Crispy Gamer previews, part 3

[Brother None]

Crispy Gamer just keeps it going, with part 3 of their preview (comments by Pete Hines).<blockquote>I'm no mass murderer. (At least, not unless it's in self-defense.) I disarm the bomb and earn a bit of positive karma -- Fallout 3's way of measuring deeds both benevolent and sinister. I'm not sure how much of the stuff I've earned; I just know that I've racked up some good karma. I feel good about it.

We could have been very obvious. The game has numbers all over the place for everything else; it wouldn't have been a big deal to just say "karma" and a number. But it's not really what karma is. Karma is more of an ambiguous thing; it's much easier for us to do without a number, but still have it feel right for the player.</blockquote>Thanks Dourvas.

 

[Mad Mantis]

I put my head to the pillow and wake up six hours later feeling "well rested." That's a buff that's earned when you bunk down in a place that you own.

Is this really a kind of "perk" in the game, or is this part of the epic novel style of writing the previewer uses. I really don't like the idea of keeping track of sleep status and giving a bonus for using the base they force upon you seems wrong.

A guy in Megaton knows who my father is. Apparently he's spoken to the man. I approach the stranger, who opens his mouth and immediately drops a bombshell -- a spoiler as earthshaking as the nuke lurking in the center of Megaton.

Great. Five minutes into the game and they are going to give away the entire plot. Convenient that dear old dad managed to stop in Megaton long enough from his epic quest to inform a random townsperson.

 

[aenemic]

I put my head to the pillow and wake up six hours later feeling "well rested." That's a buff that's earned when you bunk down in a place that you own.

Is this really a kind of "perk" in the game, or is this part of the epic novel style of writing the previewer uses. I really don't like the idea of keeping track of sleep status and giving a bonus for using the base they force upon you seems wrong.

A guy in Megaton knows who my father is. Apparently he's spoken to the man. I approach the stranger, who opens his mouth and immediately drops a bombshell -- a spoiler as earthshaking as the nuke lurking in the center of Megaton.

Great. Five minutes into the game and they are going to give away the entire plot. Convenient that dear old dad managed to stop in Megaton long enough from his epic quest to inform a random townsperson.

what makes you think they give away the entire plot? it can have any number of twists and turns after that specific moment.

hell, in Fallout you only have to make it to The Hub before you know about Super Mutants and their army. and you can definitely make it there within 5 minutes.

as for the sleep thing, it's probably just a small buff you get for like an hour or so after you've slept. I doubt you're gonna be dependant on it.

 

[Anarchosyn]

I took the usage of the word "buff" as a poor attempt at creative flare in his writing style. I seriously doubt it's any kind of statistical buff at all.

 

[Mad Mantis]

what makes you think they give away the entire plot? it can have any number of twists and turns after that specific moment.

Part hyperbole, part the language from the preview and part the fact that the writing in Oblivion was terrible and predictable in all quests. Even the best quest line of the game had a twist that you really couldn't help but see coming.

Sure, I'd love to see an intricate story with an ending you can't see coming a mile away, but if the first major spoiler comes in the first town you visit that doesn't leave much hope. That is way too early in the story to set the mood.

Shady Sands had almost nothing to do with the main story. Neither did Junktown. You could get to the Hub in five minutes, but that wasn't the most logical course of action. Megaton is the most logical course of action.

as for the sleep thing, it's probably just a small buff you get for like an hour or so after you've slept. I doubt you're gonna be dependant on it.

That could very well be the case, but if it is not then the game features yet another bonus. Between the plentiful perks, the bobbleheads and mysterious radiation powers they are doing everything in their power to buff the player beyond levels even munchkins can dream of.

 

[Arash]

how many towns F3 has anyway?

 

[K.C. Cool]

A guy in Megaton knows who my father is. Apparently he's spoken to the man. I approach the stranger, who opens his mouth and immediately drops a bombshell -- a spoiler as earthshaking as the nuke lurking in the center of Megaton.

You know, I read this and put 2 + 2 together: I betcha your resemblance to good ol' dad plays a major role in the game.

 

[JESUS]

Well if they do something with the sleep thing like Kanihalos did in his mod for Stalker i wouldn't mind. He put something that was not so hard to manage and yet felt real, i only got sleep deprivation dizzy screen once, it was after more than 24hrs awake ingame i think.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

I unload a bunch of junk with the businesswoman in exchange for the world's currency: bottle caps. I spend some of my earnings by stocking up on ammo and repairing some of my more treasured firearms.

