Vault of the Future - All Your Vault Are Belong To Us Since Sep 3, 2000.

Lockout, whom I mistakenly considered a member of the Annunaki (thanks to briosafreak for clearing up), is working on a Fallout Bible. Here's what he had to say on the Vault13.net message board:

As it now stands, that little ditty covers about 350 years of past, present and future (with some divergencies), and is likely two or three months away from completion (maybe more). In the interim, I'll be putting up bits and pieces of it for beta reading and review.

Aside from solid critique, what I would like (and really appreciate) are suggestions on aspects of the Wasteland that any of you feel strongly should be covered. Whatever it may be - the war, pre-war global and political environments, radiation, technology, the pseudo-evolution of post-war society (Whoa!) - throw it out here and let me know.

This thing isn't just for me - it's for anyone who loves the strange world of Fallout...and for those of us who can't seem to stop writing about it.

Well, we can only say that the Bible is in very good hands, for Lockout is the winner of Teh Grate Fallout Trivia, which ended yesterday. We'll be looking forward (that's called "plural of modesty" in Czech, I don't know whether it also exists in English :) to hearing more soon.

I've just noticed that Moonbiter has revamped the Wastelands: A Post Nuclear Comic site and is setting to resume rendering:

Heheh. Since I've experienced all of these real life upheavals, I have stepped back from the comic and only recently came back to it with a fresh perspective. I apologize for the two month delay in the release of the first issue, but it couldn't be helped. Luckily, in the last week I have re-written the entire back story for the comic. I have also tweaked the current story arc, created two new secondary characters and worked some more on perfecting the look for the comic.

Now I have to actually write and render it. It will take a while, for sure, but I will get the new pages up here as soon as possible. Thank you for sticking with me and the comic during the last month. Things have been shaky but I am glad to be back.

As of now, The Wastelands only consists of six preview pages, which can be found here.

The Dragon's Breath Forge has put up an interview with a man called Jason Manley who is an artist at Black Isle. They also refer to upcoming BIS releases:

Black Isle has been very silent since the cancellation of TORN. What are you guys up to now?

Currently we have two games in development. I am helping with all sorts of different things on one of the two...everything from the box art and the logo illustration to character and landscape art. For the project I am on, things are coming along very well. I am seeing new art daily and everything is looking as good as it possibly can.
I'd bet that you will be hearing some things about the project I am working with very soon. I have seen the website concepts and designs as well as the ad and box stuff. All are near completion. Everyone is doing a great job. What that date is...I really am not sure. Sooner rather than later I imagine.

It is obvious why we mention this here... two Black Isle Studios projects re-open the door for Fallout 3 speculations.
Read the whole thing here.

The trivia's over and here are the results. It eventually turned out to be really as difficult as planned. Thanks to all ninety-one of you who took part! I'll try to arrange something similar in the future.
By the way, I actually didn't need those e-mail addresses for anything. It was just a little test of whether you're willing to fill out forms or realise that it means nothing for me :)
Particulat congratulations go out to the winners - Lockout with 34 points out of 39 possible, followed by Freshmeat, Mr. T, and William of the Illuminati with 30 points. (Remember, fanfic guys are the best source of Fallout knowledge.)

Trivia Answers or the Trivia Results

Hello everyone, some rather large changes are occuring in the fanfic community and I am asking you to post about them.

First off is the Annunaki has relaunched our site with a more graphical look to it. Slinky Avenger is the designer behind it.

http://www.annunakiguild.net

Secondly the Illuminati has been Annexed by the Annunaki, who will keep it as an Affiliate, much like the Archives currently is. The Illuminati will continue to run as a guild but will have influence by the Annunaki in key areas to help it stay alive and well during its recent times of trouble.

http://www.theilluminati.f2s.com

True Raven

After a long while, I've finally updated the trivia results. If you still want to submit your entry, hurry up, because you only have four days left!

Thought it was impossible to finish Fallout 1 without killing a single creature ('cept the Master)? ApTyp decides to prove you wrong. See for yourself - download his guide here.

Red! tells us that general interest in his BOSSIP (BOS Simple Image Processor) is fading.

About the emails, I get maybe 1 mail per month now, so my 1000 goal would happen... somewhere in 2061 maybe? When/if I do get time to continue, I'll make sure ot make a some updates to my site and post some binaries/code snipets for people to get interest up again...

By "the 1000 goal", he means receiving 1000 e-mails before he starts making the program. If you DO want an utility to import your own custom images into Fallout Tactics, be sure to drop Red! an e-mail!

Duck and Cover reports:

Sure, there's probably not much to it... but hey, it's still entertaining! In the latest "Hyper" magazine (an Australian gaming mag - website is here), there was an interesting comment made in the letters section (...) To which the editor replied:
Dear Pete, it sounds like you should go and buy Arcanum. Fallout 3 is also in the works. Huzzah!
Huzzah! Huh, wait a second - what? Heh, why are we always the last to know these things? A big thank you goes out to Stainless for that one.

