Can we honestly say Fallout 4 is better than Fallout 3?

[Mr Fish]

Fallout is wacky and zany, aliens totes fit in.

There are games that are serious and games that are just meant to be fun. Games that are just meant to be fun time-wasters like Mario or Duke Nukem don't need to care much about what fits in and what doesn't. The game simply has to be fun.

But then there are games that are more serious. Games that are meant to be more than 'just' a fun time-waster. They're meant for you, the player, to engage in deeply and draw you into its world. To pluck at your heart-strings. To challenge your morals and ethics. To give you an adult experience.

Fallout, to them, is clearly in the former category. It's not something that they themselves take seriously. To them it's in the same camp as Duke Nukem or Serious Sam. "It's just a game".

 

[Ragemage]

snip

I still don't see a problem with ghosts in Fallout 2. There's at least a small chance that ghosts exist. If they didn't I don't think we'd have as many tons and tons of shows, theories, etc etc about them as we do. Aliens don't apply because while they probably exist in some form or another, I doubt it's technologically advanced enough to actually get to Earth. If there is intelligent life out there besides our own, it isn't going to be little green men in shiny space suits. More likely it's going to be something like the Jurassic period with giant alien dinos and shit.

 

[Izak]

There's at least a small chance that ghosts exist. If they didn't I don't think we'd have as many tons and tons of shows, theories, etc etc about them as we do. .

I can't tell if you're being serious or not but let's just say I stared blankly at this for about 5 minutes.
Anyway ghosts shouldn't have been in Fallout 2, I know it was the first "wacky" Fallout game what with the mobsters who quote the godfather and shoot Tommy Guns but still it was a serious sci-fi game in every respect apart from that fucking ghost, what a stupid thing to include.

 

[Ragemage]

I can't tell if you're being serious or not but let's just say I stared blankly at this for about 5 minutes.
Anyway ghosts shouldn't have been in Fallout 2, I know it was the first "wacky" Fallout game what with the mobsters who quote the godfather and shoot Tommy Guns but still it was a serious sci-fi game in every respect apart from that fucking ghost, what a stupid thing to include.

*shrug* I simply think ghosts have a possibility of existing. Agree to disagree. Just consider ghosts an easter egg not meant to be taken seriously, like the crashed alien space ship in Fallout 1. The series has always had a couple of easter eggs scattered here and there. I think Fallout New Vegas did it best though by regulating it all to a Trait you pick up at the beginning of the game. Fallout 4 did it the absolute worst by making entire quests around their retarded "easter eggs".

 

[Izak]

Wasn't the ghost part of a quest and not an easter egg? It was in the den right?
Otherwise I'm in agreement, New Vegas did it best and 4 did it worst; it's one of the weirdest things they didn't include in 4, I thought everyone liked Wild Wasteland, it was a great concept whatever I guess, Emil does what Emil wants.

 

[Ragemage]

Wasn't the ghost part of a quest and not an easter egg? It was in the den right?
Otherwise I'm in agreement, New Vegas did it best and 4 did it worst; it's one of the weirdest things they didn't include in 4, I thought everyone liked Wild Wasteland, it was a great concept whatever I guess, Emil does what Emil wants.

The ghost is involved with a quest in the Den yes (for the record her name is Anna Winslow), but the way you start the quest along with everything about it seems easter-eggy. First of all you can't even get the quest until you listen to a fairy tale from The Great Ananias about a poisoned princess, and then after that Anna's ghost will appear and you can do the quest. The quest is based off a fairy tale told by a crackpot "magician" that sells "genuine" antiques from his store, it's clearly an easter egg quest and not meant to be taken at full value. That's why you shouldn't really mind it that much I feel.

Oh yeah and the same guy who gives you the quest also keeps his friend, a comatose ghoul named Woody, locked up in a coffin and charges you 25 dollars to look at him, claiming Woody is a mummy, so there's that.

