Changes

[Lepidus]

Well.

I just read post in the news section about Fallout 3: Point Lookout, along with the numerous comments by forum-goers that came after it. I couldn't help but notice the oppressive sense of negativity emanating from the posts made by the "veterans" of the forum. Time and time again, it was said that Point Lookout's voice, theme, and numerous other aspects about it were too serious a departure from those of the original Fallout games. Perhaps the point should be brought up that Fallout 3 is not Fallout 1. Point Lookout is not Fallout 1. Despite the Fallout name, there is not any sort of movement to revive the old-style Fallout gameplay, because the preponderance of gamers don't truly care. Now, that is not to say that we people who have played the original game should be ignored completely, and that is not to say that I am at all pleased with the radical departure from the old-style Fallout traditions, but it seems as though everybody outside of this community has moved on.
In order for any idea to live -be it a government, film franchise, literary universe, or videogame universe- there needs to be a constant influx of changes, or else that idea will wither and die. While Fallout: A Postnuclear Roleplaying Game is and was a lasting achievement in gaming history, we can't expect that the masses will want to continue that series of excellence. We have seen with Fallout 2 that even in the hands of a capable developer, that original Fallout style narration and gameplay style can be turned into less-than-stellar gaming material.
Bethesda has brought Fallout into a new realm. They are not ignoring Fallout's past: there are numerous allusions to the game's past throughout the Fallout 3 landscape, and it appears as though Bethesda has really tried to harken back to the old days. Granted, I would have liked to see the good old desert from Fallout 1 brought back, but still, we have to move forwards.
Now, we have seen other beloved science fiction universes morphed over time as well. Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson took the Dune universe back ten thousand years with their Legends of Dune trilogy, and even though those novels were radically different from Frank Herbert's original ones, there was no outcry that the new authors "raped" the series, just because they changed many of the ideas. Dune fans embraced that change, and because of that are very happy with those books. Perhaps we Fallout fans can learn from them.

Ultimately, however, the point is moot. One can attack or defend Bethesda all they like, but Bethesda doesn't need to pay attention, because they have lots of money. and we don't. End of story. Perhaps if we can be a little more open-minded and accept Point Lookout and all of Fallout 3 as a spin-off or re-imagining of the original title, we can look at it from a different view, and enjoy the game. Isn't it better to allow yourself to have fun?

Anyhow, I believe Kurt Vonnegut said it best when he said
"So it goes."

And as Kurt Vonnegut also said,
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

How germane.

 

[alec]

You should leave Vonnegut out of this. Fiction is usually the intellectual property of one author, he invents his universe, and as an author he will love what he created, thus doing his utmost best to stay consistent in any sequels. You can't possibly compare books to games. It doesn't make sense. Bethesda made a sequel to something that wasn't their intellectual property and they fucked it up badly. And you don't just do that. By doing that you show no respect to the original author(s) and no respect at all to the public who cherished the product and had certain expectations about it.

This is how Bethesda should have thought: "These sad sods have waited ten years for a sequel/ Let's make them the best sequel ever. They'll buy it for sure and it will attract new fans to the franchise because it'll rock."
This is how they think: "Let's make a sequel that'll appeal to that huge mass of young, innocent gamers out there. We'll dumb it down and modernize the whole thing so they'll definitely buy it, and hey: those sad sods that waited ten years will buy it as well, because they simply wont be able to resist. Double bling-bling for sure!"

Also: what you propose sounds a lot like acceptance. "Well, I fucking hate it, but you know what? That's the way it goes, let's just accept it and go on with our lives."
How is this a good design for life in general?

 

[Dead Guy]

Where is this "we must move forward" shit coming from? I don't get it. Even if something becomes worse, we must move forward and embrace the crap we are fed.

"In order for any idea to live -be it a government, film franchise, literary universe, or videogame universe- there needs to be a constant influx of changes, or else that idea will wither and die."

This just contradicts itself. If something changes so much it is no longer what is what, then it is obviously no longer the same thing, and then how does it "live"?

Also, which Dune fans embrace Brians insults to intelligence, apart from you? Mentats aren't very clever anymore? Oh ok, as long as you say so Brian and Kevin. Dude, Dune is a lot better now that some core concepts of the universe it was set in and the quality of the writing changed for the worse!

Of course Bethesda can do whatever game they want, and Kevin and Brian can write all the shitty books they want. Just, why do they have to go by the name of something that already exists, if it's not going to stick to that already existing story? In the Dune case it's obviously because Brian Herbert couldn't sell a single copy of his book if he didn't borrow his fathers work and slap DUNE on the cover. In Bethesdas case, I have no idea.

