Cthulhu Armageddon

You are a very good sarcastic person.
And you're Captain Obvious. ego inflates
I'd love to hear the ones you disliked and why. I know stating I loved Skyrim 2nd best was like, "WHaaaaa?"
Skyrim: shallow, lacking in depth, lore was outsourced to better writers(tell me if I'm wrong I read it somewhere), forgettable repeatable quests with an over reliance on dungeons, main villain was pathetic, no characters with character, magic oversimplified, etc.

Fallout 3: bad gameplay, technical issues (both optimisation and bugs), the atrocious plot and characters- this entire section is just :falloutonline:

Dragon Age Origins: just a bit meh. Never a fan of the DA series, Found them a bit... generic? It's been a while so this is unfair criticism tbh.
 
FYI, I just created a thread about The Wolf Among Us which is a good example of mixing the ultra-dark and wacky in a way I love.
 
It feels like the "ending" of the Fallout world in the same way Red Dead Redemption was the ending of the Old West. The lawless anarchic period of the world is over and it's becoming civilized, which is not without its cost.
Are you forgetting that Fallout New Vegas only takes part in one tiny part of the world.

There are plenty of other untouched areas which could be visited next.

And besides, your assuming that the Fallout world wouldn't be entertaining if we saw a civilized version of it, an upcoming thread I've got planned will say otherwise.
I feel the original games do a poor job of making it seem like the nuclear war was a horrific tragedy that robbed humanity of a great number of things.
Because it's set nearly 100 years after the incident itself.

The first 2 Fallout Games mentioned the pre-war world When it was relevant

Bethesda mentions it in pretty much every opportunity they get, like somehow over the last 200 years, people somehow haven't gotten used to living on the ruins of a dead civilization.

This mourning of the pre-war world really needs to die. Fallout isn't about the pre-war world and what was lost, it was about the new world which comes after.
 
1. However, New Vegas can't really be the model for the best Fallout game because it feels like it is a post-post-apocalypse game as humanity is dealing with warring nation-states versus struggling for survival and scavenging.
The issue with this is that it's just a natural progression of the story. You want things to stagnate but that's just not realistic. It's 40 years after Fallout 2, the NCR has no real reason NOT to expand. The end of Fallout 2 has Arroyo turn into a very modern looking city in the coming years, there multiple factions that have been steadily getting more and more resources and expanding. Fallout 2 was already becoming a post-post-apocalypse game and even 1 starts to show the origin of civilization sprouting. It's 164 years after the bombs dropped by Fallout 2, not every disaster lasts forever.
2. The Pew Pew Pew Cat image is a half-jest as while I love the gunplay element of Bethesda's fallout, it's not the entire summary of my love of the genre. It is, perhaps, why I gave Fallout 4 a 9 out of 10 even though I feel it's inferior to Fallout 3 and New Vegas in virtually every single way. It remained entertaining even if I kept thinking it could have been done better if they'd only tried harder.
I rest my case
3. Fallout 2 isn't my favorite of the Fallout games not because of story, which was very very good and the choices, which were amazing, but because New Vegas had the advantage of 3D environments and better gunplay. I feel it's a better FALLOUT game, though, because even though a bunch of city-states have arisen, it's very clear things are very possible going to collapse at any time. Redding is going to have a Race WarTM, the Enclave can wipe out everything, tribal civilizations are being raided by the colonialists of civilization, and Vault City is basically like Rome in that it justifies slavery via its civilization.

Basically, if NCR were to collapse, I'd want it to collapse back into Fallout 2.
But all of these things are present in New Vegas! The NCR is under threat of collapse with bureaucratic corruption, a failing currency, failed military campaigns and general unhappiness. Caesar is one bad seizure away from having his Empire crumble without his guidance. It's one bullet to the head to totally destroy Mr. House's plans etc. Goodsprings has to deal with Powder Gangers, Novac has Legion raids and ghouls attacking, Nipton already got fucked. The NCR and Legion are both Imperialistically going in and claiming the Mojave as their own like they did before with tribal areas, and Caesar's Legion is literally like Rome.