 

[Mr Fish]

I don't really mind ghosts either. Why can't hints to an afterlife be part of a largely scientific setting? Yeah it's silly and I wouldn't really care if it had been cut from the final release but it doesn't bother me that it is in the game. Like, is a game only allowed to have ghosts or hints of afterlife if the game revolves around that concept? I don't agree with that. In Fallout's setting, in its world, afterlife exists and the possibility of ghosts exist so people have souls or life-force of some kind. I'm fine with that. Besides, the quest for the ghost was largely taken seriously. It wasn't a constant stream of lolz. It just happened to be about a ghost who needed closure.

I'm an atheist who don't believe in souls or life force or afterlife of anything like that in real life. But that doesn't mean that I can't accept those concepts as a part of a fictional setting.

Same thing with aliens in Fallout. There had been hints towards them existing in Fallout 1/2 (easter egg in FO1, Skynet in FO2). I'm fine with that too. In the world of Fallout there is at the very least one intelligent space-faring extraterrestrial race who humanity has made 'some' kind of contact with. That's fine to me.

The problem I'd have with either would be if Fallout suddenly shifted its focus completely towards either of the two. That's why I can't stand MZ.

But simply alluding to the concept of an afterlife being real or aliens existing is fine to me. Fallout can be about more than just mutants, ideology and rusty spoons. I just don't think it should shift its focus from what makes Fallout Fallout.

 

[Izak]

It's fine I guess, I might just be a little stuck up when it comes to science fiction. It really irks me when there's a concept presented to the audience and it isn't explained to the audience in a way that makes sense in-universe; it just seems to me that that's the whole point of science fiction, taking complicated philosophical, theoretical, theological (Etc.) concepts, taking them to an extreme and then building a narrative with them, so when a concept is just there and it isn't explained and it doesn't fit in with the current themes it annoys me.
Again I'm probably just stuck up but it's fiction, it's one of the few things I'm allowed to be picky with.

 

[Dr Fallout]

It's fine I guess, I might just be a little stuck up when it comes to science fiction. It really irks me when there's a concept presented to the audience and it isn't explained to the audience in a way that makes sense in-universe; it just seems to me that that's the whole point of science fiction, taking complicated philosophical, theoretical, theological (Etc.) concepts, taking them to an extreme and then building a narrative with them, so when a concept is just there and it isn't explained and it doesn't fit in with the current themes it annoys me.
Again I'm probably just stuck up but it's fiction, it's one of the few things I'm allowed to be picky with.

No it's a common rule in fictional universes. Ask any writer. Make your own rules and follow them. It's numero uno of making your own world in my opinion, due to the fact it's how you make your world believable and logical.

 

[MercenarySnake]

Found it.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9279/?

warning: horse pussy

Spoiler

Immersion!​

Oh and don't you just love red rockets?
http://www.loverslab.com/topic/1301...-dog-wolf-deathhound-no-longer-in-developing/

Dude.
Here: http://www.loverslab.com/topic/56723-alternative-riding-styles-1-20-16-v24/
Fuck a horse.

 

[Mr Fish]

Come on guiz... The internet hasn't corrupted you yet? Ya'll gotta internet more.

Anyway, as to ghosts, I wouldn't have minded to see more paranormal stuff so long as it was kept very ambiguous. Like, no ghost town or ghost hoola hoop challenge or anything like that. Just like, here's a brief glimpse of a ghost imprint. Fallout 3 had a couple of those that I liked actually. Maybe actually 'talking' to a ghost is a bit of a stretch to be honest. But otherwise I don't really mind it so long as it is kept very ambiguous and isn't a focal point of a Fallout game. And it shouldn't be explained, we're not entitled to an explanation for everything.

For example, if we come across the corpse of a wannamingo then we don't need a quest that leads us to the last wannamingo that's a mutant among mutants that just conveniently has a holodisk near it that explains why it's still around. The mystery is more interesting than the truth sometimes. Sometimes the truth simply isn't accessible to us. That's how real life is like. You could find an old rusty car but that doesn't mean you'll find a diary in the glove compartment that details the dying breath of whoever owned it. All you find is a rusty car.