 

[Lepidus]

You know what the sad thing is? Fallout 3 is still above a lot of gamers out there today. If you heard about how many idiots couldn't get out of Vault 101... but that is exactly why they had to dumb it down. If Bethesda tried to make a game that appeals to us, they would lose about a hundred thousand or more sales for their game, which would devastate their profits, and put a bunch of people out of business. Making a game that appeals to a greater number of people is more profitable and, like it or not, Bethesda needs to make money to survive, especially in this day and age when everything costs an inordinate ammount of money to produce.

As to your last point, Alec, you must know that there are some things in life that we can not change: things like death, loss, the weather... and the actions of the rich and powerful. While it is good to try and change some things around us -the things we can actually change- there are some things we must accept. Like this. It is important to choose your battles, and accept some things, but fight others. If your wife is cheating on you, you sure as hell don't say "oh, well": you take action. If Fox or BBC or whomever decides to cancel your favorite television program, there isn't much you can do to change their minds. While we would like to think that Bethesda is cheating on us -the loyal fans- through all the idiots out there, and we can fight that, in reality, they are more like BBC or Fox canceling our favorite program.

Anyhow, thanks for using a civil tone and not swearing me out...

Now to respond to the other post. I am not going to argue with the Dune matters, because in anybody that type of opinion is held close to the heart, and there is no point in my trying to force my opinion on you, because it will do nothing.

But for the first half of the post, what I said does not contradict itself all that much. Let's use history as an example.

In the 400's AD, the Roman Empire had fallen into dissaray and decay. The Emperor and his Senators chased after hedonistic pursuits and the Equestrians and poor Plebeans were crushed by poverty, mysery, and inept government. Rome would have died out unless the Germanic Tribes came down from northern Europe and took down the old Roman Empire's government. While their conquest killed many and left a lot of damage, they ultimately preserved Roman culture, and improved their people. While the Roman culture was blended with that of the "Germans", it still lived.
Much in that way, Bethesda has saved Fallout by mixing its "culture" so to speak with external ones. We, the Romans in this instance, may have suffered under their more blunt ruling measures, but ultimately our culture will survive.

 

[Blackened]

When I first launched my Fallout 3 game, I tried playing it like I'm launching just the third part of the sequel. But Bethesda made that impossible - first, you start from your birth - while in Fallout 1 and 2 (jeez, even in Fallout Tactics), you start the game fully grown, and being responsible for your actions.

Then, my first weapon was some BASEBALL BAT, and I was fighting RADROACHES! There wasn't such things in Fallout 1 or 2, so it was IMPOSSIBLE to imagine that I'm just playing the old game in first person! That pissed the hell off me - it would have been much cooler (and not costing any efforts for Bethesda, besides making a rat model) if I start with a knife and fight rats - and later, using the other Fallout 1/2 weapons in 3D to fight Fallout 1/2 monsters! Not to mention how horrible they made the vault 101 people's view of killing someone from your own vault.

After some playing, I slowly began playing Fallout 3 as a whole new game - I wasn't playing the third game of the Fallout sequel any more; I was playing the first game of the Fallout 3 sequel. And I liked it, just because it was fun to try having all my skills to 100, collect all the unique weapons, have the best possible perks and basically make my character perfect. I've been though about 80% of the Fallout 3 places and spent more than 120 hours on it. After I complete all the places and DLCs, I'll just stop playing it, because I have been completed everything, and it lacks the replayability of the original series. You just stop getting fascinated when you have seen all the places, you lack the satisfaction of improving your character, since you've already been through there, you've made the only possible perfect character and you can't make a different one, which is better in some ways.

You can play Fallout 1 or 2 (especially Fallout 2, though I'm not saying it's better than Fallout 1) couple of times, and every time you play it, the fun will be the same. There are limitless number of possibilities for character creating. You could even play with a character that never kills anyone and just heals his party members in combat (in Fallout 1, before doing this, you should want to mod your NPCs to be stronger).

To me, Fallout 3 is not canon. It's a separate game. But it has a few good things in it that weren't in the Fallout 1 and 2 (I can't say they are original though)

 

[Public]

there needs to be a constant influx of changes

The world doesn't need changes, it needs improvements.

You know what the sad thing is? Fallout 3 is still above a lot of gamers out there today. If you heard about how many idiots couldn't get out of Vault 101... but that is exactly why they had to dumb it down.

That's right! The society is getting dumber so let's make dumb games!

It's like investing in our brightly stupid future.

Making a game that appeals to a greater number of people is more profitable and, like it or not, Bethesda needs to make money to survive

Yep, people like Todd or Pete can't live without driving a Porsche or Ferrari.

