A few thoughts

[slobberindeathclaw]

I write this with full understanding that I should have low expectations. That said, to remain a Fallout product, F3 should be:

1. A turn-based combat system with optional CTB play.
2. 2D. 'Nuff said.
3. Liberally sprinkled with humor, hardcore violence, and elements of Fallout canon.
4. Simple to operate.

To be 'new,' other than from a technical perspective, F3 should offer game features like:

1. Meaningful customization of character appearance.
2. Choice of characters that fits the story and yields alternative story paths
3. A slower tech progression
4. More dangerous 'special encounters'
5. Trading ... PC has option to be a merchant moving goods from settlement to settlement
6. PC joining of a faction with costs and benefits
7. "Get a job." PC needing money can spend a week in game time (fast-forwarded, of course) making money the old-fashioned way. Only viable if there is some time pressure invovled.
8. Animal mounts. Seriously.

Some story options:

1. BOS as adversary (fascist expansion, a la FT: BOS)
2. Vault Prime (in, say, Fort Knox): descendants of American government attempting to reform the US. PC caught in the middle.
3. Depletion of a key resource (food, water, sunlight) results in anarchic competition for same
4. something along the lines of The Stand, by Steven King
5. PC is memeber of nomadic tribe following herds of wild brahmin. Native American theme.

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

Simple to operate?

What, as in AOL?

 

[slobberindeathclaw]

The interface has always been simple to use. That should be kept. I was trying to identify the core elements of F1, F2, and FOT that worked and that would be necessary to create a sequel that kept the feel of the originals.

 

[Hotel California]

I always wondered why there weren't horses in FO. Perhaps whilst brahmin were around because they were a food source and a cart puller, horses just weren't worth the effort to feed in a grassless wasteland. A horse NPC would certainly add a new element - can you imagine being confronted by raiders on horseback; their spears would be much more effective than yours, loud noises would frighten them, critical failures may result in you being thrown off your/thier horse, etc. The possibilities are endless. Gunwielding cavalry was used quite effectivly up until the use of machine guns in the WW1.

Still, their is this nagging feeling in my mind that is stopping me accepting horses into the universe. Partly it reminds me of all of the Fiest books i've read - cavalry units attacking hordes of barbarians, etc and partly i'm just not seeing riding up to shady sands on horseback as Fallouty.

 

[Roshambo]

Oh, wow, another random collection of game features that are almost completely indicative of someone that didn't bother to read the forum before they proverbially scrubbed their brain shit onto the walls.

I write this with full understanding that I should have low expectations.

And I read this with low expectations that you would have full understanding.

That said, to remain a Fallout product, F3 should be:

This should be good.

1. A turn-based combat system with optional CTB play.

FYI, CTB is NOT in P&P gameplay design, and it was broken on top of that, resulting in much of FOT being broken or simply just lame. It is like BioWare's skullfucking of the D&D ruleset.

We've been through this in depth.

2. 2D. 'Nuff said.

Given the fact that Bethesda already has said it would use the same engine as Oblivion, chances are that it's going to be 3d. It is highly likely, however, that Bethesda will just Nival-fuck it like HoMM5 and be utter morons that don't understand that graphic style of the game was made that way from the start, there's a reason for both looking as they do (Fallout as a 50's science-fiction styled story with a pulp comic look; HoMM with a semi-cartoonish boardgame), as the fans expect in a sequel.

This, also, is a topic that we've covered in depth.

3. Liberally sprinkled with humor, hardcore violence, and elements of Fallout canon.

"Fallout canon" doesn't comprise the shitty easter egg fest of Fallout 2, which "liberally" would infer. Or the liberal shit jokes in FOT. Or the liberal idiocy by Chuck Cuevas in FOS. Fallout 1 has SOME humor in it, but most of it is dark irony or easter eggs with some talent behind them, such as a brief reference to the TARDIS, which is known for dimensional travel - which Fallout is an alternate dimension. Then there's the crashed UFO. The crashed Federation shuttle in Fo2, by comparison, was lame and didn't really fit. The same with the numerous, talentless, and wholly unimaginative Monty Python references they couldn't even fit into the SLAM DUNK! Probably because they were too busy working on all of the other shitty easter egg references, making it clear that they were padding their worktime and development schedule by goofing off. For a SLAM DUNK! release, no less.