Same thing with the ghost in Fallout 2. You're not special, no matter how much the people of Arroyo tells you otherwise. You're not the one who the universe has chosen to unveil all its secrets onto. You're just some chump that happened to stumble upon a ghost. I like that far more. I don't like it when stories shoehorn in an awfully convenient way of unveiling the mystery to the main character simply because they're the main character. I can't stand that. You're not special. I'm not special. The character we're playing shouldn't be special. We got enough badly written characters in entertainment that are so special that their settings bend over backwards to make them feel as special as they can be. I'd prefer it if sometimes we're just not given an answer. That's life. And that's believable. I think Fallout should strive to be more like that. The main story in Fallout games is that we're just some chump that eventually just happen to become important, but not because they were destined to be that. But for side content? Like the ghost in Fallout 2? We should always just be some random chump that just stumbled into a situation. And that's how Fallout 2 handled it. The mysteries of the afterlife is not unveiled to you. You don't get to shake hands with the personification of death. You aren't given astral powers. No, you just happened to stumble onto a ghost and can choose to help it receive the closure it needs to pass over to the other side.

Some things do need explanations, like if we stumble into a lab where they've made rad-scorpion/deathclaw hybrids then I'd like to know how the fuck that is supposed to make sense and since the computer terminals, logs and research data around the lab is available to me then I 'am' entitled to an explanation. I'm at the point of origin of the scorpclaw, this place owes me an explanation.

But not everything needs one. Some things are even better off left as a mystery.

 

[Crni Vuk]

No it's a common rule in fictional universes. Ask any writer. Make your own rules and follow them. It's numero uno of making your own world in my opinion, due to the fact it's how you make your world believable and logical.

I absolutely agree with you, however I think it is OK to have cases where said rules are broken, but it should be really the exception and only used in a situation where it is unexpected. If used correctly, it can create a very interesting and compeling situation. Like, woha! this character was always so weak, but he guarded a secret power that saved the live of everyone! But killed him, because so is the price of said power! !

 

[Ragemage]

snip

Oh, just one last thing to point out when it comes to ghosts in Fallout, Fallout 2 wasn't the only time we've had ghosts. There's a ghost in New Vegas too. The Ghost of She. Basically a possessed Yao Guai that you must put to rest to release a girl's spirit. You get the quest from the Sorrows' tribe leader, White Bird. Although you do have to take drugs in order to see it.. but on that same hand you also get a physical glove from that yao guai, so it's most likely not a hallucination.

 

[Izak]

Oh, just one last thing to point out when it comes to ghosts in Fallout, Fallout 2 wasn't the only time we've had ghosts. There's a ghost in New Vegas too. The Ghost of She. Basically a possessed Yao Guai that you must put to rest to release a girl's spirit. You get the quest from the Sorrows' tribe leader, White Bird. Although you do have to take drugs in order to see it.. but on that same hand you also get a physical glove from that yao guai, so it's most likely not a hallucination.

Well you could be hallucinating the Yao Guai's magical powers, there isn't any explicit proof that it's possessed beyond what some tribal said.

 

[Ragemage]

Well you could be hallucinating the Yao Guai's magical powers, there isn't any explicit proof that it's possessed beyond what some tribal said.

Well I mean, you get its glove, so that kinda proves it was actually there. And you don't see it if you go there without the drug. The glove enough pretty much proves it's real, you can't rip the paw off a hallucination.

 

[Izak]

Yes well the Yao Guai obviously exists, I'm just questioning whether it's possessed by a ghost. I would also argue that it only appears when you're under the drugs influences because of New Vegas's scripting, not magic, I guess this was meant to be left ambiguous so there's no point questioning it.

 

[Dr Fallout]

I absolutely agree with you, however I think it is OK to have cases where said rules are broken, but it should be really the exception and only used in a situation where it is unexpected. If used correctly, it can create a very interesting and compeling situation. Like, woha! this character was always so weak, but he guarded a secret power that saved the live of everyone! But killed him, because so is the price of said power! !