If the NCR were to "collapse" back into Fallout 2 they'd be pretty much the same and recover lost ground since they were in a much better situation back then than they are now.
4. One area I do think Bethesda has over the original games is their Old World Blues. While they can overdo it, I feel the original games do a poor job of making it seem like the nuclear war was a horrific tragedy that robbed humanity of a great number of things.
This is just flat out wrong. In Fallout 1 mere water costs a fortune, most of the map is a desert shithole, everything can murder you almost instantly at the start, and without your help many settlements would have died. They make it clear that a horrific tradgedy happen, they just don't sit there and crank over and beat you over the head with it. Meanwhile in Fallout 3 people seem to be getting by just fine, food and water are at modest prices despite say Megaton not having any real farms to get their food from for whatever reason. It's very clear that the nuclear war was a terrible tragedy that decimated the population and the Earth itself. However time does eventually move on. bethesda makes everything look 20 years after the war in their games.
The timeline and treatment of the war make it seem like it was a good thing for humanity to nuke itself since the Pre-War world was such a shithole. I think Bethesda does a decent job of showing the immense loss and tragedy of the world being nuked.
What? How on Earth do the old games make it look like a giant nuclear war was a definite good thing? It merely doesn't dwell on it since theres more important things at hand like building the future instead of constantly weeping over the past. bethesda and their erection for the pre-war are not a positive. Like New Vegas says you've got to learn to Let Go of the pre-war if you want to build going forward. If the fallout games were just stuck eternally bellyaching over the war instead of the more interesting world of the post war it'd get real boring real fast 4 games and 200+ years down the line.
To explain in simpler terms, my all time favorite video games are as follows:

1. The Witcher 3
2. Skyrim
3. Fallout: New Vegas
4. Fallout 3
5. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
6. Dragon Age: Origins
7. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
8. Fallout 2
9. Fallout 1
10. Knights of the Old Republic
>half of this list
>the order of this list
oozOqVO.jpg
 
Honestly, my main problem with keeping the world of Fallout stagnant forever, is that it would get boring very quickly.

Like, there are only so many possibilities you can actually show with an anarchic post-apocalypse, whereas if you advance the timeline, and let the world slowly rebuild, it could become incredibly interesting to see the games slowly changing, and with each new installment having a different type of world.

If like you commonly suggest, the world doesn't get civilized, bottlecaps continue to be used as currency, Supermutants continue to be dumb things you shoot at, and you get the same dog over and over, then soon enough you'll get a series of identical games with nothing but minor differences.

Already with 3 and 4 you see practically identical settings with the only real difference being the villains.
 
This makes me sad. So, so sad.
I mean I'm already sad because I shitpost and meme on an internet forum, but this genuinely makes me sad.

MGS3-Snake-Eater-The-Sorrow.jpg


CT Phipps said:
4. One area I do think Bethesda has over the original games is their Old World Blues. While they can overdo it, I feel the original games do a poor job of making it seem like the nuclear war was a horrific tragedy that robbed humanity of a great number of things.

Mass unemployment, loss of civil rights, food shortages, plague, wars across the globe, inflation, racism, truly great things to lose.

Ok I'm being facetious, but you could argue that the War had positives to it despite the mass destruction and death. It's arguably better that the Pre-War world is gone.
 
Are you forgetting that Fallout New Vegas only takes part in one tiny part of the world.

California is a pretty big part of the United States. Yes, we could theoretically do all of the states but it's an iconic part of the setting and returning there seems like something which might be a big deal. Besides, New Vegas also developed other parts of the country like Arizona.

There are plenty of other untouched areas which could be visited next.

Very true but proximity to larger states changes things as well.

And besides, your assuming that the Fallout world wouldn't be entertaining if we saw a civilized version of it, an upcoming thread I've got planned will say otherwise.

A civilized world would be interesting but I don't think it would be Fallout-y.

The first 2 Fallout Games mentioned the pre-war world When it was relevant

Bethesda mentions it in pretty much every opportunity they get, like somehow over the last 200 years, people somehow haven't gotten used to living on the ruins of a dead civilization.

