Bethesda's fourth (and counting!) DLC pack for Fallout 3, Point Lookout, is out next Tuesday night. Kotaku reported today that some retailers are actually selling the retail package of the add-on--which just consists of a code you can use to download the DLC--right now per the below picture, but since you can't activate the code till Point Lookout is officially released next week, there's not much reason for you to run out and hunt down the retail package early.
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Lastly, the team has put up a surprisingly in-depth development diary describing the creation process for Point Lookout, which is apparently going to add a large amount of new real estate to the world of Fallout 3. It goes into all kinds of detail about how they arrived at the ideas in the add-on and then turned them into a new playable area.
Building a whole new region is a lot of work, but the team knew what it needed to look like and where everything needed to go. Every tree and rock in Point Lookout is placed by hand, so simply filling out the world was a significant effort. As the world-building team completed initial passes of the world, we held “World Walk” meetings that involved just running around the world and exploring it. We constantly gauged the feel of the world, the density of gameplay encounters, exploration rewards, and general points of interest. Thanks to these meetings, we knew when and where to add additional points of interest or tweak the ones what the team already had created. Many of the guidelines that we used in Fallout 3 for density simply didn’t apply to creating a swamp. While the Capital Wasteland is spread out and desolate, Point Lookout is much denser. The new region is more populated, there is a much heavier fog, and points of interest and encounters are much closer together. This density in Point Lookout created new gameplay problems for us to solve.
Lot of good graphics in this one showing before-and-after shots of level designs and so forth. It's definitely worth a read if you nerd out over game development stuff like this.
There's a shocking amount of excitement in this office about another Fallout 3 add-on. Then again, while four DLC packs for any one game sounds totally nuts on its face, I think Bethesda has done a fantastic job so far of regularly extending the life--and expanding the fiction--of what was already a really solid role-playing experience. Are you in the same boat? Will you be staying up late next Tuesday night to grab Point Lookout, or have you finally had enough Fallout 3?
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