Bethesda Softworks - Emil Pagliarulo Interview @ TNL

A site called The Next Level has an interview with Bethsoft's Emil Pagliarulo.  There doesn't seem to be any particular reason for the conversation, so the topics range across Oblivion and Fallout 3:

TNL: When it was first announced that Bethesda would be making Fallout 3, many gamers were convinced it would just be Oblivion with guns. I'm curious as to what you thought of that. Also, with the success Fallout 3 has enjoyed what, in your opinion, did it do better then Oblivion?

Emil: Yeah, the whole “Oblivion with Guns” criticism was hurled our way so long ago. But it’s funny, because in order for that to resonate with you, you have to sort of feel that Oblivion isn’t a good game, and “Oblivion with Guns” would be a bad thing. Well… we think Oblivion is a damn good game. And so did millions of people who bought it. And scores of reviewers. So, you know, we started to realize, “Hey, that’s more a compliment than an insult, isn’t it?” So for us, Fallout 3 is “Oblivion with guns” in all the right ways. Meaning, you wander around a huge world, and talk to lots of interesting characters, and get lots of quests. But instead of killing them with a magic sword, you kill them with a gun that shoots teddy bears.

But, of course, we learned a lot of lessons making Oblivion. And there were certainly things we wanted to do better. Our tech on Fallout was far beyond what we had on Oblivion – the game looks better, load times are faster, etc. So there’s certainly that. But we also really upped our game with the writing, and quest design, and player consequences. So, in all, I think Fallout 3 is a more cohesive experience than Oblivion.