Is it possible? Can it be done? Is it legal even? Fanmade Fallout 3.5

[Skyviper086]

I was wondering about something recently and forgive me if this has been discussed somewhere.

 

Over the years I've many a good mod developers pop up and do amazing, seemingly impossible things, with many games. Even games that aren't really designed to be modded get modded. The point if there is a will there is truly a way and the mod developer community is living proof of that.

 

I came across a report a long time ago of people signing a petition to make Bethesda provide a release date for Fallout 4. There are kinds of "Its Real" or "Its Fake" reports and nothing has been confirmed.

 

So I'm wondering why not make your own using the Skyrim engine? If one guy can make super Mario world out of the Skyrim Engine and two people can make Project Brazil ... why can't a group of people mod Skyrim into a new fallout game? Call it 3.5 and blend story lines (and not actual elements like they do in TTW) from Fallout 3 and New Vegas or come up with a new story all together.

 

It would be a Fallout game with the graphics and mechanics of Skyrim. Wings Over Flander's Fileds uses Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator as a base other than its a really WW1 Combat Flight Sim.

 

I'm wondering if people are doing this or thought about it but know something that I don't know about things such as the legality of the situation. Technically its Skyrim but modded to be a fan made fallout game called 3.5 because we really don't know what 4 is going to be about the only leads I have on that is a year old unconfirmed report.

 

The only thing I bring to this project ... if people were to do it. Is voice talent, and royality free music licensed under creative commons. I know a few music producers around the globe and could see if they would be willing to make some custom tracks too. I can market the heck out this project too but then again so can any of us.

 

Personally I think this would be a cool thing to see. When a bunch of people got together and said let's make our own sequel. By fans for the fans its even better because the game won't be made for the sake of money it will be made for the sake of our needs/ wants/ and entertainment. Maybe a donate page could be set up to help offset the cost and better support the team and help purchase needed equipment or things for the project.

 

If cars can drive on a game that wasn't meant for cars ... and two people can make a highly sought after mod, and one guy can revamp a whole game I'm sure a group of talented modders can bring this to life.

 

EDIT: Myself and some others I know can help write the story line and the lines to be recorded by the voice talent. I also know quite a few people who are really good using 3ds max and could even allow the use of their moddels.

 

But that's just me wondering feel free to ignore.

Edited June 20, 2014 by Skyviper086

[Xilandro]

Because it's bad idea. F4 will be there faster than all this people will make at least 1/3 of their fallout 3.5. Want to make something - make a huge location with quests on current engine with current assets.

Oh, right, you can't make fallout on skyrim engine because of different mechanics and no source code.

[blaze1514]

Well.......... It terms of possibility, It is possible (almost anything is possible if you know what you are doing). In terms of legality it is not. Bethesda owns the Fallout IP and any related trademarks. There is a way around this however.

 

Instead of the community making Fallout 3.5, we do it differently.

 

Lets say that you want to do a direct continuation of F03 (for simplicity). Firs we would have to name it something Else...... Wasteland. Then we would have to make sure that nothing that has been TM'd gets put in, That means Renaming almost everything. No Vault Tec, no BoS, no Pipboy etc... You would have to rename it to things like Bunker Tec, Order of Steel, PutMan (Personal Utility Terminal Man). I would go the extra mile and rename EVERYTHING including weapon names Fallout universe specific areas and people. You would next want to alter the backstory some so you don't get in trouble for plagiarizing FO3. Plagiarization (when we are talking about stories an music) is more based on perception than anything harder to determine than "hey this is our symbol he stole it". It is tricky. For added protection you probably want credits to Bethesda and "This is a Nonprofit Mod" all over the place. (I am sure I forgot some important things but that's all I can think of for now)

 

It would just be easier and less work to get permission from Bethesda to do a fan made work. They still might not want you to call it fallout but it would eliminate almost all other problems.

[EsvDefcon]

1. Timesacle. It's just not practical. If you've seen any of Bethesda's studios, then you'll see the skill of the staff who work there. raphics designers, server engineers, programmers, modelers, the list just goes on. And they can collaborate. As for us modders, collaboration is extremely difficult. Plugins have to be sent back and forth, all of the time, just to have more than one person working on it.

 

2. Legality. You can't use any copyrighted material, trademarked assets, or the like. This applies to all of the ingame names, such as the title, meaning that it wouldn't even be able to be called Fallout 3.5 or whatever (as blaze1514 said). It wouldn't even be a recognisable Fallout game.

 

3. You mention used the Skyrim engine. Why wouldn't you just use the GECK to build from scratch? You could quite easily delete all ingame cells, create a new worldspace, and start Fallout: New Vegas/Fallout 3 all over again. This means that you can just use the exact game engine of whichever Fallout game you want.

