kazeem wrote:

Another deceiving decision of Bethesda: they forced the team involved in the project Capital Wasteland ( FO3 in FO4 ) to stop working on it because of their illegal use of the audio part, the voicing part ( that is what I've heard, but I've heard so many different things about it, I'm not really sure that 's the official reason actually). All the team is in stand by, waiting for approval on some points....It seems that Beths will nip another good idea in the bud. What a pity....

@kazeem
Bethesda didn't shut anything down. NafNaf asked Bethesda, the publisher if it would be legal to take the voice files from Fallout 3 and reuse them for the Capital Wasteland project. Bethesda simply told them that it wasn't legal... Which it isn't.

I think the kicker was some of the iconic voice lines by certain actors in FO3 and I agree with NafNaf. The game would not feel the same if it was done by another voice actor.

Also I am pretty sure Bethesda did not force the project to shut down. More like they gave advice to team on the possible repercussions if they used copy right material made by the artists involved in FO3.

The project lead simply decided that the game would not feel the same if they did not use some of the original voice lines from FO3 and halted any progress done on the project.

I wish they could overcome this hurdle so they could continue their work(maybe hire a VA with the same voice a Liam Neeson ).

There are a lot of videos on youtube that discusses this, I highly suggest watching those.

Reusing assets can be pretty iffy at times. I haven't personally seen or heard of Bethesda shutting anyone down for it. I think they probably could have continued work on it without issue from Bethesda, but even then, most of the mod host websites frown upon such actions. I learned that personally trying to bring Mojave Music Radio to New Vegas on The Nexus.

It is very much illegal, even if Bethesda says it's okay...There's probably somebody that could cause a big stink about it.

Sure, it's a bummer that it's shut down, but I respect their decision to close it down. I hope bits of the work will surface. Even if we can't have the mod in full, it would be neat to have some recreations from 3. Same if anything happens with the New Vegas mod. There's a lot of great work that I hope sees the light of day.

This really did bum me out when i found out about it being canceled

Bastards and not Bethesda, they spoiled my favorite fallout so they also make people do what they both expected and loved.

And just do not protect them, yes, it's me you.

Well that's a shame, luckly the Fallout 4 New Vegas team are recording the voices, so they can do their stuff, i just hope they restore the cut content like the rotface unmarked quest.

Its a damn shame. Gopher made a good video discussing the complex copywrite issues the team ran into. That being said, the FNV remake in the works will probably run into the same problem. Unless the team records all the lines themselves.

I just want to say that I've been a fan of Bethesda's games for years. It all started with Skyrim, then NV, then FO3, then Oblivion, then Morrowind, and finally FO4. Most criticized FO4, and while I do agree with some of the complaints. I still quite enjoyed FO4 all together. It's not as good as NV, but it still has it's moments.

Now with all that said...I hate what Bethesda has become when it comes to modding. It all started with late Skyrim when they tried to cash in on mods on the Steam Workshop. Then when FO4 and SSE came out they introduced the whole Creation Club nonsense. Some elements I heard were taken from existing mods and put in their own.

And now they effectively killed a fan project. A project that many fans put time and effort in. I know someone said it's technically not legal. But with that said they could have let it slide. Someone recreated the Witcher 1 opening in W3 recently. It even has the original audio in it. Voices, music, etc. You don't hear CDPR threatening to sue. At one time Bethesda knew to leave the modding to modders while they worked on quality games. Now they rather release Skyrim for the millionth time and shut down projects made for the fans by the fans for free. That's why I'm not mad at the Nexus for being so strict at times. If they make one false move companies like Bethesda may shut them down.

TheThompsonBoss wrote:

And now they effectively killed a fan project. A project that many fans put time and effort in. I know someone said it's technically not legal. But with that said they could have let it slide. Someone recreated the Witcher 1 opening in W3 recently. It even has the original audio in it. Voices, music, etc. You don't hear CDPR threatening to sue. At one time Bethesda knew to leave the modding to modders while they worked on quality games. Now they rather release Skyrim for the millionth time and shut down projects made for the fans by the fans for free. That's why I'm not mad at the Nexus for being so strict at times. If they make one false move companies like Bethesda may shut them down.

@TheThompsonBoss
Here's the thing. They did let it slide. They didn't tell NafNaf he had to stop, they didn't even threaten the state of the project. NafNaf simply asked Bethesda if reusing the Fallout 3 voice files would be legal / something he could get away with without any trouble, Bethesda told him he could get in trouble for it, particularly concerning the character voices that Bethesda is unable to give away considering they don't own them.

From there- It was up to NafNaf, he had the information, weighed the pros and cons of continuing, decided he didn't want to risk being sued for using voices he didn't have the rights to... Then the CW project was cancelled.

Bethesda isn't at fault.

Maybe just finish the project without those files and let other communities or people ...*cough*GUN*cough* handle the voices assets.

It is sad that the project stopped but I can see the reasons why, Re-voicing an entire game like FO3 would be a huge undertaking. I'm actually shocked that that F4NV decided to redo all the audio.It would also loose a little something without some of the original voices. The only one I could maybe see them working with is Erik Todd Dellums, he's done a lot of work with the fallout community and maybe he would be willing to throw a few lines out for the team.

As for the legality of it all, the way I understand it is that Bethesda does not actually own the rights to most of the voice work in FO3, and certainly not to the music. So they CAN'T actually say "yea it's ok". I guess in the case of TTW it's a grey area or Bethesda turns a blind eye.

As for someone mentioning the witcher, I believe CDProject Red has a different set of use rules, as long as it's not commercial. Maybe in there case they do own the rights to the audio and can say it ok.

In the end I cant fault NafNaf and the team for not wanting to take the risk, unfortunately copyright laws just suck. In the end I think we should just appreciate what the team did and wish them well on whatever project they move on to. and maybe one day, when times are different the project can be revisited.

Was absolutely devastated when I heard about the project being cancelled, I was looking forwards to replaying the game that basically got me into gaming again in a better engine.

Also, I was really looking forward to trying to recreate some of the armour distribution packs i made with the old Mass Effect mod from this site, for some reason it just suited FO3 aesthetically so well.

Its a shame to be sure, can fully understand about the voice acting, on both sides of the argument. Legal issues always bring red tape with them, and re-recording a whole new game would be a montrous undertaking for such a small team, never mind the fact that we'd lose out on so many of those iconic voices (which were a part of wat drew me into the game in the first place).


I can only hope that maybe the team will at least release the worldspace that they've created so far, if not though there's plenty more on the horizon in terms of fallout modding to be excited for.

I haven't looked at the project in a long time, was upset to see they've had to cancel. I'm hopeful ,however, that Bethesda may have their own project planned, with this year being the 10 year anniversary of Fallout 3 and all, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I hope they can find a way around the legal issues and resume work on this