It's a great idea to break the rules sometimes, but that should be rare and a special event. Also as Mr Fish said, it should be unexplained sometimes because that happens.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Oh, just one last thing to point out when it comes to ghosts in Fallout, Fallout 2 wasn't the only time we've had ghosts. There's a ghost in New Vegas too.

Guess why... The problems with the Fallout IP started with BlackIsle, then Obsidian*, then Bethesda, and then Obsidian again; and then Bethesda in spades.

*Technically FO:Tactics (and the Vault Boy NPC) by Micro Forté is in there before Obsidian, but they did not make a Fallout sequel; theirs was at least an honest spin-off.

The Fallout IP went down hill starting with Fallout 2; (where with 2 it wasn't so bad at first, but it picked up speed with each degenerative copy of a copy ~each suffering bad re-interpretation by new designers, all seemingly clueless of the setting).

*By the time Bethesda got it... most of their designers had never even played the games; some never having HEARD of them before working on the "sequels".

** Ghosts imply proof of an afterlife, [and god]; which is far too upbeat and cheerful for the grim and irradiated Fallout setting [IMO]. Better the S'Lanter than ghosts. In Fallout, man has fouled his bed, and now has to sleep in it. Ghosts [and a misplaced "anything goes" writer's mentality] are straws that would break the back of suspended disbelief in context. I'ts like adding a raise dead potion to the script for Brave Heart, or having the Necronomicon scene from "Army of Darkness" ~ but with Aragorn in Return of the King.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Fallout 3 has dialogue choices, skills and an opportunity (albeit a limited one) to role-play a character. Just in that regard, Fallout 3 trumps Fallout 4 as a Fallout game.

Outside of that, I actually felt like Fallout 3 had an element of tone and atmosphere. It captured an element of Fallout that is important to me: the feeling that you're part of a bigger American Wasteland. That there were other stories and other places in the desolated USA outside of your slice of dirt. I didn't get that in Fallout 4. It felt entirely encapsulated within the Commonwealth.

However, whilst Fallout 4 is constrained to the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth is far, far better designed than the Capital Wasteland. Not only from a gameplay perspective, but also a visual one. The Commonwealth was densely packed, and whilst that was underutilized in service of shallow monster dungeons, it's still a one up from Fallout 3.

I suppose it comes down to this: If you asked me which one I'd rather replay right now, I'd choose Fallout 4. So that one's better I guess.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Fallout 3 has dialogue choices, skills and an opportunity (albeit a limited one) to role-play a character. Just in that regard, Fallout 3 trumps Fallout 4 as a Fallout game.

Outside of that, I actually felt like Fallout 3 had an element of tone and atmosphere. It captured an element of Fallout that is important to me: the feeling that you're part of a bigger American Wasteland. That there were other stories and other places in the desolated USA outside of your slice of dirt. I didn't get that in Fallout 4. It felt entirely encapsulated within the Commonwealth.

However, whilst Fallout 4 is constrained to the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth is far, far better designed than the Capital Wasteland. Not only from a gameplay perspective, but also a visual one. The Commonwealth was densely packed, and whilst that was underutilized in service of shallow monster dungeons, it's still a one up from Fallout 3.

I suppose it comes down to this: If you asked me which one I'd rather replay right now, I'd choose Fallout 4. So that one's better I guess.

Fair enough, but you could have goten those also without the name of Fallout bolted on it. To be fair, most of what you described could have been achieved by any random-post-apocalytic RPG set in the US. Or even some random landscape that just looks like it, for that matter.
In other words, those have never been the core design principles behind Fallout as a game. But you already said, that is what was important for you, personaly. So I give you that. But I am just saying, when you're looking at developer quotes and interviews - of which we have some on NMA I think - it was not just about that. And I would argue that this tone, as you say, isn't even what seperated Fallout 1 from other games.