After working our asses off for 3 months, we've decided just to go ahead and revert back to March 2016 as our release date.
If you want to know why it's taking so long, its because the FPB story is huge. It is essentially an old-school RPG where most encounters have at least 1 major branch, some of which have to take into account prior choices and storyline splits. That makes things very complicated to script - and 1 man, RickerHK, is the master architect of said scripting. He's backed up by Seddon and very rarely another programmer will drop by. 
It is a very big story, even with the big cut content block.
That red area only represented 1/4th of the content, it was just really, really dense. And we voiced it all, so if someone crazy enough ever wanted to restore it fully, they could do it pretty easy. We left an amazing trail of documentation, and all the 3D and character assets for those are done and in the GECK. They're in need of quest stages, actor packages, and scene, event, quest variable scripts.
Also, there is a LOT more green. The companions and the entire first segment of game-play after leaving Vault 18 aren't represented here - this is only the main body of quests for the NCR and Raiders that make up the spine of the 2nd Instalment. The Yellow WIP areas are remarkably less labour intensive than the previous Green areas as well, since they are practically linear (go here, do this thing, calculate outcomes at the end to sum up past decisions.)
We did lose a lot of my favourite narrative elements in that red zone, where you could join the Shi or the Mob and really upset the balance of power in the California Wasteland. But in the end we needed more manpower. If we had a full time work crew this would have been easy, done in 5-6 months. The reason it took the last 9 months was doing it all in-between making a living in other day jobs.
With Holidays, final classes in a master programme, and me searching for paid work, we're going to need the extra time between now and march to wrap up our plans. Editing Audio has received a massive boost from Mark Hickman, who has been with us for a while writing extra lore notes and creating a mini-quest to find them. Along with Thomas McNiece and Yonezawa Takashi translating for our Japanese characters, and Sekiri voicing her, we're doing well in getting the majority of the voice files cut and implemented after I spent 2 months recording it.
Virtually all of our voices are now recorded. I'm missing 2 key characters we'll have to fill in using online talent, but they're in that red zone, so it's not a priority. I'm out of studio time this year, so I'll have to talent scout online for a couple burly sounding men next year.
We're just about done with the Raider Main Quest line. We just need to ensure that the player's alternate route, where they escape the Raiders to defect to the NCR is done. Rick is coding that now while Seddon takes a break to finish master's courses. He'll return shortly to help finish scripting the final battle at Fort Daggerpoint. We have to meet Annai Oran at Union City, talk to Senator Duville, then return to Elsdragon or Silvverman, fly to Fort Daggerpoint, tie into Seddon's WIP, and end the game after the final Boss Fights. 
Speaking of the Last Battle - Vlad finished our final Boss Weapon, the Enclave Plasma Gatling Canon. It'll be held by the big-bad that neatly ties up the storyline from beginning to end. You can capture it and take it to New Vegas with you after the Credits, where you'll find it again at a suitable location and level. TAU34RUS's work rounds out our new collection of weapons and armours.
We also have some new Race body-types to show off. Our California Tribe has unique body paint and scarification, along with Vlad's excellent Tribal Armour. The Infected Savages have a sickly FEV glow to them that cracks through the old scarification as their skin rapidly flakes away to become Glowing Ones. You'll battle the Infected Savages at the Euripides Power Relay with the help of the Shi.
I'll return in a few days with some more screen shots of the new Vault 18 and part 3 and 4 of our voice demos! :D
You can read more about our progress on the Design Documents Found Here. In the mean time, you can keep track of us on ModDB, Fallout Nexus, or Facebook. We've got a thriving online community centred around each one.
Cheers
Brandan Lee
Project Leader
grool
Row, row, good stuff, guys!
Neat stuff!
You know, even with the problems of life, i would not ever cut content to make a release date happen faster or anything, and just take the time. But do what you want guys, waiting anxiously! :D
It's cut to make it possible. :p not about faster, just hell, getting there.
@AncientT: It's better to cut some content than putting the whole project into a wastebin because essentially core members of a team lost their motivation. In fact, modding isn't about "we do nice things without any limitations and our mod will kick in the *** of all those stupid gamedevs out there". You believe in that initial launch date? Ha! You think your dreams about content and quality can really change anything about a project? Ha! If you want to release your project, you had to learn to cut your content. If you don't cut the content at the right time, you have to discard the whole project instead of pieces of content.
I've seen what happens to optimists and dreamers. They are the first members who quit the project after they realized that their dreams means one thing: Tons of hard, hard work over years and without any payment.
And I think that the team of project brazil handled this thing right because they did't build a cloud-castle. Many modteams do this for a while and then you will never hear from them again.
Indeed.
I never got into modding to say, "this is how it should be done."
I think New Vegas and Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 were great. That's why FPB is connected to them by lore, but we're our own separate telling of a tale in the Fallout canon. I don't see anything wrong with those games, and I don't see FPB in any competition with them in that sense.
I got into this because it's me. I belong here, creating things. It's what I do, and I need a platform on which to do that without millions of dollars to generate tens of thousands of assets. A mod was the only way to do this.
I have a lot of other skills I've spent thousands of hours developing in parallel with this skill set, because I love to create. I am a photographer, videographer, and producer as well. I can do 3D art, textures, and I can write and direct dialogue for multi-variable quest architectures. I love that holistic approach. That would be great for an indie team on a funded project, but I started with no money and no name. You can create a game like this alone for free, it's not impossible, but people you need to hire for that job have no faith in a property you have not yet seen be successful (like the Fallout franchise) or one that has no funding. So if you want to make a fully 3D atmospheric mod from scratch, with no money, and starting with no reputation, a mod is the only feasible path to that goal.
Too bad I am not a programmer. :p
We had to make this cut logically. Like I said on this reddit thread: Reddit.com
We'd already gone through two of those monster variable knots exiting Vault 18 with 8 companions at the Pinehaven House, and it killed Rick's motivation. Since money is no motivation, and I can't swap in and out team members as they start to fatigue, it derailed progress all of 2014.
As a team leader, that's like having your arms tied behind your back and driving stick shift with a pool cleaner 10 feet away from the driver's seat.
If I were in a fully funded professional studio I'd still have to manage the same emotional and physical stress of doing this job. That wouldn't change. but I WOULD have a much more robust and consistent tool set to face that challenge, where here it is exceedingly difficult.
If I want this done, I have to take into account the human element as it interfaces with the design. That's not something I've always been good at, and I need to focus more on that as I plan my designs in the future.
plasma gatling gun, that's all I need to know
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