Highlights from Fallout 76 Developer Interview – Featuring Senior Producer Jeff Gardiner and Design Director Emil Pagliarulo from Bethesda Game Studios:
Can we get Public Test Server on console?
Way too many enviroments to maintain, takes too much time, no certification process with PC, no need to get permission from Sony or MS, they can rapidly iterate on pc.
Will we get Animal Companions?
“Pets are on the road map, somewhere in the future”
Favorite Fallout NPC of all time?
J – Nick Valentine, Piper, The Overseer (76)
E – Nick Valentine and The Master
Any plans for a Guild System?
Public Groups were first step to guild system, trying to find ways for players to play together, no immediate plans, but it’s high on their future wish list
Cross-play
Jeff keeps wanting it – it seems like something that’d be so easy, but it’s something that they’d have to remove features to implement.
Next Patch:
Includes Daily Ops, One Wasteland, Legendary Perks
Patch After That
Then Brother of Steel Patch – and “Shelters” Patch
Brother of Steel Story will be spread over months, and include Quests and Allies
Shelters:
Get a Vault Door, build a Mini-Vault!
Everyone who plays gets one, you can go in and build.
Removed a lot of snapping rules inside, they can relax things because it’s your own instance.
Build limits increased.
Can make it open for random players to join, or lock it off to just friends.
Coming Early Winter, hopefully November
Is CC and Atomic Shop Canon?
CC – “As close to canon as we can get, but the lines get blurred” – they run fiction by Emil, and they want to make sure all the writing fits.
Atomic Shop – Canon Rules are a lot lighter, we want people to have more of what they want.
Any Chance for Playable Races?
Not in the immediate plans, but it’s something they consider all the time. They get asked for ghouls all the time.
Modding for 76?
Modding for 76 is in active development right now. They’re very big on allowing players to mod. They have to work on things to make it fair for people versus single player game modding.
Plan is to step their way to fully modded worlds.
Fallout TV Series, any hints?
People know as much as they do about the show, they don’t know much, but are happy with who is creating it.
Favorite Quest in Fallout Universe:
J – Tranquility Lane (Fallout 3)
E – Tranquility Lane (Fallout 3), Blowing up Megaton
Because of rules, the only place a child can die is in that quest – the only reason it was allowed was because it was a simulation within a simulation of a child – but it’s not allowed within the regular game…. Weird rules in life, huh?
Will we be allowed to build bigger or get a bigger budget in-world?
Actively investigating tweaking building rules, they’re there for everyone’s play experience. That’s why they’re working on the instances, to allow people to build bigger without harming the experience of others on the server.
They want to do things like ‘community building’ and other things at some point in the future.
How much do you play Fallout 76?
J – Plays in main (xbox), PTS, and their own dev environment. They have the ability to use our characters to test the game in their test environment, to better simulate regular players at certain levels.
E – Loves meeting the cool players, people giving people stuff, having your back, that kind of thing. Loves the interaction with other players.
Reminders at the end?
All updates are for FREE, as usual. They love us! They’re thrilled 76 has turned around this year, and couldn’t be more honored.
Also, for the record, I am not the only one who works in shorts nowadays, I see!
Here’s my 5 Minute Video Summary – Feel free to slow it down, I talk fast sometimes:
Source video will be added once I can find an archived link! – Gamescon, August 29, 2020