ChrisB
First time out of the vault
I think you're missing the point. I guess I should just drop it.
Establishment of Alternative Fan Timeline/Canon
- Thread starter ChrisB
- Start date
First time out of the vault
naossano
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
The problem is that you don't seem to grasp that something doesn't necessarily have to be canon to appear in a wiki, to be discussed or to be relevant. Your wiki can be a great idea, but you seem to be shooting your own leg by insisting to only have one canon.
ChrisB
First time out of the vault
Well I see your point. I wasn't trying to insist on one canon. But I think the idea of an agreed upon alternative canon, curated by the community. I don't exactly know how this would work. If I'm shooting myself in the food, I'd like to stop doing that. We still are getting content by not only Creation engine modders, but FOline games. I don't know what to call it, or how to approach it. And it's not an attempt to ban differing opinions on what should be canon. A NMA curated canon? I don't know.
Gizmojunk
Antediluvian as Feck
The community could establish labeled "timelines", and call them that. In this way they could make mods for a specific timeline, or make mods that were timeline indifferent —not contradicting, and could be used by either. Timelines could have major historical events in common, or be a complete schism from all others after a certain date.
Example mod labels could be:
Ideally the mod authors would stick to the guidelines for their selected timeline, and so all mods for a given timeline should remain cohesive.
Example mod labels could be:
- FO3:Operation Anaheim [Barnaky Timeline]
- FO4:Assorted Rubber Rain Boots [Indifferent]
- FO:New Vegas: Underground Uprising [Bethesda Timeline]
- Fallout 2: A Brave Nude World [Hubologist Timeline]
Ideally the mod authors would stick to the guidelines for their selected timeline, and so all mods for a given timeline should remain cohesive.
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ChrisB
First time out of the vault
That sounds good. I assume though every fan game ignores other fan games' lore.
Gizmojunk
Antediluvian as Feck
Some fans even ignore Bethesda. FO3? What FO3?
ChrisB
First time out of the vault
I know.
naossano
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Some fan mod can be worked on concurently for more than a decade. They ought to contradict each other or not aknowledge titles that were released during their development cycle.
About Fonline server, 95% use the very same map and reshape the quests npcs for their needs. They also ought to contradict each other.
And there are some mods that aren't even meant to fit the lore in the first place.
- There are mods that are purposly parodic and fourth wall breaking.
- There are retelling of the main quests, parodic or not.
- There are mods focusing on a specific gameplay and not the lore (all the mods by Haris & Miran, plus Fonline)
- There are mods that aren't meant to be in a Fallout universe.
- Some others are meant to be in the Fallout universe, but the explanation doesn't fit.
- And, as said before, there is a bunch of legitimally lore friendly mods, that can contradict each other or contradict official sequels that were relased after the mod development cycle have started. (or finished) I an currently playing and excellent mod that takes place after Fo1 and features the destruction of one of the major city of the Fo universe. That doesn't mean that the mod is NOT lore-friendly. Just happen to not follow the same timeline as the sequels.
About Fonline server, 95% use the very same map and reshape the quests npcs for their needs. They also ought to contradict each other.
And there are some mods that aren't even meant to fit the lore in the first place.
- There are mods that are purposly parodic and fourth wall breaking.
- There are retelling of the main quests, parodic or not.
- There are mods focusing on a specific gameplay and not the lore (all the mods by Haris & Miran, plus Fonline)
- There are mods that aren't meant to be in a Fallout universe.
- Some others are meant to be in the Fallout universe, but the explanation doesn't fit.
- And, as said before, there is a bunch of legitimally lore friendly mods, that can contradict each other or contradict official sequels that were relased after the mod development cycle have started. (or finished) I an currently playing and excellent mod that takes place after Fo1 and features the destruction of one of the major city of the Fo universe. That doesn't mean that the mod is NOT lore-friendly. Just happen to not follow the same timeline as the sequels.
The big problem I see in a project like this is that there is not only one Fallout community, there are many Fallout communities. And so, it is pretty impossible to have it curated and "agreed on" by the "community".
Even here, in the NMA site we have several "communities". And people around here usually agree in many stuff, but also disagree in many other stuff.
That is the major problem about a project like this, no one would be able to agree in many aspects, events, timeline, characters, etc.
For example, many people wouldn't want to include a lot of stuff (or even all the stuff) from Bethesda's Fallout games, but then there are the community of people who like Fallout 3 and/or Fallout 4 and would want to include it/them, then there are people who would want to include some things from those games but not others, then the same would happen with Fallout Tactics, Fallout New Vegas, Van Buren, maybe some crazy people would even want to include some stuff from FOBOS, Fallout 76 or even Shelter. And there are plenty of known stuff from other canceled games that some could also want to include while others wouldn't want included. FOBOS 2 design documents are known, it is also known the backstory of Fallout Tactics 2 and there is also a lot of information about Fallout Extreme.