As to your last point, Alec, you must know that there are some things in life that we can not change: things like death, loss, the weather...

Not yet...

 

[Lepidus]

1. Improvements are changes.

2. Stupid people won't buy intelligent games.

3. What about the little people? Small time coders/mapmakers/story writers need money. While I'm sure Todd and Pete are living very comfortably, do you really think that, for example Gary Noonan, one of the game's animation programmers is living in the lap of luxury? Of course not.

4. No matter what, there'll always be loss in the world... and a world without death is a world I wouldn't want to live in anyways.

 

[Sander]

1. Changes are improvements.

No, they aren't. An improvement is by definition a change, but not all changes are improvements.

 

[Eyenixon]

Is this Trekkie posting?
The internet has some real basic archetypes going on here, I'm having heavy flashbacks.

 

[Danilh]

1. Changes are improvements.

2. Stupid people won't buy intelligent games.

3. What about the little people? Small time coders/mapmakers/story writers need money. While I'm sure Todd and Pete are living very comfortably, do you really think that, for example Gary Noonan, one of the game's animation programmers is living in the lap of luxury? Of course not.

4. No matter what, there'll always be loss in the world... and a world without death is a world I wouldn't want to live in anyways.

1. New York city has gone through a change in 9/11 2001,that must be an improvement. The economy changed into total chaos, improvement again, a guy gets cancer, his body changed, improvement, the Max Payne movie, improvement as well,The Force in Star Wars being explained by midi-chlorians,Sim City Societies, all that are improvements!

2. Do you have any graph or study(Proof) showing that the average gamer wouldn't buy this intelligent game?

3.Todd could share his wealth.

4. Sure, why save any sick person? They're gonna die anyway! We can and must prevent loss if we are able to, and in this case we are.

 

[NFSreloaded]

Whenever someone shows up here defending FO3 against the majority of forum-dwellers here, I tend to think of trolling.

 

[Lepidus]

No; I am not trying to troll. I wrote my original post as intelligently, logically, and politely as possible. All I intended was to start a civil debate, and see if I could get a calm discussion going in which people of opposing viewpoints could express their ideas in a polite manner. If I failed at doing this, please tell me how I could improve my tone or voice for future posts.

Also, when I wrote that post, it was merely a suggestion that some people might want to try. If I came across as overbearing, I really didn't intend to do that.

 

[Sander]

No; I am not trying to troll. I wrote my original post as intelligently, logically, and politely as possible. All I intended was to start a civil debate, and see if I could get a calm discussion going in which people of opposing viewpoints could express their ideas in a polite manner. If I failed at doing this, please tell me how I could improve my tone or voice for future posts.

Also, when I wrote that post, it was merely a suggestion that some people might want to try. If I came across as overbearing, I really didn't intend to do that.

Your tone was fine. The problem is that you're rehashing the same old tired, and false, arguments that we've seen over and over and over again.

No, we shouldn't be happy with just a Fallout. No, changing the core design (not just combat gameplay) of the game is not the same as evolving the game. No, replacing a world where your actions have consequences and places are coherent and interconnected with a world that is based on the rule of cool is not a move forward.
And most of all no, references to Fallout and the (inappropriate) use of very select elements of the setting do not make it faithful.

And yes, this game would not nearly have been so bad if it had been a spin-off.
But it isn't.

 

[Crni Vuk]

1. Changes are improvements.

There have been a lot of changes in the world but not everything can be seen inherently as "improvement". Germany was once changed from a monachry to a democracy in around 1918, but since it was flawed it can not be seen as improvement quite a few historians believe the spawn of the Naziparty was partially a issue of those time (which I agree). Communism in Russia was definetly a change, but if it was a "improvement" is highly debatable. I would tend to say it definetly was not a improvement since the situation inherently did not changed all to much. Just replacing one oppressive system with another one.

2. Stupid people won't buy intelligent games.

How do you know that? Who is really stupid? Who not? I know what you mean but I dont like to think about people in classes. Sometimes intelligent people act dumb. Sometimes people with low intelligence act very mature and intelligent. There is not a clear definition about it. If though the only kind of games one can buy (from a popular market) are games with very dumb content how to ever expect peopole demand anything different?

3. What about the little people? Small time coders/mapmakers/story writers need money. While I'm sure Todd and Pete are living very comfortably, do you really think that, for example Gary Noonan, one of the game's animation programmers is living in the lap of luxury? Of course not.

