HeartAino

"Fo1 has 19 different endings, with 360 possible permutations. Fo2 has 47 endings with 1,105,920 permutations. If 200 is the number of permutations for Fo3, they are seriously behind. That would correspond to maybe 10-20 endings. But I'm assuming they'd have to be talking about permutations since you should know when designing a game whether you'll have ~12 or ~200 endings. You don't accidentally hop from 12 to 200 endings late in the development process and send in an order for 188 additional voiceovers from Ron Perlman (because he will KILL YOU). With permutations it would be thinkable, at least."

Vecktor

Hylian

Syndicated Terence

If thats the case, from 200 we (those that can do math, aka not me) can deduce the number of decision points that actually make a diffence, and it doesnt seem like that many.

Further supporting this theory is that quest the developers showed off for the initial preview of the game, where you can either destroy or save a town (you can probably do many more things in that scenario, such as simply leave). Each of these choices will constitute an "ending" because all else held constant it can have a certain number of variations in the ending montage.

While thats still cool, its nothing to get overly excited about and at most it will lead us to replay the game a couple more times.

Zenshai

If you do know the classic Fallout games then you just need to know that there will be less permutations (at this point) and karma will have a central role on how they will occur. But as I said before in the end it is very similar, on this issue there will be some continuity, and that's good.

And Gstaff I also mailed Kotaku with data to make things a bit more clear, but only Destructoid took some action for now.

[www.destructoid.com]

Briosafreak

Banedon38

If you listen to his answer on it (starting about 38 min into the podcast), I think it'll make a little more sense. It's not that each of these endings would be completely different, but rather things you do during the game can tweak different endings.

gstaff

Suppose there are two possible blurb-outcomes for each location, and seven locations you can get them for. Then suppose there are two "main endings" you can get. That means there are 2 to the 8, or 256, possible endings. This is about what Fallout 1 and 2 had.

Pantsman

So basically 200 endings is not that impressive from a simple numbers standpoint...however 200 permutations if there in full 3D is fairly impressive depending on the length and complexity of those 200 permutations.

Borathian

neojam

Likely, this is what Fallout 3 is going to do. Say we have 8 towns, and for each town we have (good ending) and (bad ending). That's 2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2=256 endings right there.

Lugubrious

Fo1 has 19 different endings, with 360 possible permutations. Fo2 has 47 endings with 1,105,920 permutations. If 200 is the number of permutations for Fo3, they are seriously behind. That would correspond to maybe 10-20 endings. But I'm assuming they'd have to be talking about permutations since you should know when designing a game whether you'll have ~12 or ~200 endings. You don't accidentally hop from 12 to 200 endings late in the development process and send in an order for 188 additional voiceovers from Ron Perlman (because he will KILL YOU). With permutations it would be thinkable, at least.

Mupp

So if you have 2 cities and there are 4 possible endings for each, then you already have 16 different possible endings (only for those 2 cities). So 200 inst that much for Fallout2-like game.

But i would like to know how many of those 200 endings will affect your character directly (aka "a real endings"). If it would be more than 10, i would be surprised.

neojam

As in: "OS X Leopard will have over 200 new features."

eponym

cantbeatmegaman

But hey, having more that a couple of endings is sweet, having upwards of 10 is phenomenal!

HingeThunder

The hype of half a million possible weapons, or 200 possible endings, or 1000's of planets to explore will all be eventually exposed as bullshit once we start paying the thing.

Give me one GOOD ending with 200 amazing and astonishing things to happen along the way.

Sullyville

But now I'm remembering all those found memories... work just isnt going to get done today.
Shot gun wedding to my lesbian slaver/pornstar actress/child murderer (F that redneck family in reno!). Good times.

Derigor

functioningbadly

I'd settle for a proper game with the depth of the originals, including all the deliciously ambiguous moral choices.

The Commissar

Cameroo

"Fo1 has 19 different endings, with 360 possible permutations. Fo2 has 47 endings with 1,105,920 permutations. If 200 is the number of permutations for Fo3, they are seriously behind. That would correspond to maybe 10-20 endings. But I'm assuming they'd have to be talking about permutations since you should know when designing a game whether you'll have ~12 or ~200 endings. You don't accidentally hop from 12 to 200 endings late in the development process and send in an order for 188 additional voiceovers from Ron Perlman . With permutations it would be thinkable, at least."

and replied by one of the programmers
"Ding! That's right. Incidentally, another way to get the same result is to say that each flavor can either be "in" or "out", so that's 2^8 = 256, except that the one case where they're all "out" doesn't fit the "at least one scoop" requirement."

I think people should read replies before they post "its going to take forever". The guy is selling the game to the people so he has to bullshit or "stretch the truth" in this case.

d_agra

I agree.

I just hope the endings without the variations are good.

Vecha

200 isn't that fancy.

