Bethesda's Lore Recons

[Irwin John Finster]

snip

Why do you people hold these games so standards that not even the people who made the games in the first place do?

I'm at fault for thinking Fallout 4 is mediocre because the developers had no standards while making that game so it's my fault for thinking it's mediocre because Bethesda has no standards. Thanks for that gem.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

When someone criticizes something it is never a good counterargument to say "But Fallout New Vegas did it!" So what? This is the Fallout 4 forum. I've never been in trouble and gotten out of trouble by pointing to other people who did it.

 

[Hassknecht]

We've been over this. Exploding nuclear engines are beyond stupid and way beyond the "people in the fifties were irresponsible lulz" trope.

None of those other ghouls should have been there, either. The fridge kid is just the most blatantly stupid example, because honestly, the billions of cannon-fodder ghouls are just forgettable.

Well, in Fallout 1 and 2 ghouls weren't as common as they're now. It appeared as if there were some conditions to the chance of becoming a ghoul, like long-term medium intensity exposure (like in Vault 12). Those conditions weren't given everywhere, so there's a limited population of ghouls. It has only been since Fallout 3 that Radiation = 100% Chance of Ghoul, and that was probably just to have Moira survive and justify the cheap cannon-fodder-zombies they provide.

As for the rest, blablabla, it has been talked about over and over again.

And btw., I don't even play much video games anymore, and I certainly don't care much. I just like to argue.

/edit: Also, all games are held to those high standards, even Fallout 1 and 2. I doubt there are many people who would give either of them a perfect score. Especially Fallout 2 with its many jokes and ridiculous occasions used to be frowned upon quite a bit, and it was and is criticised for it. But its general gameplay and writing still held up well, so people tend to overlook its faults more easily than with Fallout 3 and 4.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I might be wrong with this, but if I remember correctly much of the stuff you saw in Fallout 1 and 2 was actually supposed to slowly fade out and simply dissapear.

Take the Brotherhood of Steel, Super Mutants, Ghouls and much more as example. What kind of role did the BoS play in F2 really? Or the Super Mutants? A lot of those became less important with Fallout 2. I am not sure how many of them would have returned if Van Buren really became the Fallout 3. But a lot of us here will agree that already F2 started to slowly steer away from the original - it was still a decent game though.

It's Fallout 3 by Bethesda that decided, that everything has to come again, what ever if it makes sense or not, because Fallout is now to the masses killing radiated Zombies and Super Orcs to 50s music with nuclear catapults.

snip

How does it not make sense when all are powered by nuclear engines?

Why isn't the power armor exploding in a nuclear mushroom cloud? Or any weapon using micro fusion cells? Or anything else really that has something to do with it.

The reason is simple. It only happens, when it's convenient. When it adds to the "funn house" that the game is supposed to be in Bethesdas mind. That's why the player has not to worry about his power armor going critical with to much damage - or those from enemies.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

I might be wrong with this, but if I remember correctly much of the stuff you saw in Fallout 1 and 2 was actually supposed to slowly fade out and simply dissapear.

Take the Brotherhood of Steel, Super Mutants, Ghouls and much more. A lot of those became less important with Fallout 2. It's Fallout 3 by Bethesda that decided, that everything has to come again, because Fallout is now to the masses killing radiated Zombies to 50s music with nuclear catapults.

snip

How does it not make sense when all are powered by nuclear engines?

Why isn't the power armor exploding in a nuclear mushroom cloud? Or any weapon using micro fusion cells? Or anything else really that has something to do with it.

The reason is simple. It only happens, when it's convenient. When it adds to the "funn house" that the game is supposed to be in Bethesdas mind. That's why the player has not to worry about his power armor going critical with to much damage - or those from enemies.

That actually sounds like a very good mechanic to add to the game.

 

[Someguy37]

We've been over this. Exploding nuclear engines are beyond stupid and way beyond the "people in the fifties were irresponsible lulz" trope.

So are giant mutant blobs with physic powers, an evil government conspiracy to kill all humans on the face of the earth, actual ghosts, talking spore plants, chess playing radscorpions, the entire vault program, everything in Old World Blues ranging from the spore plants to the cazadors, to the skeletons, ghoul cultists trying to reach radiation land, blue hulk rip-offs that follow things they think a brahmin skull is saying, a massive slave army that cosplays as Romans using football gear, a bunch of tribal people cosplaying as Elvis, and other various Vegas stereotypes, a group of techno-cultists that have a ranking system based off of medieval knightly orders.

