A Question For the NMA Community

C

CaptainEveryman

First time out of the vault
Hello everyone. I'm an old Fallout junkie, like everyone else here. I've played and loved all of the old Fallouts, including Tactics. I've waited for Fallout 3 for years now.

The general tone of this site betrays an angry, dismissive tone toward our latest contribution to the series. "Oblivion with guns", and so forth. Personally, I liked Oblivion and Morrowind, for all of their inherent clumsiness. When I heard Bethesda was going to make Fallout 3, I was honestly relieved that the game was being made a decent developer, even if it wasn't the original.

But besides the point. The Story sucks. Though originally immersive and engaging, the game settles in a certain series of dumbed down travel quests. The game's story lacks all manner of depth or creativity, and essentially steals the plot of Fallout 2 to make ends meet.

My point is that Fallout 3's story isn't so much a story, but a guided tour of the Fallout world. You start off in your vault, deal with some shifty characters in a town built with ruins, meet the Brotherhood of Steel, Learn about the FEMA, Meet the Enclave, etc. Each main quest seemingly has no real purpose but to introduce you to a basic element to Fallout. And then it ends.

Nothing new is introduced, (with exception to the Commonwealth, which will probably be Bethesda's direction for newer games), and what is treated shallowly. Their bastardization of the Brotherhood of Steel, for example, is unforgivable.


But my question is, given the age of Fallout, the way video games are seemingly made for dumber audiences nowadays, etc,

Isn't all of this inevitable, at least for the first game? Perhaps, and I do not mean to be forgiving, this tutorial of a story was necessary? Perhaps in fallout 4 Bethesda may come into their own, and actually write a story?
 
You ever hear the saying ''You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain?'

In game terms, it goes ''You either make a single very good game, or develop a franchise that ruins the series''.

That is my prediction.
 
CaptainEveryman said:
Isn't all of this inevitable, at least for the first game? Perhaps, and I do not mean to be forgiving, this tutorial of a story was necessary? Perhaps in fallout 4 Bethesda may come into their own, and actually write a story?
Click to expand...

i was personally hoping to not have to go through this trial and error before getting a proper game out...

Also afraid that fallout 3 will be the defining base for fallout 4 which is likely...

it just doesn't seem like the beth dev team has the right mindset to create a game that plays and feels like a fallout game.
 
The problem is with all the sales of Fallout 3 to a large number of very easily pleased people there is no reason to 'break' what for Bethesda has been very successful to date. In fact, I'd guess that Beth will first release some half arsed expansions with a few new locations then release F4 as soon as possible afterward.

I'd say that F4 will be even more dumbed down, with more 'cool' dungeons to explore, more 'fun' encounters etc, more of what the 'fans' like. In fact making it dumb means that you can release it sooner. Just like Oblivion was dumbed down from Morrowind, F4 will be dumbed down from F3.

Going further, I'd say that F4 will really break from the Fallout universe, Beth will introduce more and more fantastical additions (that they will test in expansions) and leave out most of what little they took from the originals. They'll realise that real Fallout fans despise their appropriating of original Fallout ideas and bastardising them, while the console crowd(who bought most of the F3 copies) don't care or know of the originals anyway, so Beth will break from what we know to be the Fallout universe.

In fact, I'd be happy for it to happen, for Beth to leave Fallout as we know it alone and make their own thing. The corruption of Fallout would end, and maybe we could even enjoy their post-apocalypse RPG on its own merits. Maybe if they create their own world instead of trying to fit in original Fallout elements it will work better.
 
Commiered said:
They'll realise that real Fallout fans despise their appropriating of original Fallout ideas and bastardising them, while the console crowd(who bought most of the F3 copies) don't care or know of the originals anyway
Click to expand...

I think they know that already. Hell, I think they knew it even before they released the game. And I also think that it's what they counted on. Check the sales figures for the console versions (especially X-BAWKS) and compare them with the PC sales (where the bulk of the original Fallout fanbase is). You'll find the differences somewhat disconcerting.

[edit] I also find it funny how the PC version is the best looking of them all :mrgreen:
 
Wank.