Well, the nuclear war is a constant daily reminder of why their lives suck as the vast majority of their technology and goods are scavenged from said civilization.

This mourning of the pre-war world really needs to die. Fallout isn't about the pre-war world and what was lost, it was about the new world which comes after.

Why can't it be both?

Vergil said:
The issue with this is that it's just a natural progression of the story. You want things to stagnate but that's just not realistic. It's 40 years after Fallout 2, the NCR has no real reason NOT to expand. The end of Fallout 2 has Arroyo turn into a very modern looking city in the coming years, there multiple factions that have been steadily getting more and more resources and expanding. Fallout 2 was already becoming a post-post-apocalypse game and even 1 starts to show the origin of civilization sprouting. It's 164 years after the bombs dropped by Fallout 2, not every disaster lasts forever.

Yeah, it's an area I think Bethesda keeps running into as they keep advancing the timeline and it's straining suspension of disbelief. There's no reason they couldn't have set Fallout 3 at the same time as the original games. Yeah, the Enclave but it probably would have made MORE sense that this was a faction which had broken away from the Poseidon Oil Rig Enclave before or never made it.

There's also a vast unexplained gulf of time in each game which should be full of history. Like, say, the Capital Wasteland had 100 years of rebuilding and then the Super Mutants appeared and destroyed most of the settlements so the survivors were reduced to Raiding.

Something.

If the NCR were to "collapse" back into Fallout 2 they'd be pretty much the same and recover lost ground since they were in a much better situation back then than they are now.

Well, in such a collapse, I'd want the surviving states to be abjectly against building a new NCR and directly hostile to one another. Vault City would, for example, want to remain independent and actively work to sabotage any new government which would emerge or there be groups who want to keep a small independent set of states.

Obviously, this would be influenable by any hypothetical PCs.

This is just flat out wrong. In Fallout 1 mere water costs a fortune, most of the map is a desert shithole, everything can murder you almost instantly at the start, and without your help many settlements would have died. They make it clear that a horrific tradgedy happen, they just don't sit there and crank over and beat you over the head with it. Meanwhile in Fallout 3 people seem to be getting by just fine, food and water are at modest prices despite say Megaton not having any real farms to get their food from for whatever reason. It's very clear that the nuclear war was a terrible tragedy that decimated the population and the Earth itself. However time does eventually move on. bethesda makes everything look 20 years after the war in their games.

The two surviving settlements (three if you count Big Town) who are surrounded by Raiders and Super Mutants?

What? How on Earth do the old games make it look like a giant nuclear war was a definite good thing? It merely doesn't dwell on it since theres more important things at hand like building the future instead of constantly weeping over the past. bethesda and their erection for the pre-war are not a positive. Like New Vegas says you've got to learn to Let Go of the pre-war if you want to build going forward. If the fallout games were just stuck eternally bellyaching over the war instead of the more interesting world of the post war it'd get real boring real fast 4 games and 200+ years down the line.

It's important not just to distill the Pre-War world into the "bad era." Basically, it shouldn't be just one small tiny period of suffering but all the rest of history and ideals and more which was lost. I think the nuclear setting is more powerful if you're confronted by reminders of the horror which had happened.

It's one of the biggest disappointments of Fallout 4 that the Sole Survivor NEVER gets to weep for all his or her dead friends and lost world.
 
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Yeah, it's an area I think Bethesda keeps running into as they keep advancing the timeline and it's straining suspension of disbelief.
It's not "straining suspension of disbelief", it's already been obliterated! Fallout 3 is 200 years after the war and looks only 20 years after. That's as bad as it gets.
There's no reason they couldn't have set Fallout 3 at the same time as the original games.
Which still wouldn't be a time that matched the way Fallout 3's world looks.
Yeah, the Enclave but it probably would have made MORE sense that this was a faction which had broken away from the Poseidon Oil Rig Enclave before or never made it.
.... that doesn't make any sense at all. How or why the fuck would a bunch of Enclave members just pack up and leave the Oil Rig and go all the way to the other side of the United States and set up shack there? Why would the Enclave forces on the Rig let them? They just fucked off into nowhere while the Enclave was still planning stuff out and what not?
There's also a vast unexplained gulf of time in each game which should be full of history.
And it is, at least on the West Coast where actually writers were responsible for that area. Even in bethesda games they at least explain a bit of what happened between their games.
Like, say, the Capital Wasteland had 100 years of rebuilding and then the Super Mutants appeared and destroyed most of the settlements so the survivors were reduced to Raiding.