Huzzah...

Teh Grate L33t Fallout Trivia ends on October 2nd, so hurry up with your entries!
Note: Current Standings have not been updated.

The news have been pretty slow lately, so I thought I'd point this out.
The by-many-disliked-yet-by-many-liked :: phew :: Penny Arcade has dedicated a comic strip to the lawsuit between Interplay and Bioware (see just a little below), presenting two ways of looking at the problem. See it here.
Hehe. I wonder if Brian Fargo really looks like that.

The two proposals before the company's stockholders were both approved. In approving the first proposal, Interplay's stockholders elected a board of directors consisting of Brian Fargo, Herve Caen, Eric Caen, Michel Henri Vulpillat, Michel Welter, and Nathan Peck. Under the second proposal, the stockholders ratified the appointment of Arthur Andersen LLP as Interplay's auditors for the year ending December 31, 2001.

Yahoo Finance, your daily source for commercial yadda, has finally brought the results of Interplay's annual stockholders' meeting to public:

Robert Sirotek, Richard Lehrberg and Stanley Roach were the resigning directors, while Michel Welter, Nathan Peck and Michel Henri Vulpillat were elected to fill the vacancies, joining continuing directors Brian Fargo, Herve Caen, Eric Caen and Keven Baxter. The slate of individuals nominated by the Board of Directors for election at the annual meeting of stockholders held on September 18, 2001, were Herve Caen, Eric Caen, Nathan Peck, Michel Welter, Brian Fargo and Michel Henri Vulpillat.

After becoming a major stockholder, Titus now achieves a bit of the factical reign over Interplay. We're all eager to see what it brings. Interplay stock has yet to react, unless this event made it decline even faster :) Read the whole thing here.

As if Interplay didn't have enough trouble already, it now got sued by BioWare and Parallax. Here's the deal:

A lawsuit has been filed against Interplay Entertainment Corp. by Canadian software developer BioWare Corp. BioWare alleges in its complaint that Interplay has breached two contracts with BioWare by sublicensing distribution of BioWare games to third parties without the knowledge or consent of BioWare.

A lawsuit has been filed against Interplay Entertainment Corp., British distributor Virgin Interactive and French company Titus Interactive S.A., by BioWare Corp., a Canadian software developer, and Parallax Software Corporation, a software developer based in Champaign, Illinois. The complaint alleges that there are additional royalties due to both BioWare and Parallax.

And stock goes deeper... deeper...

In the Black Isle Studios forums, J.E.Sawyer shares some (mis)information:

King - Canceled project.
Washington - TORN. Canceled.
Adams - Heart of Winter.
Jefferson - Unannounced project.
Madison - Unannounced project.
Monroe - Unannounced project.

I cannot state whether or not Jefferson, Madison, or Monroe are currently in development.

Today, formerly 14° East's Chris Taylor popped on IRC tonight and chatted for a bit before he got disconnected.

-SlamServ- What happened to you?
-LOTRsChris Got laid off, took some time off, found new job, working. The usual.
-SlamServ- Actually, where are you plotting new plans to make history of gaming now?
-LOTRsChris- Universal Interactive. Working on their Tolkien titles. The guy who designed Arena (the freeform RPG) is the VP of development here. That's cool.

You hear da man. Let's hope marketing doesn't kill it this time... and Chris, don't put too many Fallout references in will ya? :)

Sounds ironic, doesn't it?
The current world events have drawn pretty much all attention from Fallout. In this week's Kiddie Pool at DAC, Dan Wood questions the fate of violent games after the Tuesday events. Readz0r.
Yahoo Biz have published the Insider & restricted shareholder transactions of Interplay stock over the last year. See it if you care, and notice Brian Fargo's luck... or cunning.
And lastly, to fill the space, I give you The Steve Ballmer Funk.

We bid farewell to Dan Wood of Duck and Cover, who is joining the U.S. Navy tomorrow. Good luck Dan!
Update: Dan's staying with us two more weeks!

Titus Interactive, currently in possession of the biggest chunk of Interplay's stock, has replaced three people in Interplay's Board of Directors. The new Board of Directors consists of five individuals nominated by Titus, and two directors, including Brian Fargo, previously nominated by management, who will continue to serve until the annual meeting on September 18. An advisory firm called Europlay 1 has been provided a mandate to undertake a restructuring of the company and oversee enhancement of the management team of Interplay. Read more of the biz yadda yonder.

Rumour has it that the Playstation 2 Fallout game mentioned in this article has already been cancelled. Supposedly, Interplay was indeed developing a Rainbow Six style Fallout game, but, similar to Fallout 3 in 1999, it was cancelled before announcement. This might be the very game IGN has in mind. Time will tell when more details spawn...