People would be fighting with each other to allow and disallow stuff to be added to the "Official" "Fallout Fanon", it would be ugly.
The problem with this is that Fallout as an IP is shattered and fragmented in several directions, which divides the community in several.
And there isn't a single Fallout community that fully agrees on everything either. Even here, on NMA people can't agree on which Fallout game is better or what should and shouldn't be canon. As an example, some say the ghost shouldn't be canon, while others say they are fine with it, another example is some people don't agree with the Fallout bible that says the Sierra Army Depot GNN Holodisk is not canon or that Skynet was not called Skynet...
I have been part of Fallout community since 1998-9 and this "community" is always in disarray and never in agreement for many things. Unfortunately I really don't think it would reach a generalized agreement on what should and shouldn't be official fanon.
Then there is a smaller problem, getting enough people on board. People seem too unmotivated and/or busy with their lives to be able to support something like this. What I see happening is people saying they will join, but then just quickly disappear, or people just not joining to begin with. I have been trying to make this community do stuff/projects together since I joined NMA, and I had no success at all.
Even here, in the NMA site we have several "communities". And people around here usually agree in many stuff, but also disagree in many other stuff.
That is the major problem about a project like this, no one would be able to agree in many aspects, events, timeline, characters, etc.
For example, many people wouldn't want to include a lot of stuff (or even all the stuff) from Bethesda's Fallout games, but then there are the community of people who like Fallout 3 and/or Fallout 4 and would want to include it/them, then there are people who would want to include some things from those games but not others, then the same would happen with Fallout Tactics, Fallout New Vegas, Van Buren, maybe some crazy people would even want to include some stuff from FOBOS, Fallout 76 or even Shelter. And there are plenty of known stuff from other canceled games that some could also want to include while others wouldn't want included. FOBOS 2 design documents are known, it is also known the backstory of Fallout Tactics 2 and there is also a lot of information about Fallout Extreme.
People would be fighting with each other to allow and disallow stuff to be added to the "Official" "Fallout Fanon", it would be ugly.
The problem with this is that Fallout as an IP is shattered and fragmented in several directions, which divides the community in several.
And there isn't a single Fallout community that fully agrees on everything either. Even here, on NMA people can't agree on which Fallout game is better or what should and shouldn't be canon. As an example, some say the ghost shouldn't be canon, while others say they are fine with it, another example is some people don't agree with the Fallout bible that says the Sierra Army Depot GNN Holodisk is not canon or that Skynet was not called Skynet...
I have been part of Fallout community since 1998-9 and this "community" is always in disarray and never in agreement for many things. Unfortunately I really don't think it would reach a generalized agreement on what should and shouldn't be official fanon.
Then there is a smaller problem, getting enough people on board. People seem too unmotivated and/or busy with their lives to be able to support something like this. What I see happening is people saying they will join, but then just quickly disappear, or people just not joining to begin with. I have been trying to make this community do stuff/projects together since I joined NMA, and I had no success at all.
naossano
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
As said earlier, the concept of a wiki about the mods lore seems a great idea, (or even expand the official wikia to the community content lore) not only for Fo1-Fo2 mods lore, but also Tactics and Gamebryo mods lore. Many of those mods are awesome, but most of them remains obscure to the general audience. They don't have sections of their own, they don't get the same advertizing as the official games. Most likely, they get forgotten as soon as the content creator stop advertizing them. That's why i started this project here. To make sure informations about them remain available, and gathered at the same place. That's why there was this mod wiki. That is why Drobovic made his database. Going further and making the lore within those mods more easily available is another step in the right direction.
But that whole thing about which one should be canon or not would only hinder the process, by creating unecessary arguments about things that couldn't be solved, and lose the focus of the initiative to make those contents more known, more available, more shared, closer to their audience. At best, we can argue about which ones are more lore friendly, but canonicity couldn't be reached and shouldn't be the focus. Those mods deserves attention regardless of what event they contradict.
But that whole thing about which one should be canon or not would only hinder the process, by creating unecessary arguments about things that couldn't be solved, and lose the focus of the initiative to make those contents more known, more available, more shared, closer to their audience. At best, we can argue about which ones are more lore friendly, but canonicity couldn't be reached and shouldn't be the focus. Those mods deserves attention regardless of what event they contradict.
Gizmojunk
Antediluvian as Feck
That is the idea. The mod designer labels it whatever timeline is appropriate; using an existing one(s) or new one. The label lets the user know what mods are a cohesive timeline.
That way they don't —unknowingly— combine mods where the the timelines contradict each other.