Fallout 3 Hands-On #12

Aha, PURE SENSELESS SPECULATION.
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Well, it would make sense, since out of all the creatures mentioned in the holodisk, the flatworms are the only ones that can reproduce asexually. And they look like ones, too.

And the centaurs were supposed to be random combinations of various species, so it would make sense for them to be more varied than just the one model in FO1 and 2 (although FO3 will probably also have just one).
 
Ausir said:
And the centaurs were supposed to be random combinations of various species, so it would make sense for them to be more varied than just the one model in FO1 and 2 (although FO3 will probably also have just one).
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Ah, if only Will Wright were working on Fallout 3, we'd have procedurally generated strains of centaurs. Now that'd make sense.

This Cthulhu-model was in the concept art too, though.

Man, and here I was thinking both the faux-Cthulhu and the stupid Southparkian Crab People were just sketches on the edge of concept art that never even made it near the final game. How naive.
 
And doesn't the fact that the mutants infested and took hold of large portions of DC kind of preclude them being "remnants"? If they were just remnants, the Enclave could've just wiped 'em up.
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Sure, we know that the mutants probably have some new source of FEV and are dipping captured humans, but we don't know yet (well, I do) if they're simply an entirely new group of mutants from some FEV Vat hidden by Vault-Tec in a secret vault, the remnants of Master's army that came to the DC and found a new source of FEV to dip people in, a Chinese super mutant breed, mutants created by the Enclave or something else altogether.
 
Yeah I was talking about the crab people :P
I knew the cthulhu-esque thing was the centaur, wich doesnt resemble the original centaurs at all, it looks like a badly mutated person and that's it. I hope they are not supposed to be the same centaurs from the other games.
 
f FO:BoS has to be referenced in order for things in FO3 to 'make sense', that doesn't bode well for any new Fallout canon.
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It was one of many possibilities listed.

Frankly, the idea that these things just plain are not possible in a fictional universe is a bit hard to swallow. Some writer somewhere says x happened and it explains y. This is how ALL fictional canon works. You can argue about the resulting story's quality within the universe, but given we don't really know anything about FO3's story saying certain general happenings are impossible and/or ridiculous is just... well.. ridiculous. Explanations can and in many cases will be offered, the quality of those explanations, and whether or not they retcon the previous titles, should be where the integrity of the overall story is judged.
 
Jesuit said:
Frankly, the idea that these things just plain are not possible in a fictional universe is a bit hard to swallow.
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That's not a good criteria for figuring out what's canonically acceptable for a fictional world. Consistency with the pre-existing background should be first among those concerns.

I hate to bring up the most obvious example, but: Star Wars universe. Eps IV-VI are fairly consistent (Ewoks aside) in terms of tone, 'scientificness' of the sci-fi elements, how much of Space Opera is in those movies, and so on.

Now, when we look at Eps I-III, a lot of those elements are missing, replaced by almost cutesy 'humorous' sci-fi and excessive references and tie-ins to the original trilogy.

Are the two groups consistent with each other? Hardly.

In a similar fashion, while Bethsoft can say that their game is in the Fallout universe; put in all the names of the factions, 'creatures,' history and so on, their vision- tone, how certain background elements (such as nuclear weapons and radiation) are handled, and even how quite a few of the elements look versus how they looked in FO1/2- differs greatly from Black Isle's vision.

It's not consistent. Now, the fact that they can be consistent with a spin-off (actually, both of the spin-offs; yes, the Enclave armor looks a *lot* like the FOT Power Armor) tells us, basically, what they've been projecting since almost the beginning of this project: they're doing 'what they do best,' and are ignoring fans' concerns about canon, style and tone.
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Moving Target said:
That's not a good criteria for figuring out what's canonically acceptable for a fictional world. Consistency with the pre-existing background should be first among those concerns.
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I know, this is why I said whether or not their explanations retcon previous canon is a good basis for judging them. We don't know any specifics about why super mutants are on the east coast, but several seem to be arguing that their presence is neither possible nor acceptably explainable within the canon.

I think there are millions of explanations for their presence on the East coast, many of which could stay true to the canon. Until this explanation is known it seems silly to judge it.
 