At No Mutants Allowed, I just noticed a link to this article. Among other things, it reads:

Interplay broadens Fallout
The creative minds of Interplay are always working on overtime. Recently, we got wind (a good Southern breeze, you might say) of a game that may very well appear on the PS2 landscape in the next year based in the Fallout universe. After two Fallout games (...) and the upcoming Fallout Tactics, Interplay is thinking of bringing an action-based, third-person perspective title out, based in the Fallout Universe.

Good or bad news? For me, definitely bad. I'm not planning to get a PS2. But for the consolists... And for Fallout?
By the way, notice the word in italics. UPCOMING Fallout Tactics. Is this a mistake, or an old article sketch exhumed to day's light?

There seem to be some weird sort of problems with trivia entries submitted from America OnLine users resulting in empty entries being sent. AOL users please refrain from submitting the form and rather send me an e-mal. The worst thing is that the trivia form is pure HTML, the icon of compatibility (theoretically:), and furthermore - I have no means of testing and examining this. If anyone can give me a detailed description of how AOL web software sends e-mail, I'd be delighted. Thanks.

Indeed, this is very hard to comment on:

See Duck and Cover for the exciting details!

From today on, I'll publish Trivia standings as often as I can. Entries keep coming, thanks guys and gals! If you haven't tried Teh Trivia yet, you are encouraged to do so! And of course, the current standings are over here.

Since a good deal of the forms I've received so far lacks answers to some questions, I decided not to reject them and instead treat unanswered questions as though they were wrong answers. Please, if possible, don't re-send the trivia. If you do so, I'll only process the last form received from you.
I've received fifteen forms so far, most of them average, though a few guys demonstrated very good knowledge. You too try Teh Trivia!

Well, the year flew past like the greenish toxic water. Vault of the Future was established on September 3, 2000. Since then, it has grown... well... almost not a bit, but it doesn't really matter all taht much.
What I have promised, I shall now fulfil: I emerge from the darkness to introduce... Teh Great Fallout Trivia! Thirty-nine insane questions about everything Fallout-related are awaiting you. Click Me.
And of course, a new poll. Tis is how the last one turned out:

24 voters (26%) are not going to try out the Tactics editors.
15 (18%) are gonna.
Also 15 (18%) think it's not worth their while.
17 (19%) do work with them.
5 (7%) are convinced about Tony Oakden's sex-appeal.
And 9 voters (12%) confuse Vault of the Future with a big gaping anus. Why thanks a lot.

Albeit you already know this, I decided to slap it up. Almost lost in the pile of e-mail that accumulated in my inbox during the past two weeks was this:

Hello and Greetings from the newest FanFic Guild around!

We are the Annunaki FanFic and Theory Guild, a series of fans who are dedicated to providing the masses with quality Fan Fiction of all types. We can provide guidance to all kinds of writers in any style, and won't give you any of that fluffy bullshit. You get straight, honest help and answers to your questions and Fiction. Please visit us at:

http://www.annunakiguild.net

True Raven
Webmaster and Counciler of the Annunaki

See why I'm feeling important? :) The Annunaki are basically a group who seceded from the Illuminati. Bluepencil adds (on the V13 boards):

The Annunaki is formed of people who used to be Illuminati, they left in god stead, to explore new grounds of fanfic. They're NMA veterans, they've been around for a loooooonng time. Probably dating back to the original Fallout.. come here for some genuine oldschool fun! They're masters at their craft... and if you're a newbie, the kindest, most honest people you will ever find. It doesn't matter what kind of writer you are, you're most welcome. They'll help you through every step of the way..

The site looks simple but relatively sleek. If you hang around the NMA boards you'll probably know many of the crew. And if you want to try the competition - The Illuminati, and the fanfic project at Steel Paladin.

The vacations over, therefore I am irreversibly and permanently back. Ready your handkerchieves, for I am setting to resume causing you acute affluxes of phlegm into your nasal cavities. Third of September is two days ahead, so tomorrow I shall fade into obscurity in order to retrieve something that will not leave a single ear dry...!

J.E.Sawyer decided to strike back and addressed those of us who crave a Fallout 3:

Most designers, given the option, would probably prefer to make a new type of game than one that's quite similar to another. This goes for artists and programmers as well. I know very few people who would say, "I really like working on games that are very similar to games x, y, and z that came out 6-14 months ago." Unfortunately, we don't always have the luxury or the option to do whatever we feel like doing. I'm certain that Fallout 3 would sell respectable numbers if it got a healthy development cycle. Just put us in a time pocket for 18-24 months so we can develop it, and I'm sure it will come out just fine.