Let's say there are two outcomes from a choice that has two outcomes, namely blowing up, and not blowing up Megaton, a choice they've already made abundantly clear. With that choice you multiply the number of possible endings by two. Another might have three outcomes, another four, that's 2*3*4= 24. Ok, a few more multiple choice events that may be incorporated into the end conclusion; 2*3*4*3*4*2=... wops that's 576 unique endings, how about that! Get the point? I'm not saying multiple endings aren't good, I'm just saying that this won't be as awesome as it sounds.

Pinhead

floppylobster

*Spoiler alert!*
.
.
.
Right near the end of the game you will enter a dialogue with some people and depending on your answer you will receive the appropriate ending... Bethesda are taking the bi-moral choice system to the next level!

Duoae

Y2Jason

splines

FP Bleentastic has cake

AzureDrag0n1

playdead

Horsefly

endaround

A lot of people see me saying things that go against the status quo and immediately they just scream "FANBOY!" or "BIAS!" I swear, sometimes it's enough to make someone want to stop posting. Which sucks, since I like this place!

Archaotic

I really, really, really want this game to be good. Please don't let me down, Bethesda.

splines

LowNemesis

of course, maybe i'm wrong and they they calculated the number of diff possibilities and how it arrived there, and then modified the couple of basic stories to go along with the slightly different ones.

at this point i feel bad for the narrorator...he's going to have ALOOOTTT of dramatic reading to do.

jrghoull

Tora

/cynic

blackadvent

Mister Adequate

Azriel77

Majpain007

lanion

it's a great game to drop in and mess around for a while. it's taken over GTA for me....until GTA4 comes out.

jfx316

deuxhero

Seriously, guys -- it's been done before.

Rallion

Rallion

Fireblast

Pezdispenser

I think when you blow the number up that big, you really cheapen it.

Well, with any luck they'll probe me completely and utterly wrong in Autumn...

Darien_Shields

goliathvv

Getting to 200 this way only requires about 10 cities and 3-4 factions and 2 results for each faction.

Sekai

Cchrist

Americo

Excalibur

okenny :)

ChuckNorrisKommando

MaxS

FLYBOY611

That is more along the lines of what he originally meant. I'm assuming the differences between most of these endings are but a few words or different characters appearing in places of others, which you could still technically call a different ending.

i_9

bdiddyb

Cchrist

SAKY

aww man. I'm too slow.

juv3nal

juv3nal

captronj

endaround

There was this weird red/black glowy thing, I can't remember what it was, in Oblivion and I would find mountains, go as high as I could, and then drop the orb and watch it fly down the mountain side and I would try and catch it.

All sorts of pointless things that were just fun to do. Where else can you throw a flaming bear corpse off of a mountain and try to hit it with a lightening bolt on the way down, just for shits and giggles?

SynKade

TheEngineer

Cracking that one open 10 years later's gonna be a blast.

lasttimeyouaskedme

DCDeacon

Ashurahori

Archaotic

Archaotic

OMG

I have a feeling this is slightly embellished.

wef

ErskinPig

jeezum crowe, man! put a copy of that savegame in a safe deposit box!

PlayerX

Like Physics, when asked the answer to the question "How many endings should this have?", the answer should be zero, one or infinite.

Furthermore, therefore, in conclusion and additionally, good luck internet. Only you can save us all completing the game 200 times.

thewisestfool

SynKade

TheEngineer

flagg

*disclaimer: I don't have time to listen to the interview*

PlayerX

zlimness

Captain Internet

TheEngineer

Also, whoever said Oblivion was too short obviously didn't enjoy playing the game.. I have clocked up 130+ hours and still have quite a bit to do.. and my fiancee has played over 240 hours... if you enjoy a game, you will take your time with it, rather than just race through to the end so you can bitch about how short it was.

Vegan Shinigami

I laughed so hard right now, it's not even funny. Sunflower seeds and fits of laughter do not mix well.

@Archaotic: And no problem man, as long as neither of us starts flinging shit around I'm fine with someone having a dif. opinion.

And I can completely understand someone having a lesser experience on Oblivion. Nothing you did outside the story impacted the story in any way and that can be a bitch. Also the story in general doesn't take too long. I had a game that I had played over 100 hours on where i would do a brief story mission and then screw around killing people and stuff for a good 4 or five hours before I went back into the story. I started a new game later where I decided to just do the story first and I don't think it took me more then ten hours. Oblivion definately lacked in the story department.

Also, I'm a perfectionist in the sense that on a game like MGS I go for all headshots and try to only use the tranquilizer gun, but if doing something tedious and has zero sense of fun is standing in my way of getting 100% completion I don't even bother. With Oblivion I was having enough fun just randomly dropping old women like flies once I got complete invisibility that I didn't care that there was really no point or consequence to what I was doing.

SynKade

And yes; I played guild and other sidequests quite a lot; no where near as good as morrowind in that regard (where I ended up the leader of almost every guild on the damned island).

MeateaW

Oh and don't dis Tali. She was awesome. That accent was so cool, and there were some funny parts between her and Wrex. Of course, the circumstances had to be right for those parts to happen, so most players would probably never experience them.

TheEngineer

Knight-Zero

imaria

Archaotic

That's what I was thinking, choose your own adventure style.