It seems like they've done away with Fallout's barter system in favor for a more traditional buy/sell system (it's been mentioned before but this was the first I saw of it). I also don't like how plentiful this means caps are, it was cool in previous games that people only had a limited amount of cash so that you couldn't just unload on them. I'm really interested in seeing some shop screens.

 

[JESUS]

Yeah that added a lot to the inventory management in Fallout, trading a expensive item for a load of junk and running around town to distribute this was more fun and fitted the PA setting too.

I cannot remember but didn´t Oblivion had merchants with limited cash too? since it´s the same slighted modified engine maybe this will be in Fallout 3 too.

 

[shihonage]

I wonder how well a post-apocalyptic barter system will work without currency. Only "pricing" assigned to items, but no actual exchange of currency.

It seems more realistic to me. And yeah you'll end up giving out more than you should... often.

 

[mandrake776]

I cannot remember but didn´t Oblivion had merchants with limited cash too? since it´s the same slighted modified engine maybe this will be in Fallout 3 too.

They had a limited amount of money but this only meant that they wouldn't pay more than that amount for anything, but could do so as often as they wanted.

 

[quick pockets]

i remember in one of the video interviews a while back the interviewer said that he thought moriarty (sp?) was lying to him when he talked to him and todd nearly pissed himself... i wonder if in addition to lying to complete quests some quest givers will also lie to you? it would be nice to get something besides the standard - do this to get this - kind of quests out of these guys.

 

[Tagaziel]

I like the "limitless cash" change.

Do you know how irritating it was to run around the place trying to find merchants that'd buy my stuff for cash? It was especially annoying in Morrowind, where I routinely came to town loaded with several sets of armour, weapons, weed and anything else you can find, only to see that the merchant has 3K instead of 50K I need.

At that point, I just sold the stuff, and addded cash to my pocket via the console.

This is a good change.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

I like the "limitless cash" change.

Do you know how irritating it was to run around the place trying to find merchants that'd buy my stuff for cash? It was especially annoying in Morrowind, where I routinely came to town loaded with several sets of armour, weapons, weed and anything else you can find, only to see that the merchant has 3K instead of 50K I need.

At that point, I just sold the stuff, and addded cash to my pocket via the console.

This is a good change.

I never had a problem with this in Fallout but that sounds quite likely in Morrowind (haven't played enough to know the game's system but played enough of Oblivion to make an educated guess). Still, the problem isn't that merchants don't have enough cash, that is only a symptom, the real problem is the loot system (or quantity of loot acquired) that required such frequent trips to merchants. Also, would not being able to trade items for more valuable items serve the same purpose as money (though heavier)? Another solution would be eliminating the inventory limit (which was too low for exploring dungeons in Oblivion and damaging to many ARPGs), though this is really only a good idea in ARPGs which thrive on large loot drops and focus on combat (thus, not a solution for a Fallout sequel but if the gameplay is appropriate then this points out a fundimental problem.

 

[whirlingdervish]

For the sake of making the gameplay easier (iow: dumbing it down) and making programming a snap, the limitless cash style of trade seems like a good fit for Fallout 3.

[sarcasm]
Having to remember where that one guy was who had lots of cash for some reason, and which town he was in so I could fast travel there seems like such a hassle! [/sarcasm]

seriously tho:

A system that actually resembles the barter system in FALLOUT would be nice since it fit the setting, required some sort of thinking, and had actual depth.

Considering the post-apocalypse setting, it makes very little sense for everyone to pay in cash and have lots of it laying around.

There were very few people who had large quantities of Cash to trade for in Fallout/Fallout 2 and they actually had a reason for being loaded.

for example, the moneylenders in the hub and the casino cashier in Redding, or the high end item dealers in Chinatown who sold expensive gear..

A system of bartering Items for other Items or Cash would be a bit more true to the original games, but it would require some thought to determine the relative value to your character of the things you were placing on the table and compare that to how much you needed what you were buying.

Trading goods for more goods required the Fallout developers to actually balance the barter aspect of the game, and in doing so they seem to have understood the shortcoming of having a vendor with infinite cash to the actual gameplay value of having a barter skill.