This is just the end of Sawyer's rant; get the whole thing at Duck and Cover.
Then there's a Feargus Urquhart interview at RPG Vault, revolving around falluot a good deal. Again, an excerpt:

Jonric: The game has the reputation of being developed outside of the media spotlight and of not getting Interplay management's full attention. To what extent is this accurate, and in what ways did this help or hinder the final product?

Feargus Urquhart: In a lot of ways, that is an accurate way of looking at probably most of the time that Fallout was in development. Since RPGs were not necessarily selling a lot of units, the Interplay marketing and sales force were not really interested in the title a great deal. Interplay was also a little different back in those days, where development was much more a bunch of little groups all vying for the same resources. There was not a great deal of central organization of development, which led to titles being made that not a whole lot of other people at Interplay knew about. As for if this sort of "skunkworks" type of development helped or hindered the development of Fallout - I think it did both. It helped a great deal in the beginning, because the team had enough support and time to really create a design that they wanted to implement. However, when the team needed to ramp up, it needed to be seen as a frontline Interplay product. Since it was still in the background to an extent, it probably did not get the resources it needed, when it needed them. It also meant that Interplay may not have really gotten behind the product early enough to get the press and the consumers really excited.

Full interview here.

Interplay has sealed a deal with Vivendi Universal about publishing their games in North America.

Indeed, despite the fact that Titus now owns over 51% of Interplay's shares, they won't be able to take full control of the company until they can elect themselves as the new board of directors at Interplay's next AGM. Which leaves the ailing American publisher a few weeks to make life as difficult for the French as possible. As a result of this Interplay decided to dump Titus in favour of Vivendi, who will now handle distribution of the firm's games in the USA. The point here is that even when Titus take over Interplay at the AGM next month, they will probably still be forced to honour the Vivendi contract, which will cause a lot of headaches for them. Titus is trying to put a brave face on it though, hence the quotes we reported on yesterday about saving $10m a year by sacking Interplay's marketing and distribution staff and letting Vivendi handle the games.

Although it doeesn't contain anything not presumable, the Czech gaming journal Gamenet demonstrated strange determination almost two weeks ago (damn holiday) by putting up an article about Fallout 3 going into development. Here's a snippet:

There's no need to ponder whether it's good news. Sadly, it has to be spoiled by the fact that work on this project strted back in 1999 and was put on hold because of the aforementioned titles /Icewind Dale and Baldurs Gate 2/. Nowadays, though, it seems that the development team has reunited and the development will commence for sure. Let's hope it won't follow the ill-fated TORN, a game these people also worked on which was cancelled recently.

Follows a summary of probable features of the game, totally presumable (3D isometric view, turn-based combat or and pausable realtime, non-linear story, multiplayer...), but anyway - how can they be so sure? At the moment, all means to contact the article author seem to be out of order...

... To Hell. The train seems to be accelerating constantly, and it's beginning to become obvious that it's a one-way trip.
It started Monday 20th, when Interplay published their quartal economy report. Arguably the most quoted part:

"We have suffered some painful and disappointing delays on the release of major next generation console titles, and our limited resources have forced us to focus only on high-end games going forward, so we had to discontinue or suspend selected projects and take certain charges to operating results. We still expect to have an excellent line-up of games in our future release schedule (...) We continue to seek strategic alliances, licensing transactions, and financing to support our ongoing operation as a high quality publishing and production house", stated Brian Fargo, CEO of Interplay.

Simply put - In the second quartal of Anno Domini 2001, Interplay lost 12,4 million USD or 34 cents per share. They also have to pay a penalty of quarter million monthly for violating some agreements (my business English is bad) and their auditors foresee the future of the company's activity in the next year as doubtful.
Then, the merry-go-round spun: Thursday, Interplay stock fell to mere 60 cents, which is a record-breaking minimum. On Friday, they eventually closed on 73 cents.

Eurogamer brings news of an important event on the financial market: Titus, a French company that holds a considerable share at Interplay, has increased this share to 51%.

Earlier take-over talks thought to be with a Japanese group were blocked by Titus, which has owned a sizeable chunk of Interplay for some time now. Today it announced that it had extended that stake to 51% earlier this week by turning some of its convertible bonds into actual shares in the company. A statement from the French company said that "this purchase raises Titus Interactive's voting rights and will enable, during the Annual General Meeting in September, a re-election of the board and a takeover of Interplay by Titus Interactive".

With Interplay in severe financial distress, this seems to be the lesser of several evils....
Original article here. Thanks to Dan Wood for pointing this out to me.

... but I've added the Fallout Tactics special encounter screenshots and an armor list for the same game.
That will be all for this week.

PipBoy2000 LE, one of three major Fallout mod servers, has been out of order because of technical problems for quite awhile and now it may close down for good. As Saint Proverbius of Vault13.net noticed, Smackrazor, the PB2KLE editor in chief ponders closing his site in the No Mutants Allowed discussion boards. His reasons are that the Fallout Tactics engine is inflexible and Fallout 1 and 2 are too old to attract major attention.
The entire discussion here.