Something.
That's so stupid. It's already been made clear that your "lol just burn it all down perpetual stagnation and le anarchy is da perfect fallout way!" is wrong. How about instead of coming up with contrived reasons for why the world looks that way.... they make the world look appropriate for the time?
Well, in such a collapse, I'd want the surviving states to be abjectly against building a new NCR and directly hostile to one another. Vault City would, for example, want to remain independent and actively work to sabotage any new government which would emerge or there be groups who want to keep a small independent set of states.

Obviously, this would be influenable by any hypothetical PCs.
Yea, we get it. You want Fallout to abandon one of it's major themes and be the same thing every single game with 0 growth. No civilization progressing past the shitty town or two stage before being smacked down again. It's very epic.

The two surviving settlements (three if you count Big Town) who are surrounded by Raiders and Super Mutants?
Megaton, Arefu(not counting the one person who went crazy), Rivet City,Little Lamplight and many other small towns are never seen being directly attacked or under such a threat that it makes basic survival questionable for them.
Big Town is the only one and that's because it's filled with a bunch of retarded borderline children.
It's important not just to distill the Pre-War world into the "bad era." Basically, it shouldn't be just one small tiny period of suffering but all the rest of history and ideals and more which was lost. I think the nuclear setting is more powerful if you're confronted by reminders of the horror which had happened.
It's not important to do that at all. Why the fuck would people 2 centuries later with an entirely new playing field with new big countries like the NCR and Legion forming still take time to weep for the dead they never knew or had any real attachment to. Pre War shit is NOT IMPORTANT in Fallout. It was just a tool to get to that post apocalypse setting. Stop focusing on it.
It's one of the biggest disappointments of Fallout 4 that the Sole Survivor NEVER gets to weep for all his or her dead friends and lost world.
Oh I'm sure with bethesda's writing that'd be just such a powerful scene.
 
Honestly, my main problem with keeping the world of Fallout stagnant forever, is that it would get boring very quickly.

Fallout under Bethesda has been loudly and nastily criticized for drifting away from its roots and we've seen plenty of franchises suffer for that. I agree with Chris Avellone the setting is getting too civilized and I think it should be set in places where it gets to shine being the post-apocalypse nuclear wasteland simulator it should be. It's not a problem if you don't keep advancing the timeline but as it is, it runs the risk of becoming something it shouldn't be.

Like Saints Row became a game of alien invasion and taking over hell.

Like, there are only so many possibilities you can actually show with an anarchic post-apocalypse, whereas if you advance the timeline, and let the world slowly rebuild, it could become incredibly interesting to see the games slowly changing, and with each new installment having a different type of world.

Ehhh, if that's what works for you, go ahead.

If like you commonly suggest, the world doesn't get civilized, bottlecaps continue to be used as currency, Supermutants continue to be dumb things you shoot at, and you get the same dog over and over, then soon enough you'll get a series of identical games with nothing but minor differences.

For me, the games focus should be on good story, good exploration, and good gameplay in post-apocalypse lawless environments. Bottlecaps and Dogmeat are natural parts of that.

The Super Mutants are classic antagonists but were poorly handled in 4 even if I felt they workd well as engines of terror in Fallout 3.

Already with 3 and 4 you see practically identical settings with the only real difference being the villains.

....How?

The Capital Wasteland is a barren horrific land full of ruins, underground tunnels, and a few shantytowns. The Commonwealth is a pastoral bunch of farmlands and a giant swamp with one big radiation zone. Really, Boston is just poorly designed with no thought to story or sidequest design.