When someone criticizes something it is never a good counterargument to say "But Fallout New Vegas did it!" So what? This is the Fallout 4 forum. I've never been in trouble and gotten out of trouble by pointing to other people who did it.

In a thread about how Bethesda supposedly changed the lore in Fallout 4, pointing out that previous games had the same shit shows they didn't change the lore.

References to past games are fundamental when it comes to determining lore.

Why isn't the power armor exploding in a nuclear mushroom cloud? Or any weapon using micro fusion cells? Or anything else really that has something to do with it.

The reason is simple. It only happens, when it's convenient. When it adds to the "funn house" that the game is supposed to be in Bethesdas mind. That's why the player has not to worry about his power armor going critical with to much damage - or those from enemies.

Because you never breach the containment core when shooting at power armor, and laser/plasma weapons nuclear power is a very small battery that likely doesn't contain enough material to form an actual explosion.

Also, you can eject the power core of power armor and use its as a nuclear grenade via a perk. But I do think they should explode that way also.

Ammo just isn't targetable in these games, which makes it impossible.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

SomeGuy37 makes a reasonable point that there is a limit to the amount of nit-picking of inconsistencies one can point out before sounding like a nit-picker. To that end I agree that in my opinion cars exploding like that shouldn't be a huge issue.

What SomeGuy neglects, in my opinion, is that I and a lot of people here simply find the writing awful regardless of these inconsistencies. He points to Old World Blues and New Vegas having wacky things with inconsistency, therefore Fallout 4 should have wacky things that are inconsistent. But the issue here is Fallout New Vegas was well written and didn't bother people here, and Fallout 4 is not well written and these inconsistencies stand out.

In other words, inconsistencies are bound to happen in any fictional universe. If your writing is strong enough, the reader/viewer/player will suspend his or her disbelief and accept the universe despite these inconsistencies. Fallout 4 fails to do that.

 

[Crni Vuk]

So are giant mutant blobs with physic powers, an evil government conspiracy to kill all humans on the face of the earth, actual ghosts, talking spore plants, chess playing radscorpions, the entire vault program, everything in Old World Blues ranging from the spore plants to the cazadors, to the skeletons, ghoul cultists trying to reach radiation land, blue hulk rip-offs that follow things they think a brahmin skull is saying, a massive slave army that cosplays as Romans using football gear, a bunch of tribal people cosplaying as Elvis, and other various Vegas stereotypes, a group of techno-cultists that have a ranking system based off of medieval knightly orders.

Just because some of those things exist for what ever reason, doesn't mean that Fallout 3 and 4 get a free pass regarding any criticism.

As others already explained it to you. Whacky stuff in other games doesn't always justify more whacky stuff, particularly when that whacky stuff is taking it to the next level. At some point you have to simply stop your self, particularly as writer, and say, this is taking it a bit to far. What else can we cram in to Fallout? Maybe Gandalf fighting a giant Cuthulu in Fallout 6?

And I don't agree with everything that happend in F2. Melchoir? Out with that shit. Giant mutants with pyhsic powers? Well, we can argue about that, sure.

But a ghoul kid in a fridge surviving for 200 years without food or toilets, maybe even without air (no clue)? That's simply a new level. Particularly as it serves absolutely no reason. I mean a mutant/enemy with psysic powers, at least brings new forms of combat and challanges for the player to the table.

But that fridge-qeust? It just spawns more questions and more inconsitencies for no reason. Like Hass said. It could have been written in a much better way with just 30 sec. of thinking it trough. But for some reason Bethesda is extremly fixated on anything that's pre war. Seriously, it becomes sometimes tiresome.

 

[Someguy37]

Just because some of those things exist for what ever reason, that Fallout 3 and 4 get a free pass regarding any criticism.

I never said Fallout 3 or 4 get a free pass on everything.

I think the introduction of FEV on the east coast was dumb, I think the shoehorning of the BoS, Enclave, and super mutants into the east coast was dumb, I think having nuka cola quantum in Boston is dumb, I think the fact that the various settlements of D.C. weren't more closely allied, due to their need on each other for resources due to how bad the C.W. was, is dumb.

That doesn't mean I am going to sit around and constantly complaining LE LORE IS RUINED FOREVER.

In other words, inconsistencies are bound to happen in any fictional universe. If your writing is strong enough, the reader/viewer/player will suspend his or her disbelief and accept the universe despite these inconsistencies. Fallout 4 fails to do that.