Vault of the Future has now officially gained 10 000 hits. May the cannon salutes sound!
Let us reiterate that the accesses from each computer are counted once a day, ie. during one day, from each IP address VOTF was visited from, only the first access counts. Multiple accesses during one day do not count.
Gaining this number took exactly 11 months and 9 days. I hope I won't have to wait for 100 000 next 9 years :)

While this isn't directly related to Fallout either, it is quite an interesting matter.
Desslock has info, albeit unofficial, that Black Isle studios are working on a sequel to Icewind Dale which will use the same Infinity engine as the original IWD and its expansion Heart of Winter. (And Baldur's Gate, and Planescape Torment...) Desslock states that IWD2 doesn't have to be the only D&D title currently in the works at BIS.
And the cherry on the cake: Icewind Dale 2 is, according to Fatbabies, due for this Christmas. That means Black Isle only have almost 5 months (or 6 - 7, if they've started some time before the rumour leakage). The gamers are gonna howl in madness, and decide yourself whether I mean it in the good or the bad sense.
And while we're at it - Fatbabies also report that Neverwinter Nights have been delayed to next year and that Bioware have to finance it themselves because of Interplay's incompetence...
Thanks to Saint Proverbius for pointing this out to me.

This isn't directly related to Fallout, but nothing is going on otherwise so I'll post it.
The Troika Connection, a server dedicated to all the buzz around Troika Games, has been founded. For now, it only contains a highly alegoric thought of a certain Tonúrics, some brief info, and mainly, The Troika Fat Cam - which does exactly what the name implies.
Go ahead, pay a visit.

I am now observing the emptiness of the world events. Basically the only thing that's happened is Wasteland Half-Life have made some progress in their Half-Life total conversion. Maps: 94%, Models: 89%, Animations: 94%, Code: 89%.
I will now resume preparing some things for the Vault. The editors of VOTF, all one of them, are eagerly awaiting two jubilees - the 10,000th visitor and the 1st anniversary. Yes, it's true - on September 3, it will be one year...

Because I've managed to find an Internet Point, I can now bother you even when abroad. Don't get used to it though, today's an exception. I promise.
Interplay has finally officially confirmed what we've known since last week; oh wait, it is a bit different. As opposed to the "five or six employees" supposedly sacked from Interplay and its divisions, the official numbers expand this digit tenfold - 55 to 65 employees!
The Yahoo Biz article we know this from also states that the Interplay stock value has dropped by 46% as opposed to last May.

We also have rumors concerning Micro Forte suspending payroll distribution to the employees, coming from Fatbabies. Saint Proverbius of Vault13.net, however, denies this..

Gotta type qquick... here's the deal, a guy named Red! has:
- Published a version of his SPR Viewer (Fallout Tactics graphics files) that works with the full version of the game and can be downloaded from here (well it should be, but it seems the author forgot something).
- Shown will to create a ZAR Files Editor and Converter, so we could ie. import custom gun images etc. into the game. In that case you have to mail him to red_nnnno@hotmail.com. Red! is a very busy man and he plans to start doing the editor (BOSSIP - BOS Simple Image Processor) when he receives 1000 e-mails. He's got 100 so far.
That's all, ~~forks~~ folks.

Because I'm leaving tomorrow early in the morning (and coming back on Friday August 10th), Vault of the Future will fade into silence again.
If you love your modem, I can recommend you several online comics. Try Real Life, MegaTokyo, Everything Jake, Lethal Doses (which has been discontinued today after 99 strips), Penny Arcade, and definitely visit The Parking Lot Is Full.
Ah'll be back. And don't think I'm leaving because I want to :)

Black Isle finally confirmed the cancellation of TORN yesterday.

Black Isle Studios' title, TORN, has been canceled. In conjunction with the cancellation, five of the 56 member Black Isle Studios staff were laid off. All of the remaining members of the TORN team are now working on other internal Black Isle Studios RPG products.

They're not very verbose. Names of the sacked guys (except Chris Taylor and Scott Warner who left on his own) are unknown.
On the other hand, it is possible that Black Isle has now freed their hands to work on Fallout 3. But with half the original creative team gone, I'm not really sure whether I still want to see a Fallout 3.
There are moments when I wish Feargus Urquhart really looked like this.

Chris Taylor entered the #fallout chatroom (server irc.gamesnet.com) and confirmed the stories both of TORN's cancellation and sacking of a small amount of developers.
The worst thing is that Chris Taylor, albeit he's not directly Black Isle, is among them.
Let's sum it up:

Chris Taylor - sacked.
Tim Cain - Troika.
Jesse Reynolds - Troika.
Leonard Boyarsky - Troika.
Jason Anderson - Troika.
Sharon Shellman - Troika.
In Black Isle remain (the most important ones): Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, J.E. Sawyer, Scott Everts, Dave Hendee. (Someone of them might, of course, have been sacked as well.)

