Out of curiosity will there be a return of the old Black Isle Studio group in the making of this game and if not do you forsee Obsidian Entertainment doing any side projects for it?

Black Isle was shut down years ago, a majority of the staff moved on as well. I guess they could always revive the brand but I doubt it would be a smooth process.

Three key members from the original Fallout team are working on/have worked on Fallout Online though, Chris Taylor (FalloutChris on the forums), Mark O'Green, and Jason Anderson (who left last year).

No clue about Obsidian though,

Obsidian "is" Blackisle.

If Blackisle was revived it would be in name only.

I hope one of these days the complete Blackisle team makes a game but I doubt it will ever happen

I know that there was some black Isle employees that went and formed Obsidian but to say it is Obsidian....well Sir that is just blasphamy and punishable by death.

Blackisles has gone the way of the Dodo

Obisdian IS Blackisles

Depends which area of Black Isle you are looking at, Troika was arguably the Fallout 1 generation with staff joining over a period of time from various places. Obsidian was more Fallout 2 era who took on a lot of the Black Isle people but who knows what the internal statistics are like now. The company has grown a lot since then.

Troika games is dead with a majority of employees going to Obsidian

Obsidian IS Blackisles

Where did you hear this?

Not everyone from Troika moved onto Obsidian, some had left shortly after joining for other opportunities or just general "retirement" from the industry. Not everyone who went on to Obsidian from Troika was from Black Isle either.

Regardless of whether or not Obsidian is Black Isle, is there any news on Fallout Online worth discussing? Just found this forum, and in fact just discovered that Fallout Online is being developed (though is currently in legal stasis), and I LOVE Fallout in general, so I just wanted to know if this is a wasted fantasy or not.

Plenty of active discussion about the game here,

http://gamesas.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=7

I don't see why you shouldn't talk about the game as a fan, it's mostly business as usual asides from a few things.