I never personally felt like any Fallout game had good writing. So I've never had that problem.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I might be wrong with this, but if I remember correctly much of the stuff you saw in Fallout 1 and 2 was actually supposed to slowly fade out and simply dissapear.

Take the Brotherhood of Steel, Super Mutants, Ghouls and much more as example. What kind of role did the BoS play in F2 really? Or the Super Mutants? A lot of those became less important with Fallout 2. I am not sure how many of them would have returned if Van Buren really became the Fallout 3. But a lot of us here will agree that already F2 started to slowly steer away from the original - it was still a decent game though.

It's Fallout 3 by Bethesda that decided, that everything has to come again, what ever if it makes sense or not, because Fallout is now to the masses killing radiated Zombies and Super Orcs to 50s music with nuclear catapults.

You are correct Crni Vuk, around the time of Fallout 2 the Brotherhood of Steel, Ghouls, and Super Mutants were fading from the scene as regular humanity increased in numbers again.
The Brotherhood's own nature and regulations were slowly depleting its numbers just like the Ghoul and Super Mutant populations were decreasing because both are sterile and individuals died from accidents or fights.

Ghouls did play a more expanded role in Van Buren (the Reservation) with Ghoul scientists trying to create means for Ghouls to procreate (a rather messy process which require regular humans to serve as incubator or host bodies for Ghoul embryos, with 95% chance that both carrier and embryo died during development). It would have at least one female Ghoul capable of becoming pregnant but only after intercourse with a regular human (the player), so it is not said that she could have had a child with another Ghoul.
But most Ghouls at this point had joined and had been accepted by human settlements.

Super Mutants were even more rare and there would no longer be settlements or large groups of them.

The Brotherhood only had one bunker and it was barely manned as either members had fallen in the BOS-NCR conflict, or did not agree with the policies of their leadership and had left to join wasteland society. (Hidden Valley was somewhat true to that, it never recovered to its original expedition numbers after Operation Sunburst)

So around the time of Black Isle's Fallout 4 all three would probably have been rare or even somewhat mythological, the stuff of stories.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Someguy, maybe you didn't say it, but you're defending almost every whacky detail of F3 and 4 when ever possible, see Piper and the nonsensical companion likes/dislikes system. There is a pattern here you know. And you flip flop with your opinion when ever it suits you. You want something to work? You use real life as argument. Something that we explain with real life? Suddenly it's a fictional setting and whoopty fuckin' doo! We just have to accept it. If Fallout 3 or 4 is different to the previous games? Bethesda has to keep gameplay in mind. If something is to whacky? Fallout 1 and 2 did it too!

Arguing with you, without any offense, is like arguing with a wall you know.

 

[Hassknecht]

I think he is just way past the Listerine, he genuinely likes the salty aftertaste now. Oh well, to each his own.

 

[Someguy37]

You want something to work? You use real life as argument. Something that we explain with real life? Suddenly it's a fictional setting and whoopty fuckin' doo! We just have to accept it.

As has been pointed out numerous time's, I've only used real life as an argument when the game's have shown that such aspect of reality is true in-universe. That's not flip-flopping by any measure, that's being consistent with the games.

Your ridiculous attempts to straw-man everything into these "all or nothing situation" is rather quite tiresome.

Arguing with you, without any offense, is like arguing with a wall you know.

Your constant use of the above argument makes the feeling mutual.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

In other words, inconsistencies are bound to happen in any fictional universe. If your writing is strong enough, the reader/viewer/player will suspend his or her disbelief and accept the universe despite these inconsistencies. Fallout 4 fails to do that.

I never personally felt like any Fallout game had good writing. So I've never had that problem.

...Yup I give up.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I was discussing the concept with Ghouls with my friend Hoogin a couple of days ago and during it I thought that it would be weird that after two hundred years there would still be feral Ghouls.
Ghouls that are mindless because of the radiation they are exposed to that has damaged their brains, but still had made them capable of running and somewhat consciously directing their attacks.

Why would radiation stop with just taking away their sanity and reasoning capabilities, would it not continue to deteriorate the Ghoul's brain? In time even damaging the parts of the brain that regulate autonomous functions such as breathing?
Before that Ghouls would probably loose the ability to be able to walk or even stand, let alone grab things.

Plus continuous exposure to severe radiation would also make them a lot more 'squishy' as their muscle tissue and organs start to deteriorate and liquefy, Ghouls would start to fall apart.
So imagine a mindless Ghoul getting stuck on something, and because it no longer feels pain there or is no longer aware of it it could tear itself apart as it seeks to move onwards.

