assassin, Scott Bennie (who is interviewed
later on in this issue of the Fallout Bible), says:
"I did Jake, though someone probably rewrote the dialogue,
since the tenor is terser than Benniespeak. :-) I figured
that for every successful organization that made it in the
Wasteland, there'd be ten that failed, and so I came up
with some organization for Jake that explained where he
got his weapons that wasn't "I used to be in the Brotherhood"...
it's a throwaway bit intended to make the world a little
messier; it's more believable if everything doesn't tie
together neatly. Hope this helps."
Leon [Leonard Boyarsky] said he used that flag because it
looked cool and he didn't want to use a standard American
flag with 50 stars. Eventually he planned to make up something
about 13 super-states or something, but he never did.
AS ALWAYS, FIRM CHESTS JUST OUT OF REACH
Justin "Solid Snake" Braman, in addition to his
formidable knowledge about the anatomy of the Tarrasque, would like
to know how to get his hands on those big, bulging chests in Broken
Hills.
The answer to your Deathclaw model question (although the real
nerds have probably beaten me to it) is: The Legendary TARRASQUE!
One question that has always bothered me is as follows: In Broken
Hills during gameplay of FO2, there are several chests along the
north edge of the first map area that are (apparently) unreachable.
At least I've never been able to get to them. I'm just curious as
to if you know what they contain. If so, what? This has driven me
crazy since I first saw them and I want to know if I'm missing out
on something cool. Thanks for reading this and I hope to receive
an answer soon, but I won't be suprised when you say "Nothing."
First, Justin, you're dead on on the tarrasque. Mr. Wain, however,
was the first one to get it (he got it in five hours of the post),
but everybody who's responded has gotten the right answer.
Your answer to the chests in Broken Hills is a technical answer
- basically, when we do/did "stores" in Fallout 2, we
had fake chests placed off-screen that handled all the store contents.
As it happened, the ones in Broken Hills were accidentally placed
so people can actually see and get to them. As for the way to get
to them, I don't recall the bizarre series of steps you have to
take to get there - but if you post the question on the BIS boards,
someone will be able to answer it, I'm sure. Or if you do a search
for "Broken Hills" and "chests" you might turn
up some leads on the BIS boards WHEN THE SEARCH FUNCTION STARTS
WORKING AGAIN (otherwise I would have posted it here).
The ever-deadly Kane had some Fallout Tactics questions
I couldn't answer:
As we all know that the Vault Project is a great experiment.
So what is vault 0 used to study? And the second question is, is
The Calculator one of the ZAX series? If not, which company or organization
designed it?
Well, Kane, here's what two Microforte guys had to say (well, one
Microforte guy - Ed's too busy counting the sweet, sweet cash he
made working on Freedom Force for Irrational Games):
Ed Orman, the Thunder from Down Under, says:
1. Vault 0 is designed to repopulate the continent if the other
vaults fail. It contains the biggest "brains" of the time,
and their genetic data.
2. The Calculator was designed before the ZAX series, to control
and regulate the vault network. Originally, it was supposed to do
just that, but it eventually grew to the point where it could control
the vaults individually (had the connections with each vault remained
constant).
And Gareth Davies said:
1) "The sturdy Vault 0 was to be the nucleus of the vault
network. Housing the greatest leaders, artists and scientists, the
inhabitants of Vault 0 were to reunite the vaults and lead the people
to a new life, a new world. But, after the bombs, the world would
be a harsh one. To ensure the creation of a post-nuclear utopia,
the Vault Dwellers would need help. Machinery was constructed to
tame a land hardened by the ravages of war, then tempered by nuclear
winter."
2) As far as I know the Calculator was completely unique, and unrelated
to Zax, but can't find any documentation to support either side
of the theory. I think it's fairly safe to assume Zax and the Calculator
have very little in common.
But Kane (whose English is fine) had even MORE questions...
In the FO2 intro, we can see some Enclave Soldiers opened an
unknown vault, and killed 3 dwellers. I gauss after that, other
dwellers would be killed as well. So my questions is:
1. Which vault is this unknown vault?
2. Why did these Enclave Soldiers kill the dwellers? Don't they
wanna know the result of the experiment?