Has anybody yet commented on the major discrepancy between the old logo and the new one. It's not a "Post Nuclear Role Playing Game" anymore its a "Post-Nuclear Simulation" - put on your big girl panties and deal with it. A unique "I.P." was purchased by a company with money but without and original idea in the bank and turned into a shiny bauble. It's not like in light of recent history this should come as a surprise - or am I the only one with not a great deal to expect after Darth Vader was made and emo and Indiana Jones got in touch with his feminine side.

This game speaks volumes about exactly the world where we live - an empty pit of consumption of shiny objects better suited for the mentally feeble and magpies. It's not Fallout 3's fault is a vacuous wank - it's the public that pays for shit again and again - sheepishly grinning every time: "Aw. Shucks marketing fooled me again. Not next time!".

The method of distribution now lies in every home. Make something better and get it out there. Get these useless cunts out of the art studios and back on the golf courses or it won't be a simulation of an idiot apocalypse we'll be playing in it'll be one we're living in and there is fuck all whining on internet forums that will remedy that.

Oh... wait. I guess it's not THAT bad. :P
 
I play FO3 on my XBawx, but that's because my fiance doesn't let me play games on the PC anymore... It's pathetic, I'm a net admin and I can't do what I want with my own damned computer anymore.

Don't grow up guys...stay young, or atleast avoid pussy like it's the plague.... I never thought it would happen to me lol
 
13BEAST said:
I play FO3 on my XBawx, but that's because my fiance doesn't let me play games on the PC anymore... It's pathetic, I'm a net admin and I can't do what I want with my own damned computer anymore.

Don't grow up guys...stay young, or atleast avoid pussy like it's the plague.... I never thought it would happen to me lol
Click to expand...

Yeah... I had to sell my SNES and all my classics I had on it...

*sigh*
 
Critter said:
Yeah... I had to sell my SNES and all my classics I had on it...

*sigh*
Click to expand...
I draw the line there, she's not touching any of my classic console. If I can't have the computer, I have to have every console ever created. So far that is my NES, SNES, N64, GC, 2 Atari 2600s, Sega Mega Drive, and the 360. I'm working on expanding that though.

I do miss FO and FO2 though...FO3 is pure unadulterated dogshit passed down from the collective rectum that is Bethesda Softworks. I hope they burn for what they did to Fallout.
 
Stop being a wimp and tell her to stop being a harpy. Furthurmore, how young do you think most of us are?

Valiant Flea has it right, again. Fallout was bought for the name, and the name carries a weight beyond the norm. The kiddies might have never played FO1/2, or Tactics, and maybe POS, but they've heard of the mystical Fallout, holy grail of RPGs. They might even've tried it and been turned off by the supposedly bad graphics, but this new installment is shiny and new and plays on the XBOX! And it has stats, so they think it's an RPG, and consider themselves part of the illustrious Cult of Fallout Fans because they played a bastardised half-breed of the game's setting and shit gameplay aimed at their little gore-fascinated minds.
 
Ah boy...

That's what it really comes down to isn't it. - See harpy's clawing at game consoles most modern kids would think were breakfast cereals by name -

It's consumer betrayal.

"I pine away at a job I hate that lubes societies wheels in its own little way - is it too much to ask the soporifics sent to plow me into an incoherent idiocy and bear it all with a little less strain aren't this infantile."

I don't think that's too much to ask at all.
 
Trithne said:
Stop being a wimp and tell her to stop being a harpy. Furthurmore, how young do you think most of us are?
Click to expand...
Well being NMA, most people have to be my age or older, I suppose. But being the FO3 subforum, I figure the average age is around 14.
Trithne said:
Valiant Flea has it right, again. Fallout was bought for the name, and the name carries a weight beyond the norm. The kiddies might have never played FO1/2, or Tactics, and maybe POS, but they've heard of the mystical Fallout, holy grail of RPGs. They might even've tried it and been turned off by the supposedly bad graphics, but this new installment is shiny and new and plays on the XBOX! And it has stats, so they think it's an RPG, and consider themselves part of the illustrious Cult of Fallout Fans because they played a bastardised half-breed of the game's setting and shit gameplay aimed at their little gore-fascinated minds.
Click to expand...
You know there was actually a thread on the Bethesda forum where some kid was claiming Fallout was an unknown franchise and therefore Fallout fans had no right to be indignant over the "masterpiece" that is FO3.
 
