EDGE reminisces on Fallout

[Crni Vuk]

I would not say that. The Fallout franchise was still pretty strong. And if Beth would not have bought it, you can be sure another company would have made a game eventually. And even if all that would not have happend for some reason, there is still kickstarter.

It just doesnt make sense not to. Fallout offers a whole world. You have to bascially make NOTHING new here, yet you can add pretty much anything you want to it, see Beth, they used the whole world behind Fallout (bombs, vaults, etc) but made their "own" game on the westcoast.

It requires a hell lot of resources to create your own world, like how Bioware tried it with Dragon Age. And it has always the risk that the game might not be succesfull. Fallouts world/franchise has proven to be succesful already.

 

[Prime Operative]

I would not say that. The Fallout franchise was still pretty strong. And if Beth would not have bought it, you can be sure another company would have made a game eventually. And even if all that would not have happend for some reason, there is still kickstarter.

It just doesnt make sense not to. Fallout offers a whole world. You have to bascially make NOTHING new here, yet you can add pretty much anything you want to it, see Beth, they used the whole world behind Fallout (bombs, vaults, etc) but made their "own" game on the westcoast.

It requires a hell lot of resources to create your own world, like how Bioware tried it with Dragon Age. And it has always the risk that the game might not be succesfull. Fallouts world/franchise has proven to be succesful already.

Honestly, I felt that back before FO3, the Fallout franchise seemed a bit... forgotten. In my experience, which is far from being representative of reality, only old time RPG fans even knew what it Fallout was.

On top of that, after FO3 released, most game journalists seemed to have only a very superficial idea of what the franchise really was. Almost as if they had heard about it from someone else instead of having experienced it themselves.

One could say the franchise was strong, but only because of the old fans who had played the games back in the day.


Regarding FO3, it never seemed to me like Bethesda was building on the pre-existing world. The impression it made on me was more like if they had made their own post-apocalyptic game and then tweaked it a bit to set it in-continuity with FO1 and 2.

Once I finally got my hands on Fallout 3, I remember mentioning to a friend of mine that I would have enjoyed the game way more if it didn't have the Fallout name attached to it.

I find Bethesda's games enjoying enough (except for Oblivion... The only good thing about that game was the Dark Brotherhood and Thieve's Guild questlines, and even those had issues) but I think they suffer from a bit of false advertising, so to speak. They seem to be more action-adventure games with a bit of RPG elements thrown in than proper RPGs. Yet they are always advertised as such and I keep on having to listen to people tell me that Skyrim is the best RPG experience of all time. It gets a bit frustrating.

 

[Crni Vuk]

yeah, but that is somewhat normal. Even a popular franchise will lose lets say some of the steam or power it has. As said, normal. But would still not see what Bethesda did as reboot. Its of course only my opinion. Others might see that differently, there is naturally not really a clear line anyway, where you could say this here is now a reboot and this is only a new story that continues in the universe. I mean people have not seen Diablo 3 as reboot to the Diablo franchise either, even if it took them almost 10 years to come up with a new Diablo game.

 

[Prime Operative]

yeah, but that is somewhat normal. Even a popular franchise will lose lets say some of the steam or power it has. As said, normal. But would still not see what Bethesda did as reboot. Its of course only my opinion. Others might see that differently, there is naturally not really a clear line anyway, where you could say this here is now a reboot and this is only a new story that continues in the universe. I mean people have not seen Diablo 3 as reboot to the Diablo franchise either, even if it took them almost 10 years to come up with a new Diablo game.

Oh, when I said the reboot thing I meant it as a joke I agree whole-heartedly with you: It is not a reboot in any way.

It's a sequel that missed the sweet spot by a mile or two. I have no problem with moving it to the East Coast. I actually thought it was a good idea, as it gave Bethesda more leeway in making an original story.

But they wasted the oportunity by including the BoS, the Enclave, etc. They tried to make it similar to the old games by taking some iconic elements. It didn't work, IMO, mostly because they misused them.

I just feel like FO3 misses some of the key elements that made Fallout Fallout. They tried to make it feel and look like an updated Fallout (or at least, pretended to do that) and, unfortunatelly, they failed.

It has nothing to do with the technology... They have simply missed the point. I feel like New Vegas is a worthy successor because the devs got the source material (and how could they not?) Bethesda, however, almost seems to have taken a superficial look at Fallout and said: "Yeah, I guess we got it. Let's make the game!"

 

[Crni Vuk]

yeah well, I really loved the part where they (Beth) could not get tired about to mention how much of "true Fallout" fans ALL of them are.

And then, they turn away Fallout developers which wanted to work for them or at least offer them their expertise.

 

[UniversalWolf]

I'd call it a de-boot.

 

[tekhedd]

I give up: I was resisting, but I'm going to chime in on this after all.

Obviously Beth's intentions were to create a sequel in canon style, but it does seem like what they did comes across as being *that* close to being a reboot... or more to the point: it's not a reboot, but it's closer to being a reboot than what they intended it to be.

I mean, yes there are *good* reboots here and there, but when I think of a reboot I think of something a lot like what we got with F3: a game only vaguely related to the original, where they changed the play style, the environment, the characters, and leave you with something that retains the original name and logo but really not much else. By that definition F3 is pretty much a reboot in everything except the marketing.

In fact it might have been better if they *had* done a reboot because they'd have some good characters and situations to work with...but no that would have been terrible--they would have done a reboot by moving it to the east coast and ruining all of our favorite factions and characters and... oh...

 

[Prime Operative]

I give up: I was resisting, but I'm going to chime in on this after all.

Obviously Beth's intentions were to create a sequel in canon style, but it does seem like what they did comes across as being *that* close to being a reboot... or more to the point: it's not a reboot, but it's closer to being a reboot than what they intended it to be.