Removing that made it so that a charismatic character with a high barter skill couldn't essentially make an infinite amount of money by buying things and turning around and selling them for more than cost to the same person.

at this point, based on the information we have that describes the many changes to the gameplay of Fallout, we shouldn't expect anything like that to be included, because it simply isn't fun enough for some ficticious console gamer, and game balance isn't what bethesda does best.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Removing that made it so that a charismatic character with a high barter skill couldn't essentially make an infinite amount of money by buying things and turning around and selling them for more than cost to the same person.

Well that was a bit silly but I rarely if ever used it but I still think it probably was a problem since it really was broken. I think it would be fine if you couldn't sell anything you bought (and/or that they have in stock) for more than they are selling it for, thus preventing you from selling something to them and buying it back for less infinitely (maybe once?).

 

[Tagaziel]

I never had a problem with this in Fallout but that sounds quite likely in Morrowind (haven't played enough to know the game's system but played enough of Oblivion to make an educated guess). Still, the problem isn't that merchants don't have enough cash, that is only a symptom, the real problem is the loot system (or quantity of loot acquired) that required such frequent trips to merchants. Also, would not being able to trade items for more valuable items serve the same purpose as money (though heavier)? Another solution would be eliminating the inventory limit (which was too low for exploring dungeons in Oblivion and damaging to many ARPGs), though this is really only a good idea in ARPGs which thrive on large loot drops and focus on combat (thus, not a solution for a Fallout sequel but if the gameplay is appropriate then this points out a fundimental problem.

You didn't?

Strange, I always had this problem, since I usually packed my mules up to the brim with scavenged items, and then found out that no one had enough cash or items interesting me to give me in return for my items.

It was kind of weird and detracted from the atmosphere - why the hell can't a merchant strike a deal with the town's enforcement agency (Regualtors, Hub police) to deliver heavy, high quality pre-war munitions and get cash from them?

 

[UncannyGarlic]

You didn't?

Strange, I always had this problem, since I usually packed my mules up to the brim with scavenged items, and then found out that no one had enough cash or items interesting me to give me in return for my items.

It was kind of weird and detracted from the atmosphere - why the hell can't a merchant strike a deal with the town's enforcement agency (Regualtors, Hub police) to deliver heavy, high quality pre-war munitions and get cash from them?

I remember having the issue every time I played Tactics but not until I really thought about it with the first two games. I guess I did start having a problem with having so much stuff that it got out of control until about halfway through (by which point ammo is the only thing to buy; I seem to remember having more supplies than needed by the time I got to the Hub, sometimes even in Junktown) and even earlier when I really abused the poor stealing system (which just begged to be abused)... I don't remember ever running out of weight (I think due to my allies, though I think this was fixed in the unofficial patch) but I do remember having more stuff than I could sell and having my allies be mules with inventories full of junk at the end of the game... I guess what I never had a problem with running out of inventory space after the rad scorpion cave in Shady Sands.

Hmmm.... I'm not sure what the best solution would be as I really don't have much love for merchants having unlimited amounts of currency in a setting like Fallout but at the same time it's not cool to be hauling around a bunch of junk... The trick with sandbox games is controlling the player's wealth which is inherently difficult given the nature of the game. Just allowing the player to trade for money would be one solution but as I said, it's certainly something I'd like to avoid if at all possible in Fallout. Durability is a common and, generally speaking, quite terrible money sink in games which is part of why it's in Fallout 3 and TES games, I'm sure (it works well other than being a pain which decreases the fun for players). Requiring the player to have food and water in their inventory which is automatically consumed would also be a possibility, though it fails to scale with level. Another possibility would be non-functional stuff in the game but that also really doesn't work for Fallout (ie the house). I also thought of maybe different forms of currency in the form of weightless items (ones which get significantly more expensive [ex 100, 1000, 10000]) but it's redundant and rather pointless. Damn, I really can't think of anything good to transform loot into besides currency...

A type of game that does a good job with a reasonable and fun money sink are Diablo clones (Titan Quest particularly did well) through their shops. That said, such a system would never work for a game like Fallout (though TES might wanna look into it) as it encourages massive amounts of loot, much of which is garbage. At the very least I hope that they get the loot drops to a reasonable level (which I'm sure they won't given the rarity of such in all games) as it would significantly help minimize the issue and really the game should be balanced, economically, for a "standard play through," whatever that may be, so that it's at least not totally out of control.

I don't like it but you may be right that it's necessary and the best route to take but I really wish that someone could think of a better one...