Ghouls also don't heal from radiation, that is something from FOBOS (and I think it was a Tactics perk). They do indeed enjoy a little more background radiation than humans do but they don't get benefits from it. (mentioned in Fallout 2 I think)
They are in many ways a weaker version of regular humans, they just have a somewhat bigger threshold to certain toxic elements but they are still susceptible to these and can become sick or die from them.

 

[Someguy37]

Ghouls also don't heal from radiation

uhh

The brain structure of a Luminous Necrotic Post-Human (colloquially referred to as a "Glowing One") indicates that the regenerative ability of the neurological systems that affords typical Necrotic Post-Humans their longevity, does not extend into the higher reasoning functions of the brain itself. (This subject is further covered in report on the dissection of Feral Necrotic Post-Humans)

The distinctive luminescence that is the trademark of the Glowing One can be best attributed to an unusual amount of radioactive chemicals that building up in the bloodstream and muscle tissue of a typical Ghoul. Upon the transformation into a Feral Ghoul, the neurological systems of the body cease filtering these particles from the blood and tissue, instead causing them to build a distinctive bioluminescence that is distinctive of the "Glowing Ones".

Their social structure seems to be different from that of the Feral Ghoul. They actively seek out others of both their strain and those afflicted with Ferocious Post-Necrotic Dystrophy, particularly those who may have been injured. Studies on the nature of their healing effects on other ghouls continues with no conclusive results as of yet.

http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Glowing_one
"Glowing ones or luminous necrotic post-humans are ghouls who have absorbed so much radiation that they glow in the dark, being living conduits of radiation to the point that radiation actually heals their combat injuries."

http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Ghoul#cite_note-31
The Courier: "If they've become ghouls, the radiation would strengthen them. Heal their wounds - not the scars."

 

[Hassknecht]

Ghouls also don't heal from radiation

uhh

The brain structure of a Luminous Necrotic Post-Human (colloquially referred to as a "Glowing One") indicates that the regenerative ability of the neurological systems that affords typical Necrotic Post-Humans their longevity, does not extend into the higher reasoning functions of the brain itself. (This subject is further covered in report on the dissection of Feral Necrotic Post-Humans)

The distinctive luminescence that is the trademark of the Glowing One can be best attributed to an unusual amount of radioactive chemicals that building up in the bloodstream and muscle tissue of a typical Ghoul. Upon the transformation into a Feral Ghoul, the neurological systems of the body cease filtering these particles from the blood and tissue, instead causing them to build a distinctive bioluminescence that is distinctive of the "Glowing Ones".

Their social structure seems to be different from that of the Feral Ghoul. They actively seek out others of both their strain and those afflicted with Ferocious Post-Necrotic Dystrophy, particularly those who may have been injured. Studies on the nature of their healing effects on other ghouls continues with no conclusive results as of yet.

Glowing Ones. The fridge kid wasn't exactly glowing. Also, it wasn't very radioactive near him, either.
Also, your quote is cut content from Fallout 3. Ghouls didn't heal from radiation before.

 

[Someguy37]

Glowing Ones. The fridge kid wasn't exactly glowing. Also, it wasn't very radioactive near him, either.
Also, your quote is cut content from Fallout 3. Ghouls didn't heal from radiation before.

Read closer
>Studies on the nature of their healing effects on other ghouls continues with no conclusive results as of yet.
>their healing effects on other ghouls
>on other ghouls

Also its not cut content, the terminal which that entry was supposed to appear on is still in-game, in Doc Barrows clinic in Underworld. IYou can still use the terminal, and click on the terminal entries, but it never brings them up because they weren't hooked up properly. They were supposed to be view able, but aren't due to a bug.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

The Ghouls from Gecko wanted to trade with Vault City for their medical technology as the Ghouls were still slowly dying, most likely from tissue damage and toxins.
Glowing Ones would probably want to have treatments or surgery to have the radioactive material in their bodies removed as their condition is probably deteriorating even faster than that of regular Ghouls.

I could imagine that Ghouls in time would have to have tissue or even organ transplants as their own has been damaged to such degrees that it is life threatening.

 

[Hassknecht]

Y'know, "no conclusive results" means "not sure, maybe, maybe not". Not "Yup, totally".
And you said before that ghouls were healed by radiation even in Fallout 1 and 2. That's just false. No matter how many unavailable terminal entries from Fallout 3 with inconclusive results you bring up.