4. Simple to operate.

Huh? So that's it for it to be a Fallout game? None of the setting, the gameplay style, none of that?

To be 'new,' other than from a technical perspective, F3 should offer game features like:

This should be amusing.

1. Meaningful customization of character appearance.

So how is this "new" aside from copying other games that had it for more apparent purpose other than you listed it? I am sure that something "meaningful" can be developed in Bethesda's mentality in regards to hair color.

2. Choice of characters that fits the story and yields alternative story paths

I fail to see this as "new", as you could do that with the original easily enough.

3. A slower tech progression

Again, how is this "new", other than some continued bad idea involving tribals?

4. More dangerous 'special encounters'

Apparently you haven't played through some of the ones in the later game.

5. Trading ... PC has option to be a merchant moving goods from settlement to settlement

You have that option. It's called the Barter Skill.

This one is almost as misplaced as the store ideas that occasionally rear their retarded heads.

6. PC joining of a faction with costs and benefits

Thanks for reading where this idea was shot full of holes in the past on this forum.

7. "Get a job." PC needing money can spend a week in game time (fast-forwarded, of course) making money the old-fashioned way. Only viable if there is some time pressure invovled.

What makes you think the savior or demon of the wasteland is going to farm brahmin? Really, this The Sims crap is cute and all, but it can stay in The Sims. Fallout already has a method of work that condenses time and provides money, and might actually lead to a fight. It is called caravaning. Sorry, but all the real work is usually dome by anyone local who wants to eat (basic economic structure), and thusly you aren't going to be paid shit as instead the protagonist will be offered the usual drifer fare - for something a drifter would care for. They aren't going to have anyone local bump someone else off if they could help it, and a drifter obviously is a higher level of person if they are able to survive in the wasteland, so naturally their help doesn't come cheap.

8. Animal mounts. Seriously.

Perhaps the only good point in this entire thread, and probably the reason why you're reading the reply on the Fo3 forum instead of the Vats. Though, as it has been mentioned and I will expand upon, a horse wouldn't really fit well into the setting. The brahmin do, as they are work and food animals, and thusly would be kept in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

But a horse is just a work animal, and people can live off the amount of grain it takes to feed the horse while doing finer work. Travel between communities is dangerous and really serves little purpose except for trade - which the brahmin caravans do well.

Seriously, aside from tilling the soil, which the brahmin do well, what does a horse give? The meat isn't as good as a cow's, and there's already brahmin for the cart. So long-term, a horse wouldn't be anywhere as valuable as a brahmin. To keep an entire breeding stock of them would be unbelievable, even in The Hub.

Thus, it would have to be really rare, or wild, and even then might not really suit the setting as if there ever was a one-horse town in Fallout, they have already eaten it.

Perhaps there might have been some kind of horse right after the Great War, but after a while the radioactive twisters and other hazards may have rendered some places inedible, or slowly killed off the place as what was happening with Shady Sands. They were once Vault folk, with supposedly a GECK of their own, and look at what happened over time.

Some story options:

Ohh-boy...

1. BOS as adversary (fascist expansion, a la FT: BOS)

FYI, most people don't consider FOT nor FOS to be in Fallout canon. They are crappy spin-offs by people who didn't care about the game setting.

I also don't see the point of screwing with the BOS again, in what seems to be a really lame way.

2. Vault Prime (in, say, Fort Knox): descendants of American government attempting to reform the US. PC caught in the middle.

Add in some 50's science-fiction elements, rich with irony and Americana, and you might have something there. Might.