[Skyviper086]

I'd like to thank you two for taking the time to inform me about some things.

 

I was merely looking at Modding Skyrim (because it has better graphics) to make it look like a Fallout game and calling the mod Fallout 3.5. Its technially a mod for Skyrim .. but basically a new game.... kind of like fan fiction... but I can contact someone and get a better answer. ... oh I don't think Wasteland will work because that's a Brian Fargo game.

 

Its been almost two years and the only thing about Fallout 4 is speculation. Look at WoFF its technically a mod for a game never meant to be modded. Eight guys got together and said hey we wan't a WW1 Simulator. NO professional company has ever EVER made a WW1 sim on that level. And so they put one together and turned WW2 sim with crappy mechanics and graphics into a WW1 Masterpiece...however from time to time ye olde engine for the original game shows it age and there's nothing they can do about it.

 

Hey I understand about about collobration and communication issues very legitimate issues that could kill any project. But I'm willing to bet there are some people out there (and provided there are enough) decent progress can be made ... who knows Fallout 4 (if Bethesda ever gets around to working on it or in fact is or isn't) could be based off Fallout 3.5 just the way EA Sports Battlefield 2 was based off a fanmade mod for Battlefield 1942.

 

I'm just saying there is nothing solid about the next Fallout4 and the meantime the fans can have some fun making a community installment in Fallout history.... could probably port everything over into Fallout 4 ... and finish it is a Fallout 4 mod.

[blaze1514]

I say if you want to take the time and start it......... go ahead. Even if it doesn't turn out as a Fallout 3.5 it may still prove interesting. As for trademarks... If Bethesda doesn't enforce there trademarks on group, then they cannot tell you to stop using it. They have to let everyone us it or no one (its a trademark thing). Copyright is what you should be the most worried about. I would suggest e-mailing Bethesda and asking them permission yourself (you would be surprised how willing a company can be to let you use their property if you are not making money off of it). They are usually lenient to the community when it comes to Moding (Project Brazil is a full game mod that takes place in the Fallout universe) and Videos (Nuka-Break was a independent series before Machi took them, and Bethesda didn't say much). I say you go for it, if it starts looking more and more possible after you work on it for a bit then you may pick up more support and help. I think the thing is that you cannot steel textures from other Bethesda games. That's why there are not many MSZ recourses used. If you do something like that you have to tell people to extract the textures from the original Fallout3/NV ESM. That's how TTW does it. That's how mod ports for NV do it if they need FO3 assets. Like I say do it and see how it turns out down the road. It could end up being something entirely different from what you started for, it could be interesting.

[Skyviper086]

Gotcha thank you for the informatin sir.

[EsvDefcon]

The only issue with using the Skyrim engine is that you'd have to import all of the assets from Fallout or you'd be working with a Nordic wasteland (which, I guess, would be kinda cool anyway :P ). And I'm not saying it's impossible. Far from it, actually, it's essentially just making a mod which is really big. Really really big. The basic game making process is still there though, so you'd need to be either very good at every aspect of game design, or find a team. For example, I'm a programmer, scripter, modeler, writer, terraformer, graphic designer, pretty much everything you need to make a mod. And that's why I always work on mods on my own. However, I can't do everything to the same standard (i.e. my terraforming isn't all too great, so I wouldn't be able to terraform an entire map on my own). That's when you need to get other people in on the project who are better at that aspect than you are. And I can't do voice acting for multiple characters. So I need to find voice actors for my mods. Basically, the moral of this story is that making a game as big as something produced by Bethesda is pretty much impossible to do on your own. And, that's why Bethesda isn't just one guy sitting in an office on his own. But, if you're really serious about this project, then count me in. You should get a team together to work on this, but I'd love to help out once my own mod is finished :)

[blaze1514]

I think it would be better to do an experimental smaller scale version first (like 1/5th of the map size that you want to do). Then you add about 3 story characters. Have a small test quest that does the basics, and add most of the generic enemy types in to the world. That way you could see how everything reacts to the new engine. Get some Alpha testers and test it. If it goes well, then you start making it bigger and doing all the stuff that a full-game/DLC sized mod needs done.

 

Oh and if you are going to really start on this, I suggest you give your project a name. "Skyviper086's Fallout 3.5 Skyrim Mod is a mouth full. Do what Project Brazil and all the other cool kids did and give it a short catchy name (this also avoids agitating Bethesda. We all know how they feel about the use of their game's names *cough: Scrolls :cough*) . Also since this will be using the Skyrim Engine, you should make a thread in that games forum as well. Just copy past and quote the important aspects of this conversation in the first post of that thread as well.

Edited June 21, 2014 by blaze1514