Crispy Gamer's 4 Hours with Fallout Pt. 2

[UncannyGarlic]

But, it WAS just a half-ass joke. The point was to say that heavy bad karma might be tied to the stupidest of things in which you'd never realize. Example stated.

Indeed but if the goal is immersion then why not note it in the instruction manual or in their tutorial and list the common examples? That way the player knows and can generally go around doing stuff without constantly checking to see if it effects their karma.

 

[thefalloutfan]

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.

I think I like it this way, not knowing how much karma you get and have in total (I'm sure I read somewhere else that you can't view your karma number, but it might have been a mistake form the previewer's part).

Yes and no. If they are going to tell you when you gain or lose karma (which they do) then they probably should show you the number but if they don't then they could just have it be internally tracked so that you would have to gauge your actions (if you care) and wouldn't find out until the end cinematic (which would be fine).

Yes I prefer the latter option, having to track my actions myself. Even though it tells me when I got +ve or -ve karma, we don't know by how much, so losing/gaining karma won't be an indicator if we're now evil or good (say we get one huge amount of negative karma, and then a series of small positive karma, we might think we're now 'good', yet in actual fact we're still seen as evil, as the positive karma did not/b] outweigh the negative karma - though we never realise since we can't see the amount of karma gained/lost).

Then again it might just have been a mistake on the previewer's part, and we can in fact see our total karma like in the way it was in the previous fallouts.

We'll see.

 

[Ausir]

Well that could be for the best. In Morrowind, I could never figure out how I knew every single persons name before I talked to them, especially people who attacked me without having the decency to introduce themselves first!

But it's the same in Fallout 3.

 

[Mephestys]

Well that could be for the best. In Morrowind, I could never figure out how I knew every single persons name before I talked to them, especially people who attacked me without having the decency to introduce themselves first!

But it's the same in Fallout 3.

Pffft, that's from the radiation, it's turned me into some kind of awesome psychic that has the power to lift peoples names from their thoughts.

Apparently it's also completely destroyed my skeletal structure, allowing me to bend in new and horrific ways, and has also caused a light film of Vaseline to form on my eyes, blurring and obscuring my vision with bright colours..

 

[Arash]

Pffft, that's from the radiation, it's turned me into some kind of awesome psychic that has the power to lift peoples names from their thoughts.

Apparently it's also completely destroyed my skeletal structure, allowing me to bend in new and horrific ways, and has also caused a light film of Vaseline to form on my eyes, blurring and obscuring my vision with bright colours..

wasnt it the same in F2 when we were examining the areas and characters?

"you see : Lara, the barkeeper."

 

[Gentlemen]

In FO you learned their names after speaking to them, I believe. But eh, the psychic name reader is ok by me.

 

[Morbus]

In most decent RPGs I've played you know their names only after they tell you. Fallout included.

 

[aenemic]

In most decent RPGs I've played you know their names only after they tell you. Fallout included.

not always. a lot of the time, yes. but on many occasions you see the name even before you speak to them.

I really don't see this as a problem, considering it's the norm in rpg's. sure, it would be awesome if it wasn't that way, but it is and it's never bothered me before.

 

[Jebus]

Meh, I'd personally rather know what characters are worth talking to, instead of having to speak to a hundred characters with names that are impossible to remember, and who have nothing interesting to say (cfr. Oblivion).