It's not "straining suspension of disbelief", it's already been obliterated! Fallout 3 is 200 years after the war and looks only 20 years after. That's as bad as it gets.

Which still wouldn't be a time that matched the way Fallout 3's world looks.

I don't disagree here.

.... that doesn't make any sense at all. How or why the fuck would a bunch of Enclave members just pack up and leave the Oil Rig and go all the way to the other side of the United States and set up shack there? Why would the Enclave forces on the Rig let them? They just fucked off into nowhere while the Enclave was still planning stuff out and what not?

The Enclave may have sent its soldiers to recover a bunch of vital military equipment or other materials (since they live on an Oil Rig and might need it) or join up with a pure group of humans they made contact with for more breeding material. They might have also discovered Raven's Rock and decided to set up a base there to restore vital military systems. They gave an explanation in the games which works because of vertibirds but it still felt unncessary.

That's so stupid. It's already been made clear that your "lol just burn it all down perpetual stagnation and le anarchy is da perfect fallout way!" is wrong. How about instead of coming up with contrived reasons for why the world looks that way.... they make the world look appropriate for the time?

I admit I tend to like tragedies and the march of history not going in a straight like. Arthur Maxson is a great character because he takes the Paladin-esque Lyons legacy and shits on it in a way which is very true to history as well as believable. You can have Golden Ages and great heroes only for things to fall down. Then it will come around again.

Everything getting better consistently breaks my suspension of disbelief. It's why I liked the BoS vs. NCR war.

Yea, we get it. You want Fallout to abandon one of it's major themes and be the same thing every single game with 0 growth. No civilization progressing past the shitty town or two stage before being smacked down again. It's very epic.

I actually was disappointed they didn't have a Commonwealth of Independent Settlements which collapsed in Fallout 4--but that was clearly too interesting for Bethesda.

It's not important to do that at all. Why the fuck would people 2 centuries later with an entirely new playing field with new big countries like the NCR and Legion forming still take time to weep for the dead they never knew or had any real attachment to. Pre War shit is NOT IMPORTANT in Fallout. It was just a tool to get to that post apocalypse setting. Stop focusing on it.

I think a big part of the post-apocalypse is backwards thinking and poignancy from what was lost.
 
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Look at 1 and 2 and you'll see that the world is rebuilding and changing.
This period may have lasted for thousands years, considering the amount of damage and scale of regression caused to the world by whole arsenal of global thermonuclear war fueled by 21st century weaponry.

I think F2 pushed it the wrong way, what I was expecting after first Fallout was something much closer to A Canticle for Leibowitz or Mad Max scenario - the world destroyed to the point that almost all of its surface was rendered uninhabitable, with huge deserts and former big cities contaminated by plutonium isotopes with a half-life lasting for tens of thousands years, with almost all fauna and flora species completely wiped out. What we've got instead is NCR where brahmins are breed from thin air by those ranchers and cowboys because America fuck yeah, and New Reno with its Tommy gun toting bouncers. Meh, Fallout 2 could have ended much better than this..
 
I think F2 pushed it the wrong way, what I was expecting after first Fallout was something much closer to A Canticle for Leibowitz or Mad Max scenario - the world destroyed to the point that almost all of its surface was rendered uninhabitable, with huge deserts and former big cities contaminated by plutonium isotopes with a half-life lasting for tens of thousands years, with almost all fauna and flora species completely wiped out. What we've got instead is NCR where brahmins are breed from thin air by those ranchers and cowboys because America fuck yeah, and New Reno with its Tommy gun toting bouncers. Meh, Fallout 2 could have ended much better than this..
Well Fallout 1 from the very beggining was showing some signs of rebuilding. There were already farms and ranches, and the cities seemed stable enough on there own to become major forces for good in the wasteland.