That only leaves about a half of the original team at Black Isle; the rest have been fired or left for Troika Games.
To Chris Taylor, as well as the other folks, we wish good luck. (It would be quite fun if they joined Troika now.) Fallout 3 seems to be setting somewhere below the horizon again.

Blue's News brings unsettling, albeit unconfirmed, news. Through the Internet run stories of cancellation of Black Isle's new 3D RPG TORN that Chris Taylor recently spoke of as the testing ground for Fallout 3:

According to multiple sources and multiple gaming sites, TORN, the upcoming 3D RPG from Black Isle Studios that would have used an original universe instead of a licensed one, has been put on hold and much of the development team has been let go. It is unknown at this time whether or not this will have any affect on the other titles in development at Black Isle. Again, this has not been officially confirmed, but the number of off the record sources speaking out on it would seem to suggest that there is some truth here.

The next time Chris Taylor comes to IRC there probably will be things to ask. I really hate to leave the computer in such situation; it is, however, possible that this speculation, much like some in the past, will never be heard of again. Time will tell.

I've made it so the archives actually work. I've also tinkered with the interface so they're easier to access and navigate. Yay for me.
Nothing else to see in here, move along. You might want to try the Scott Warner Excuse Generator for your amusement; you'll literally laugh your ass off if you don't know it yet. Sometimes it says utter BS, but sometimes it creates famous quotes such as "In light of this news I'd like to say buy Scott Warner while they're hot because Interplay could pull the plug".

I'm in Prague next week, but far from my machine and Internet at all.
See ya on Friday.

I was looking for a new addy - www.volny.cz/lord_vader/vault/cz is a bit unfortunate after all - , but this came like a bolt from the blue.
Edison, one of the members of George's Fallout Tactics Mod Project (Czech only), totally disinterested, offered me his unused redirect domain at www.fallout-2.com (despite ads)! I gratefully accepted. Ignore what I said before, I've redirected the domain to:

http://www.fallout-2.com - front page with language selection.
http://cz.fallout-2.com - direct link to the Czech section.
http://en.fallout-2.com - direct link to the English section.

My deepest thanks to Edison.

Chris Taylor in the #fallout chatroom at irc.gamesnet.net made himself more clear:

Oh, it's not in active development at this moment. Black Isle's TORN is taking center stage. There is work that has been done on FO3, however. And Chris Avellone tinkers with the pre-production design occasionally (but after work hours). It's in pre-production design. High level design. Vision Statement and a little bit more-kinda design. TORN is a testing ground for FO3. You will not be getting exactly MOTS, since the FO1/2 engine is dead. However, FO3 is going to be much more like FO1 than FO2. FO1 is the Holy Grail for us developers.

And by the way, it's DEFINITELY a real Chris Taylor - who else would have the mask: ~ctaylor@ip-proxy-03.interplay.com? Maybe only if the janitor got to the computer. :)

I leave for a moment and everyone gets nuts. Fallout Extreme writes that Micro Forté is working on a sequel to Fallout Tactics. They point to PC Gamer, which in their quote points to "good authority".
Hum, many Fallout Tactics people have already been sacked from Micro Forté... but could it be that Yuri Bushin was right after all?

We've harvested quite an impressive amount of utils. Let's take them one by one:

So firstly, we have BOSCHE. It's not the drill manufacturer nor the painter Hieronymus, but the Brotherhood of Steel Character Editor. Just like Falche for FO1 and 2, it alters your hero's stats in saved games. It has already gained version 3.20 and you can download it by clicking right here on this text. Looks familiar to you? No wonder, it's been forged by CH Khor himself, the maker of the Fallout 1 and 2 Falches. The editor weighs no more than 137 kB.
Khor has competition though. Certain André Detto claims his piece of glory with another savegame stats editor. His is a bit slimmer - 63 kB - and can be d/l'ed from under this link.
I'm bored with myself already but if even two savegame editors are not enough to you, here's a third. BOS-Edit 1.3.0.27, authentic from Cortexx, is by far the largest of the trinity (332 kB).
Bored with the mugs that stare at you from those greenish interlaced pictures in Fallout Tactics? A good man by the name of HostalZa has delivered unto Duck and Cover a Fallout Tactics Portraits Package. It contains green faces of Bruce Campbell, Angelina Jolie, Antonio Banderas, George Clooney, Russel Crowe and many others.
By some mysterious malpractices, No Mutants Allowed have snatched a pair of new editors (which they needed badly)and also FT Booster - a mad creation of our northern neighbors. (The Polish, for those who don't happen to know where the Czech Republic is.) Marek Łuch attached a comment:

I'd like you to check out a little application, that may change your experience with FT for better, that is: allow faster, smoother scrolling & much less disk usage, aso. This version was created for a Polish version of FT, however we believe, that it should work correctly with an English version as well. Unfortunately we do not have access to this version, so any feedback about how the Eng. version and Booster work together would be appreciated. (loafer@vc.pl)

Marek Łuch states that there is a certain known instability in Windows 2000 which shall be removed. The address of the file in question is http://fallout.cdprojekt.com/download/booster.exe.