Maybe there are 10 legit endings, and 190 "game over man" endings.

lordargent

WhiskeyJak

TheEngineer

Dioxen

But then I pick up a game like Mass Effect that has a 15-hour main storyline and characters who hardly develop at all (hell, look at Tali! Did she really contribute anything?), and those same sidequests that in a Suikoden or a Final Fantasy would be cool end up becoming busy work, stretching out an experience that should've had more meat on it to begin with. It feels cheap and unfinished to me, and as a writer with his hands in game design, it hurts even more.

Archaotic

Wolfers

excel_excel

Reuptake

It's not like in a game like Final Fantasy VI or Lost Odyssey where the sidequests augment the experience. In open-ended RPGs, the throwaway sidequests that would be padding at the end of a plot-driven RPG become the experience. And I can't agree with that from a game design standpoint, as without a good story backbone, there's no POINT in helping Joe McTownie find his wife's lost ring or helping Patricia Villagette snoop on her neighbors to see if they're having an affair.

And Syn, I don't mean to single you out there, as you mentioned earlier we do generally just have different tastes and I mean no disrespect.

Archaotic

Rider_ofthe_storm

7ucky

Sunjammer

Insomnia Bob

Dakito

TheEngineer

That being said, Shivering Isles was a lot more intriguing because of Sheogorath's complex character, witty dialogue, and the general creativity of the quests in the Realm of Madness. But regular Cyrodiil was so boring it killed the vanilla game for me.

Archaotic

ArmyofJuan

...and I just thought of the fact that you could technically apply this formula to Mass Effect and make a similar argument. Which has a similar 4 or 5 variable in any combination ending sequence. So we already have a game with a huge score of endings.

GettinMyGooseOn

TheEngineer

SynKade

It's reasonably easy to get to over 200 endings this way...imagine there are 5 major ending plot points each of which can end up in one of three ways in any combination:

3 X 3 X 3 X 3 X 3 = 243

So it may not be worthy it to explore every combo...just each of the three values of each plot point, in this instance.

GettinMyGooseOn

enewtabie

Also, fucking awesome.

Strangelove

Personally, while it's nice that my actions can affect the outcome of the story a game tells, there's only so much of that I can cope with. Each playthrough of the game is likely to be broadly similar with a few key decisions differing but basically the same areas and objectives (unless it's a super branching setup where each playthrough only reveals a small proportion of the gameworld); I don't want to be forced to do that dozens of times to get to see all the possible endings. Chrono trigger had the right idea, you could use a single new game + playthrough to reveal a bunch of different endings by going to Lavos at a given point, but the game didn't save and reset after you beat it, so you could carry on from that point and get the next ending.

Happykraken

TheEngineer

Bethesda their blood is on your hands!

*excited grin*

Sicrowell

ArmyofJuan

Hostile

Now imagine playing through a 200th time just to have seen all the endings.

Even watching all of the 200 cutscenes would probably take like 6 hours. Playing to that point every time? Goddamn. GOD DAMN. That's just cruel. Brain, stop calculating! You don't wanna know! ;P

Candlejack

SynKade

This doesn't sound feasible at all, unless it's a sprite change here or a line of dialogue there.

Still excited though. wooh.

supershavin

Again.

VGJ

Huckleberry

BassForever

Voteforme2020

Still going to buy it :p

Jekht

Taco Bell™

SynKade

sounds awesome though. i'm game to take on this monstrous task.

jfx316

Ending 1: Killed by gang in Vault 101.
Ending 2: Killed by Mutant.
Ending 3: Killed by Brotherhood of Steel member.

...And so on. I wonder if the Xbox 360 version will mark each instance as an achievement?

17-A

Somehow I doubt Bethesda wouldn't say "200 endings" for nothing. That would only make the Fallout extremists very very angry.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan, but I'd be happy with 12 endings and 40 hours of gameplay if the quality was along the lines of something like KOTOR. (And stayed true to the canon, of course)

JohnnytheFuture

thsprgrmscks

Oh, wait, it's Fallout, so no. People are just going to sit back and accept it, then make excuses for the game when it launches and 198 of those 200 endings are text-only or lacking in any real purpose...or when they realize the game's really only 30 hours long, with 50 hours of sidequest padding. After Oblivion and its "unlimited replay value" ended up being total BS, I'm going to err on the side of caution for this one...then again, I was never exactly hyped for it ever since the first Oblivion With Guns screenshots.

Archaotic

Ghede

SynKade

Trowble (XBL/PSN)

Rurik

zombiefrank

TalAarahk

shagari7

darthmole12

Actaeus

ghnvt

pwn-master3001

2NinjasTapedTogether

Len Bias Cocaine Surplus

After Bioshock, I'd be happy with just 1 good ending in each game.

OGHowie

JohnnytheFuture

whoa.

Sandbox_Emperor

I hope they execute it well, though. The problem I usually have with these multiple ending games is that usually seeing even a portion of them is sort of tedious.

DeBurgo

Han Daimond

MasterOfPastures

Witzbold

tshack