Quite many companies make a living that way. The question is what you see as margin of profit. Interplay always made a lot of finanical success with Fallout, for THEIR terms. It was not a multi billion dollar project. But on the other side this kind of attitude was not needed. Well not before Interplay decided to try to enter a market with "main stream" character and making games that have not been their target audience in the first place. The question is what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it.

4. No matter what, there'll always be loss in the world... and a world without death is a world I wouldn't want to live in anyways.

We should not move in directions here that have nothing to do with the issue. Of course you haev situations that can not be changed and you have to accept it. But does it mean you can not complain about it? Or you have no right for ciriticms? SHould I just accept a oppressive regime only cause its the only one I have around me. Or should I be satisfied with a bad financial situation since the gouvernement is refusing to do the right things to support me? Or stop to care about my life only cause some doctor told me that its over in some year?. This are big issues. Games going in the wrong direction are compared to that rather small. And it can be indeed changed. Not by a single individual of course. But its important to at least have a voice and say what you think even if it might "seem" that no one cares. At one point you eventualy WILL have a person in charge that cares. Maybe it even is someone that was positn in such a community or was not satisfied with what happes now. Who knows what some person now will do in 20 or 40 years. Maybe he will be a big name in the game development. Or have a own company.

See Vince has decided to make his own game. A independ project that he is working on with others similar minded people. And no one can tell me that is not a "form" of chagne. You have many independ projects on the market. Even the Witcher can be seen as somewhat that is not completely aiming only at the mainstream market (in some way it does but not completely). And it works. It was a success for their developers. Mount & Blade for example is definetly not the next World of Warcraft. But it works for their developers and the company. World war 2 online still kicks ass since years if I remember correctly they are almost a decade around (could be wrong here though). But its not a mainstream product, its more in the dirction of a simulation. And they do not struggle now. What they do is "realisticaly" rate the situation and their target audience. They dont go for what gives the best money in the SHORTEST time but things that are on a long term base which means to do everything to hold your target audience and EVENTUALY gain new players instead of huge investements in marketing and fast gameplay they decide to "improve" what is already out since an new version of the game will have updated vidsuals for example. Making now suddenly just another battlefield clone out of it would not help and probably just kill the whole fanbase and company in the end.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjcAFjniM1s&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebattlegroundeurope%2Ecom%2Findex%2Ephp%2Fabout%2Dthe%2Dgame%2Fscreenshots%2Dmovies&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

 

[MrBumble]

Perhaps if we can be a little more open-minded and accept Point Lookout and all of Fallout 3 as a spin-off or re-imagining of the original title, we can look at it from a different view, and enjoy the game. Isn't it better to allow yourself to have fun?

Tried...Didn't work.
And the funny thing is that it worked with GTA IV...
Why ? Because despite the fact that it changed a lot from 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, the writing was amazing, the atmosphere was great, the multiplayer was cool and the storyline wasn't bad either.

The game took a more realistic orientation but did it with taste.
Fallout 3, on the other hand, plain sucked.

If it had been a good first person RPG I would have enjoyed it despite the deep changes in gameplay.

EDIT :

In order for any idea to live -be it a government, film franchise, literary universe, or videogame universe- there needs to be a constant influx of changes, or else that idea will wither and die.

Please explain Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2...thanks

 

[Lepidus]

Tried...Didn't work.
And the funny thing is that it worked with GTA IV...
Why ? Because despite the fact that it changed a lot from 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, the writing was amazing, the atmosphere was great, the multiplayer was cool and the storyline wasn't bad either.

The game took a more realistic orientation but did it with taste.
Fallout 3, on the other hand, plain sucked.

If it had been a good first person RPG I would have enjoyed it despite the deep changes in gameplay.

EDIT :

In order for any idea to live -be it a government, film franchise, literary universe, or videogame universe- there needs to be a constant influx of changes, or else that idea will wither and die.

Please explain Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2...thanks

I really don't have a problem if you tried and it didn't work. That shows at the very least open-mindedness. It's just too bad that open-mindedness is rarely rewarded by Bethesda. Also, it appears that, just maybe, Rockstar is a better developer than Bethesda? It's good to see that at least one developer out there can please their fanbase with sequels. Did we have this problem with Half-Life 2?

Anyhow, I am not even going to try with Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2; I personally am not particularly fond of those games anyways.

 

[Crni Vuk]

In my eyes Bethesda got their chance and gamble it away already with the changes from Morrowind to Oblivion

I can only suggest to read the review on the RPG Codex about Oblivion as they explain pretty well what I really disliked about the game and Bethesda in general.

I know Bethesda since Morrowind and I really liked the game but have been extremly dissapointed from Oblivion particularly since I really was believing what they said about it the game before it was released.