13BEAST said:
You know there was actually a thread on the Bethesda forum where some kid was claiming Fallout was an unknown franchise and therefore Fallout fans had no right to be indignant over the "masterpiece" that is FO3.
Click to expand...

Wow! I would have loved to have seen that.

Actually, on second thought, no, because I would have died a little inside.

I wonder how many Bethesda guys RP at all? I mean, how many are old D&D fans or anything like that? Something tells me, deep down, little to none.
 
CaptainEveryman said:
Hello everyone. I'm an old Fallout junkie,
My point is that Fallout 3's story isn't so much a story, but a guided tour of the Fallout world.
Click to expand...

Guided tour? I thought it would be this like in the previous games in the Fallout serie, take the main quest "tour" and do the side quests along the way (in the cities/villages that you re sure to run into because of the main quest route). So I tried to take Beths tour, ended the game too soon because didn't see anything of the wasteland and I missed about 90% of the locations: because I thought this is a Fallout game, surely I can continue after the main quest ... NOT!!! What an unpleasant surprise.

About the rest you said, I agree. They re milking the Fallout cow, I think it will be pretty much dead when they re finished with it (RPG-dead at least).
 
The topic says "question for the NMA community" and so I have a question too, that I want to ask in here.

For a while I saw a table in which someone compared the SPECIAL attribute with minimum points (1) with the attribute maximum (10) from Fallout 3 and Fallout 1/2. As example, with strength 1 you can carry xy in Fallout 1/2 and xy in Fallout 3. With strenght 10 you can carry xy in Fallout 1/2 and xy in Fallout 3.

Does someone know, where I can find this table again? I can't believe, I didn't bookmarked it....
 
Lexx said:
The topic says "question for the NMA community" and so I have a question too, that I want to ask in here.

For a while I saw a table in which someone compared the SPECIAL attribute with minimum points (1) with the attribute maximum (10) from Fallout 3 and Fallout 1/2. As example, with strength 1 you can carry xy in Fallout 1/2 and xy in Fallout 3. With strenght 10 you can carry xy in Fallout 1/2 and xy in Fallout 3.

Does someone know, where I can find this table again? I can't believe, I didn't bookmarked it....
Click to expand...

I believe such a table is quoted in the NMA review by V. Dweller.

Edit: changed the link to the correct page.
 
Damn, so I was right... but visited just the first page and didn't looked over to the other pages again...

Thanks.
 
4 out of 5 people that I know who bought F3 played F1 and F2 and at least 2 of those 5 played those first two games extensively. The fact is, they were all satisfied with the game, those 2 of the 5 knew of the depth of the first 2 games and took the third for what it is. (Note, I am probably the only person, except for out roommate who still plays FO1 and 2 regularly)

These aren't console kiddies even (even though, except for me - who played on the PC, everyone that I know who has played F3 has played it on the 360) - these are people approximately my age (mid-30s give or take a few years... i'm 37). Just that these people, i guess, are simply looking for decent entertainment - and found it in F3.

Hell i was thoroughly entertained by F3. Not 9.5/10 material, but enough that my purchase was justified. Note, I am the only one out of the people I personally know who really bitches about the writing and, to a much greater extent, the main story and the scripting within (some of the worst ever).

Exception: we (we being me and my wife) have a roommate who has played F3 extensively also. He knows his F1 and F2 inside out as well has a hardcore tactics player also (while recognizing the canon inconsistensies within). He does agree with me on the stupidity of the main plot of F3.

The being said, people were entertained, they recommend it to other people saying it worht the buy... word spreads and what has comes to pass as a Fallout game for 21st century has set the standard.

I just hope the writing and story scripting is at least better in futrther installments
 
13BEAST said:
Well being NMA, most people have to be my age or older, I suppose. But being the FO3 subforum, I figure the average age is around 14.
Click to expand...

Fourteen?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top