So I missed the presumed next update by one day, but it's for the better. The deal is that on July 7, a person arrived at the Vault13.net discussion forums claiming to be Chris Taylor and saying this:

Fallout 3 is being designed for the PC.

We were working on a Fallout console title, but it wasn't coming together so it was killed after about 3-4 months of pre-production and early prototyping.

Interplay is trying to get to about 50/50 PC/console development. We think that it's healthy to spread our risks across multiple platforms in this uncertain time.

The Fallout console game was an interesting idea, but one that I was never fully behind. I was very sceptical of it, especially the UI. Those gamepads make for interesting UI design decisions.

No official statement from Interplay so far, but the Vault13.net Chris Taylor seems very trustworthy.
Ahhhh. Fallout 3 will be. FALLOUT 3 WILL BEEEE! I just hope they're not going to - in the spirit of the IPsters tradition - publish our desired title for Christmas.

28.6.2001 - DJ Slamák - Comment

That's right, I'll go on a tour around Southern Europe (I'm not known there, it should be safe :) .
I'll return every once in two weeks and attempt to update. For now, hold the flag up and USE THE FORUM.
Oh, and also Jo, a taky VOTE IN THE TOP 25 LADDER, we dropped to the 11th place yesterday. And when that happens, the Deathclaw gets very sad and cries. You don't want to make the Deathclaw cry, do you? DO YOU???!!!

Happy holiday to you too.

Ed Orman of Micro Forté has stopped by in the official forums to give us a tip they forgot about when typing the readme file. So: In the map editor, the combination Ctrl+F4 brings up an entity list. It contains detail info about the entities, possible errors, etc.
I also noticed news at The Vats from June 18, stating that TeamX' Fallout 2 Dialog Editor is nearing completion.

Vault of the Future gets a new language version today - to Czech and English, we've added the Language of the Yellow Electric Mice. Try the new Vault of the Future, a.k.a. pikapi Ka kaa pika-pi, over here.

MCV USA brings news of possible cancellation of the buyout of Interplay. It seems that Titus have changed their mind and now refuse to sell their almost half stake in Interplay:

Titus Friday issued a statement to the markets that it had decided not to sell its stake in Interplay, meaning an acquisition of the US company can be ruled out, at least for now. However, MCV understands that the two bidders for Interplay, believed to be THQ and PCCW, withdrew their offers, prompting Titus to issue a “not-for-sale” statement, apparently to save face. As of June 12, Titus owned 46.5% of Interplay’s common stock, and would thus have to agree to sell its stake for any potential acquisition to take place. Interplay’s value to Titus exceeds its paper worth, as the French company can consolidate 100% of Interplay’s revenues despite holding only a minority stake. A sale would therefore cause Titus to shrink dramatically — something that would be unlikely to please the French stock market.

Here's the whole story.

Well, so during the Chat came a statement that there is currently no Fallout title in development, hence the poll change. First, the results of the old one:

12 (10%) believe that there is nothing being done.
62 (59%) - therefore vast majority - think Fallout 3 is in the works.
14 (13%) see the future in Fallout Tactics 2.
9 (8%) believe that Interplay is going to jump on the MMORPG bandwagon with Fallout Online.
Finally, 12 (10%) are convinced that all of the above games are in development.

In the new poll, I'm interested in - what else - your opinion on the Fallout Tactics editors.

Update 22.6.: The poll has been corrected, thanks to Radu Manolesçu.

Ed Orman, the Fallout Tactics Prorammer in Chief, has expressed to the damn EULA:

Howdy folks,

First, let me apologise for my absence during this kefuffle as I finally took some time off after finishing Tactics. The editors were coincidentally released while I was away. So, onto the current drama: the End User License Agreement.

I am not a lawyer, so I can't comment on how the EULA was phrased. However, my belief is that the intention was to protect MF from the situation where a major commercial party takes the editors and creates a new game for their own profit. We're not trying to steal the IP from anyone, especially the fans.

To my knowledge (and I'm reasonably well informed) MF has no plans to take fan content and package it up as some form of expansion pack. It's not in our interests to try and turn them into something we could sell.

Finally, we're not trying to stifle the creation of new maps! I'm all for user-created content, that's why we wanted so desperately to release the editors. I hope that this doesn't put people off from making maps, and having fun with the editors. I've seen a few maps out there, and they're already shaping up to be pretty cool.