3. Depletion of a key resource (food, water, sunlight) results in anarchic competition for same

Water, the Water Merchants, the bottlecap...any of this starting to sound familiar?

4. something along the lines of The Stand, by Steven King

So I guess, in your mentioning of trying to identify the core elements of Fo1, that you missed where the psychically-inclined hideous freak of nature was trying to take over the wasteland, by mutating everyone to protect them from the radiation and possible remaining virii from the Great War, so that a cure for a danger in the war was now the wasteland's greatest threat, and who was defeated in irony with a remnant of what caused the wasteland?

So what was missing from this that absolutely must be included from The Stand, which comparatively falls flat against the ironies and complexities written into Fallout? A prophetic old Southern hen?

5. PC is memeber of nomadic tribe following herds of wild brahmin. Native American theme.

This nearly made me Vat this thread on reflex. Perhaps you missed the point where the tribal thing was corny in ways that make the original Buck Rogers seem Spielberg comparison in writing depth. Only a handful really like it, and outside of a Sulik-character and tribe, is stretching it.

 

[Dreadnought]

Wrong:

Horses are EXTREMLY capable of acclimatize with the "local" environment. Think about Mustangs or the stuff living in australia.

Or camels/dromedars.

Mutated lizards.

Slaves/Women.

One of these things.

Ostriches.

One headed cows.

Two headed cows.

No headed cows.

 

[Ashmo]

That was totally wrong, but it made me laugh my ass off.

I would go with the woman slaves, personally.

What made you think the German chancellor would make a good mount?
I guess "one of these things" describes her nicely, though.

 

[Dreadnought]

Dunno.... She looks kinda radiated...

 

[zioburosky13]

*No headed cow*
Damn Dreadnought, you make me spill my coke to my monitor .

Back to topic, most of the 'suggestion' has been done in Fallout, except the animal mounts. But you can still find it when you are taking caravan run.

 

[Roshambo]

Wrong:

Horses are EXTREMLY capable of acclimatize with the "local" environment. Think about Mustangs or the stuff living in australia.

Aside from some funny pictures, how does it have any relation to the fact that no herbivores exist outside of human care in the Fallout setting? Well, except for one random encounter of the brahmin herd. That was pretty much my entire point, that a horse is simply not feasable for humans to keep in Fallout's post-apocalyptic wasteland. There just isn't enough surviving to warrant that much food going to a fairly one-trick pony, not for a community and not for inter-community matters. In fact, I would say that the entire region is fairly bleak given that Iguana-on-a-Stick and other delectables were coined.

And you're telling me that the horses would still survive, despite the fact of many groups of horses dying out in the US due to drought and lack of food in recent years. Cow herds are also more prevalent than horse herds in the southwest, too. This is all pre-Great War, and that is a different universe with a science of its own.

The SEAL horse in the first picture WOULD have a higher survival ability, yes. Seriously, I do see perhaps one special person in the setting have a horse, as the remnants of a larger herd, but they would have to have a significant background and ability to support what would be a burdon in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, and this should be reflected into the game. The declining population, and then how difficult it is to keep the critter alive, would be major aspects to having them with you, and I doubt the person or horse are going to be willing to part. Perhaps you could take the horse if you had a high Outdoorsman skill, but it should by no means become a staple of Fallout 3 gameplay.

 

[slobberindeathclaw]

Being Mounted

One 'mount' issue to consider is their role in combat. Since you're not 'in' the mount (hopefully ... ick), they're not like a vehicle. Since you're on it, the mount and you would both be viable targets, and both get nailed by the rocket-launching super mutant. Mount armor would need to be an option.

Being mounted should give you a higher speed (obviously) out of combat and in combat extra APs for movement purposes only.

When you are operating a vehicle one of your hands is occupied with the steering wheel. If mounted, it could instead replace that hand with the mount's own attacks ... hoof, bite, gore, tentacle, whatever. This would make an interesting option for an otherwise peaceful PC ... he focuses on non-combat skills and relies on his mount for the whooping. And yes, a decent Outdoorsman skill would be a logical prerequisite, and maybe even a perk ("Equestrian"?) could be made to give you extra movement points and/or combat bonuses.