I mean, yes there are *good* reboots here and there, but when I think of a reboot I think of something a lot like what we got with F3: a game only vaguely related to the original, where they changed the play style, the environment, the characters, and leave you with something that retains the original name and logo but really not much else. By that definition F3 is pretty much a reboot in everything except the marketing.

In fact it might have been better if they *had* done a reboot because they'd have some good characters and situations to work with...but no that would have been terrible--they would have done a reboot by moving it to the east coast and ruining all of our favorite factions and characters and... oh...

I agree with you except for one point: To be, a reboot needs to have a new continuity and cut off ties with the previous one. Other than that, well said

 

[UniversalWolf]

Obviously Beth's intentions were to create a sequel in canon style...

I don't think that's obvious at all. Seems to me they planned all along to make a significantly different type of game from Fallout -- the kind of game they're well-known for -- but this time they bought a famous name to attach to it in order to generate buzz and sell more copies.

 

[tekhedd]

Obviously Beth's intentions were to create a sequel in canon style...

I don't think that's obvious at all. Seems to me they planned all along to make a significantly different type of game from Fallout -- the kind of game they're well-known for -- but this time they bought a famous name to attach to it in order to generate buzz and sell more copies.

I'm fairly certain that in the world of corporate, they don't see why a significantly different type of game that makes a mockery of existing canon isn't a legitimate sequel. "Oh we're just modernizing it, bringing this wonderful IP to kids of today."

I'm not saying this is incompetence, I'm saying it's culture, a culture of management and profit calculations and decisions made by people who don't play games (anymore). Much the same way that public service announcements on TV are written by people who have never seen drugs, and believe that their 15 second "don't do drugs" drop is somehow going to help accomplish transformative change in the community.

Yes, for the most part the game was pretty weak, but there's some good work in there, and the kind of people who like Beth's kind of games (which is a good sized market) seemed to really enjoy it. As far as they're concerned, it's a success. They added something positive to the Fallout universe that a new generation of "gamers" can connect with, at least as far as they're concerned. Of course, Bethesda's definition of positive (and "gamer") in this context is quite different from mine and probably yours, but I don't see bad intentions here, just lameness.

 

[Prime Operative]

Obviously Beth's intentions were to create a sequel in canon style...

I don't think that's obvious at all. Seems to me they planned all along to make a significantly different type of game from Fallout -- the kind of game they're well-known for -- but this time they bought a famous name to attach to it in order to generate buzz and sell more copies.

I'm fairly certain that in the world of corporate, they don't see why a significantly different type of game that makes a mockery of existing canon isn't a legitimate sequel. "Oh we're just modernizing it, bringing this wonderful IP to kids of today."

I'm not saying this is incompetence, I'm saying it's culture, a culture of management and profit calculations and decisions made by people who don't play games (anymore). Much the same way that public service announcements on TV are written by people who have never seen drugs, and believe that their 15 second "don't do drugs" drop is somehow going to help accomplish transformative change in the community.

Yes, for the most part the game was pretty weak, but there's some good work in there, and the kind of people who like Beth's kind of games (which is a good sized market) seemed to really enjoy it. As far as they're concerned, it's a success. They added something positive to the Fallout universe that a new generation of "gamers" can connect with, at least as far as they're concerned. Of course, Bethesda's definition of positive (and "gamer") in this context is quite different from mine and probably yours, but I don't see bad intentions here, just lameness.

In a way, you could say there were some bad intentions. Or at least, some dishonesty.

It's obvious that they don't want to make shitty products. But they do want to reach an audience that's as wide as possible. If that implies taking a known franchise and butt-fucking its basic premises and concepts to oblivion, they'll do it. And if they can hide and lie about it, they'll do it too.

What I'm not sure about is if FO3 is the way it is due to incompetence or due to what I just mentioned. My gut feeling points to the latter, though.

NOTE: I don't think Bethesda actually butt-fucked Fallout's basic premises and concepts to oblivion. I think they just fingered them for a while until they felt a bit disgusted about themselves.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I really do believe that at least some part of it is, yeah, just incompetence. But on a level where it doesn't matter as far as the success of the product goes, because luckily for Bethesda, their marketing gurus, are pretty competent people. You can sell almost everything to people, if you just invest enough in marketing. But you have to do the right campaigns, create the correct hype and so on. Bethesda learned a lot here. Just compare the things they did with Oblivion to Fallout 3 and Skyrim. They basically don't show anything about the games, but they create a kind of thrill. I guess they really want to avoid a situation like with the awesomeness of the Radiant AI, that really was totally ground braking. Just not in the way how Beth really wanted it to be. AI reached a new low with Oblivion. So much for sure. And if you talk with some experienced modders, it really seems strange. Because the explanation was "Radiant AI was to intelligent for the game/player." Uh! Yeah. So they HAD to dumb it down a lot. But as said, the strange thing is, that modders have not even found a trace of this sophisticated Radiant AI Beth was talking about. Never. Nada. Nothing. So either they took their time to remove every line of code that had something to do with it. Or The Radiant AI was never that "Rad" to begin with and they hyped a feature to the heavens that never was even really in the works. What ever the reason was, Fallout 3 had to deal with the same stupid AI.

As far as programming and coding goes, Beth has quite a few problems. Even Skyrim was bugged with so many issues. Less then Oblivion for sure. But still way to man annoying glitches. Same for Fallout 3. Now the story telling is neither a strong point for Bethesda. Even Skyrim lacks that part. Its a great game in the things it does well. Like whacking stuff. Hiking on mountains. Watching the scenery with all the ruins and such. But as far as character development goes and particularly the development of NPCs the game lacks a lot.

So Beth either cant or doesn't care about those parts. And why should they? It seems their games sell pretty well.