Jesuit said:
We don't know any specifics about why super mutants are on the east coast, but several seem to be arguing that their presence is neither possible nor acceptably explainable within the canon.
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Uh...who is saying that?

I remember prior to any announcements of present factions were made, I made a post on the BGSF saying that it'd make a lot of sense for super mutants to be present, just not for any of the other factions (BoS, Enclave, NCR). I stand by that.

I just hope they get a good explanation, good motives, good personality as in Fallout 1.

Centaurs and floaters I do have somewhat of an issue with, as said above, but nothing that can't be resolved 't all. They were very specifically "the Master's pets", tho'.
 
Brother None said:
Uh...who is saying that?
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You did sometime last week, though you weren't talking specifically about mutants you were saying some number of whatever factions shouldn't be there for who knows why. What if the fallout god came down from heaven and said "y'know what, the NCR captured some vertibirds from the Shi and then decided that it would try to spread democracy over the continent, hence a group of them have wound up on the East Coast pushing NCR interest in the area." or "You know what, fuck this, some other doctors and scientists, of which the fallout universe obviously has many, found a way to reverse engineer Jet on the East coast from a sample brought by a Super Mutant or BoS paladin."

While my examples are primitive, surely there's something the fallout god could say to satisfactorily explain the presence of some or all of those factions on the East Coast? Thirty years is a long time, and until I hear some explanations I'm not ready to call bullshit.

That being said, the current BoS "explanation" is mediocre at best.
 
Jesuit said:
You did sometime last week, though you weren't talking specifically about mutants you were saying some number of whatever factions shouldn't be there for who knows why.
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Of course. But that had nothing to do with canon. Hell, I was pretty explicit about that so I'm unclear on why you fail to understand me - I could make a canonically sound explanation for every one of these factions to be on the East Coast (I'm not sure if Bethesda can, based on their BoS explanation, but yes - it is possible).

That does not mean that it isn't jarring in a narrative sense to move the game over a thousand miles of territory to then suddenly make all the familiar faces pop up. That's like having Lord of the Rings 4 being across the ocean but suddenly all the hobbits and Rohimmir and orcs are there. Can I make up a reason for it? Yes. Does that mean the decision to move across major geographical territory and then bring back too many factions from the previous game - which is only 20 friggin' years ago - is narratively sound? Hell no!
 
Brother None said:
Does that mean the decision to move across major geographical territory and then bring back too many factions from the previous game - which is only 20 friggin' years ago - is narratively sound? Hell no!
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In that case we're in agreement. It is, from narrative standpoint, very questionable.
 
Jesuit said:
In that case we're in agreement. It is, from narrative standpoint, very questionable.
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Why put up such a defense about it then? Do you just not think that the devil has enough advocates? I was a fan of TES, so I know Bethesda can pull umpteen billion reasons from their asses for throwing in this or that, but forcing in a puzzle piece with a hammer doesn't really mean it belongs there. They haven't exactly done a great job with their own lore on TES recently. Why should we expect any better from them when it comes to Fallout? Morrowind (less so) and Oblivion (more so) both show a tendency on Bethesda's part of not actually being consistent, coming up with half-assed retcon, not learning from mistakes, instead going on to fix what isn't even broken.
 
ookami said:
Why put up such a defense about it then?
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Because making accurate criticisms is important to me. Mostly because I find accurate criticism to be helpful and random bullshit criticism to be annoying. If it doesn't matter to you that's your choice but I'm not gonna run around telling you what should matter to you. Also, yes I am apparently prone to misunderstand people's original meaning so I like to clarify that.

PS yes, Bethesda's record is shoddy, most civilized justice systems don't allow the prosecution to take priors into account because it's an unreliable method of judgment. It's really not that hard to wait until AFTER the game comes out to definitively call it a piece of shit is it?
 
Definitive is a relative term. I've seen few people who have definitively called it a piece of shit. None in this thread, so why are you bringing this up? People are simply forming their opinions based on the information as it comes in. And if most of that information is interpreted as negative...well, too bad for Bethesda. What, should people start adding disclaimers a la "This is not a definitive judgement" to every critical post just so you won't misunderstand?
 
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