Glad I had a measly scrap or two to contribute, Ro.

 

[slobberindeathclaw]

yes you need mounts

One other thing: if you're going to have a brahmin-based economy, you better have vehicles or mounts, or ranching is much more difficult. A herd of cattle or buffalo has little difficulty escaping a man on foot.

Since we are presuming that vehicles are rare, it makes sense that brahmin ranchers would have trained horses and/or dogs (or some animal that fulfills a similar role).

Goat or sheep ranching can be done by humans without much assistance, but large herbivores are just too big and fast for us primates.

My guess is that horses haven't appeared in the Fallout world so far for programming reasons.

 

[Kaya]

You should have edited that into your existing post. You might get shouted at for not doing it.

Using mounts in combat could work I suppose. However I can't exactly imagine the glorious charge of the Brahmin brigade happening any time soon...
It could also be implemented pretty easily too.
Instead of giving the player extra AP's for movement simply have the mount as an NPC with it's own APs, when the mount uses it's AP for movement the rider moves with it.

That could be quite interesting when/if it takes enough damage to start trying to run away from combat with the rider on top.

Really though, the whole idea of mounted combat (while interesting) might just be unnecessary complication for a combat system which works pretty well already.

On the subject of what those mounts would be; we've never (to my limited knowledge) seen a Brahmin herd being lead across the wasteland before, so we can't really say how it's handled.
Perhaps anyone with the resources to keep a big head would be able to cobble together a vehicle or two for herding purposes, but live mounts - be they horses, Brahmin, mutant lizards or whatever, seem more likely to me.

 

[Silencer]

You should have edited that into your existing post. You might get shouted at for not doing it..

Indeed.

edityourpost

 

[Ashmo]

Considering the spread of dogs in the Fallouts (well, okay, you didn't see many domesticated dogs, but stray or ferral dogs were rather common), I guess herding dogs would still be an option.

Other than that? No idea. But brahmin herding wasn't exactly a main feature of Fallout, so there isn't much to know other than that Brahmin apparently don't need much vegetation in order to survive.

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

There were plenty of things in Fallout that one could ride , if one were so inclined. Hell, I think it'd be interesting to ride around on a fire gecko...

Would horses fit in the setting? They might, horse ranches weren't unpopular in the fifties.

I agree that the lack of mounts in Fallout was probably more due to the limitations of the game engine/ designers imagination.

 

[Kahgan]

There were plenty of things in Fallout that one could ride , if one were so inclined. Hell, I think it'd be interesting to ride around on a fire gecko...

Would be kind of, well, impossible, if you know what I mean

Molerats, on the other hand could offer some "enjoyement".

 

[slobberindeathclaw]

There were plenty of things in Fallout that one could ride , if one were so inclined. Hell, I think it'd be interesting to ride around on a fire gecko...

Would be kind of, well, impossible, if you know what I mean

Molerats, on the other hand could offer some "enjoyement".

Um, not the kind of "mounting" we were discussing. Ahem.

 

[Lazarus Plus]

Something tells me that an animal mount wouldn't happen in any circumstance, since realistically the horse could be shot, and... Need I say what certain groups will say about that? Some... groups.... take these things far too seriously.

 

[Kaya]

Something tells me that an animal mount wouldn't happen in any circumstance, since realistically the horse could be shot, and... Need I say what certain groups will say about that? Some... groups.... take these things far too seriously.

Hrmm.

There is that Brahmin slaughterhouse in F2 didn't elicit any attention from the animal rights loons.
Though, a two-headed non-existing cow is probably of less concern to those freaks than an equally non-existing horse....

On reflection I reckon a dead horse or two would be the least of Bethseda's worries in this age of media hysteria about the morality of games.

Shooting kids and prostitutes for example.