Fallout 2 just continued that 80 years down the line, where obviously things would have got better.
The Capital Wasteland is a barren horrific land full of ruins, underground tunnels, and a few shantytowns. The Commonwealth is a pastoral bunch of farmlands and a giant swamp with one big radiation zone. Really, Boston is just poorly designed with no thought to story or sidequest design.
Fallout 3 has a couple tiny settlements, with two big towns, one a scrappy, chaotic, frontier type town, one a more succesful town built on a pre-war ruin. The entire map is filled with generic raiders with too little backstory, and there are dumb supermutants who are hostile for no reason everywhere.

Fallout 4 has a couple of tiny settlements, with two big towns, one a scrappy, chaotic, frontier type town, one a more successful town built on a pre-war ruin. The entire map is filled with generic raiders, who although they have some backstory, still come from generic gangs with very little explanation, and there are dumb super-mutants who are hostile for no reason everywhere.

And the Commonwealth is just as much of a barren ruin with no signs of rebuilding as the Capital Wasteland is.
Well, the nuclear war is a constant daily reminder of why their lives suck as the vast majority of their technology and goods are scavenged from said civilization.
Why, 200 years after the war, is all there technology and goods scavenged from said civilization?, That's completely and utterly retarded.

In 1, 2 and New Vegas there are factions which create there own weapons, new technology, farm for there own food. Very little actually comes from the pre-war world in those games.

For me, the games focus should be on good story, good exploration, and good gameplay in post-apocalypse lawless environments. Bottlecaps and Dogmeat are natural parts of that.
How are Bottlecaps and Dogmeat a natural part of that?

Bottlecaps take away from the good story aspect, because there is absolutely no explanation as to why they are still around, and Dogmeat adds to literally none of that, and is nothing more than a trope.
The Enclave may have sent its soldiers to recover a bunch of vital military equipment or other materials (since they live on an Oil Rig and might need it) or join up with a pure group of humans they made contact with for more breeding material. They might have also discovered Raven's Rock and decided to set up a base there to restore vital military systems. They gave an explanation in the games which works because of vertibirds but it still felt unncessary.
Sure, because the Enclave suddenly has an infinite amount of expendable troopers who they can send to the other side of the world.

If that was the explanation, I doubt they would be able to afford to send even a hundred troops, in which case they'd never be able to be the big, powerful protagonists you see them as.
I think a big part of the post-apocalypse is backwards thinking and poignancy from what was lost.
The big part of Most post apocalypses. The thing about Fallout is that it never tried to keep those tropes going, it tried to focus on the post-war world, which given how far down the timeline it is, is realistic.
 
Aside from pointing out the Commonwealth IS rebuilt in that it's mostly settled farmland with Raider problems, I suppose it's just an issue of our differing preferences.

:thumbs up:
 
No it isn't.

The entire place is a shithole with raiders everywhere.

Because organized crime doesn't happen in civilized places.

:)

But yes, the Commonwealth is a pastoral series of farming communities which have a trader system between them and a central merchant hub as well as a large city. Just because it's not united doesn't mean it's not settled.
 
The Commonwealth isn't a civilized place.

There is literally no central government, everything is still literally an anarchy.

Why is a centralized government a good thing? My favorite ending for the Mojave is preventing House, NCR, and Caesar from conquering the region and allowing it to thrive as an independent region.

I'm not saying that the Commonwealth isn't in dire need of a defensive organization but the Minutemen, once rebuilt, don't have to take over to make it a nice place to live. Part of what I liked about the Minutemen is they didn't attempt to impose rulership, just defense and security.

Centralized authority is not a sign of a superior society.
 
No, but the idea that a stretch of inhabited land can somehow remain an anarchy for 210 years is completely ridiculous.

Given Diamond City has education, elections, and a centralized economy I'm not sure how that qualifies as an anarchy. It's just not a united region but multiple small communities. Honestly, part of my problem with the Commonwealth was it was too civilized. There's no real stakes as far as I can see for the Sole Survivor to get involved with anything large scale.

In the Capital Wasteland, I really felt humanity was going to die out in that region and the end of everything was about to happen.

In New Vegas, it's the possible end of NCR and civilization.

In the Commonwealth? Who gives a shit if the Brotherhood of Steel and Institute shoot each other up?
 
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