(My English is poor, hope you can understand what I wanna know:)
Hey, Kane. That was Vault 13, and those citizens were killed. The
official story the Enclave soldiers were sticking to was that "these
Vault Dwellers were resisting capture," but it was bullshit.
The Enclave soldiers were so keyed up after waiting for the Vault
to open that they opened fire against the orders of their superiors.
They then ran in and stormed the Vault, capturing the rest of the
citizens.
As a piece of development trivia - that was actually not the way
the movie originally ended. The original ending had the Vault door
open up, and a child stepping out into the wasteland and looking
around. Then it faded to black. It wasn't very interesting. But
it made you think. What was that kid looking at? The desolation
of the wastes? A mirage?
What happened to the guy (Marc, I think was his name) who accompanied
Harold into the military base? He said that Francine got killed
by a robot and grey fell into a vat, but Marc just dissapeared.
Did he make it out alive or did he perish along with Francine?
No one knows; the mystery of what happened to Mark has never been
explained. He was wounded, returned to the surface, and Harold never
went to look for him.
::Cue mysterious music::
Oh, and I have a suspicion that Mark was a reference to Mark O'
Green, the lucky fellow who wrote Harold's dialogue, but I can prove
nothing.
THREE FROM THE MASTER
Richard Grey/Dweller had these three questions:
Hi
I have few question
1.What Harold did in period between Falloutom 1 and Falloutom
2 ?
2.Exist supermutants before approach Master on the scene ?
3.What happened with Mark ? Harold spoke something about his
survive.
1. What Harold did between Fallout 1 and 2 is a mystery. To tell
the truth, even if asked, Harold himself may not remember. He did
stay in the Hub for a time, then went wandering, and eventually
made his way to Gecko.
2. It's possible, yes, although I couldn't find any mention of
them in the documentation. It wasn't until the Master started mass-producing
and standardizing them that they really became identified as "super
mutants."
3. No one knows what happened to Mark - see above.
How did you guys come up with the name Arroyo? Was it based
on a real world location, or was the name chosen just because it
because the town was literally an arroyo?
Tim Cain says:
The name came first. I was looking on a map and saw the
word. I liked it, both the sound of it and what it meant.
So I picked it as the name, and then told the artist making
the map what arroyo meant, so he'd be sure to make it be an
arroyo.
While I was sorting through the narration text, I ran across a
series of death lines we were planning to have Ron Perlman record,
but we didn't have time (at least I think they weren't recorded).
In any event:
DEATH SPEECHES
[FALLOUT 2 ENDGAME]
1. DEATH 1
Rest in peace, Chosen One.
You have perished.
The wasteland has claimed your life. Arroyo attempts to
send out others to search for the GECK, but they die quickly,
and the village soon follows.
You have died. Your village is lost, doomed to die of starvation.
You have died. Your quest to find the Garden of Eden and
return it to your village has failed.
You have died. You shall never know what happened to your
kidnapped village.
You have died along with everyone else on earth. The
Enclave triumphs, releasing the FEV virus into the atmosphere.
Your death has sealed the fate of everyone else on earth.
The Enclave triumphs, releasing the FEV virus into the atmosphere.
Millions die, and the earth falls silent again.
You fought valiantly, but to no avail. The Enclave triumphs,
and soon the entire world dies.
2. JOKE DEATHS
You're dead. Again.
You're dead as a doornail.
Time to reload.
Hoped you saved your game, cause you're dead.
Here's a picture of your corpse. Not pretty.
Boy, are you stupid. And dead.
Ha ha ha ha ha. You're dead, moron!
You're dead. Maybe you should start the game over with a
different character. Your point allocation sucks.
THE END
In any event, that's it for this upd-eight. If you have any questions,
see anything wrong, see anything you take exception to, feel free
to email me at the address at the beginning of this update - or
post it on the message boards. Email is usually faster... even with
Outlook acting all screwy.
Until next time,
Chris Avellone @ BIS
This white text is fun. In the future, I may be leaving secret
messages all over these updates. Be warned.
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