So please, keep building! I'll be endeavoring to visit the Webboard as often as I used to, especially the Fallout: Tactics Map Building area. I'll do my best to answer your questions there.

Cheers,

]ed[

Directly from the Fallout Tactics creators - or rather from their QA department - comes an interesting mod: Punch Dummy Racing. It's actually a new multiplay mode. The rules are simple: you ride a car on a track and occassionally get out and kick some dummy ass (like in the Fallout Tactics demo). Get back into the car and move on... that is, if nobody took it or ran over you or beat you. The winner is naturally the one who first drives to the finish.
Think it sounds interesting? Click me to find out more.

JC noticed this fine little snippet in the FOT editors' EULA. It's pretty self-explanatory:

By creating New Materials with the Program you hereby agree, and grant MF exclusive royalty free copyright to the New Materials, and MF may sell, grant a security interest, lease, rent, license or exploit New Materials for any commercial purpose as MF sees fit.

What you say? Well, it's simply so that all your map are belong to Micro Forté (and no, I'm not bored with Zero Wing yet). As Urquhart of Black Isle said (although he doesn't have much to do with it), a Fallout Tactics datadisk miiight be announced next month - and thanks to this, it's quite possible that it will be composed entirely of fan-made maps and missions. Although, it wouldn't be a very wise move - why sell an add-on when everyone's already pulled it down from the net and played it until they grew bored? Ah, never mind.

Aggh... So the chat transcript is finally here.
Click me, I've got info!

The chat is still going on at quarter past eleven CEST and I can't afford to stay online any longer. The chat log will be here on Monday (hopefully), because I'm leaving until then.

Sorry, I had to do that.

The "Future of Fallout" chat with Chris Avellone, Feargus Urquhart, Chris Taylor and others is taking place right now (click here for details). UPC Czech Republic, however, has services of such "quality" I'm unable to take part on it. Tech support probably doesn't give a shit and went home at seven, if they did come to the offices at all. Excuse me.
I'll attempt to acquire a transcript of the chat from someone with a better ISP.

The Fallout Tactics Patch package has just been uploaded to Interplay's FTP network. The file ftp://ftp.interplay.com/pub/patches/fotpatch1.27.exe hass 16,3 MB in weight. The initial server load will probably be immense, but, hey. You haven't bought the game to download nothing, right? :)

Feargus Urquhart, the head of Black Isle Studios, agrees that the community-dev chat about the Fallout unuvers be held. The action will take place on Friday 15 June 2001 at 4:00 PM east standard time. The IRC channel goes by the name of #fallout and is located at irc.gamesnet.net, responding on port 6667.
If you crave more information, click right here.

ChrisT. speaks out in the #vault13 chatroom:

Almost, but not quite. Not much left to do, however.

It needs an installer and it needs final packaging and testing. It won't happen today.

I don't know the exact day, nor do I want to promise anything until we have the final package (since things can go bad and have gone bad in the past), but next week certainly seems reasonable.

So there you have it, Fallout Tactics Patch & Editors: Coming Q2, 2001! Well... hopefully.

Well, I've finally kicked up the old news archives. Remember the old Vault of the Future? Having all the news reaching back to last October on the main page? This all has now returned. Drown in nostalgia by clicking here or the link at the bottom of the page. I've also added several fuzzy pictures that show what VOTF used to look like (83 kB), what it used to look like even earlier (69 kB), and also what it could have looked like but eventually didn't (80 kB).

More info on the patch+editors package from Chris Taylor:

The patch is a new executable plus some new files.

The editor is just a single, separate executable that requires those new files (ie, you can't use the editor without having the patch. More specifically, you could use the editor without the patch, but you'd be asking for trouble. Using the editor without the patch is even more unsupported than using the unsupported editor with the supported patch.)

It's currently looking like there will be one download (all the new files, plus the two executables).

No release date has been announced, beyond the uninformative "soon". We will announce as soon as they are ready for release.

That's purely all, move along.

Chris Taylor has given out more information as to the progress on the new patch and editors. Not much of it can be called 'information' though:

Patch is still in QA. Editor is waiting on patch being finished and packaged. I dunno. I feel silly coming in here and saying "Nothing has changed... Patch is still in QA".

This was released on CWG.com six days ago:

Pacific Century Cyber Works, the Chinese consortium fingered around a month ago in making an active bid for Activision, is heavily rumoured to have signed a buyout deal for Interplay this morning. Interplay sources have confirmed that the company will announce the deal within 10 days.

Interplay may seem like an odd target for an outsider to the games industry, but sources within the company are quick to point out that there are numerous reasons for doing so. "The PlayStation 2 product we showed at E3 is just the tip of the iceberg," said one. "The Gamecube games are going to be arriving in droves."

Hell. Fallout 3 for GameCube? Please, no. Full Story Here.