Fallout 3 Hands-On #4

[Seymour the spore plant]

No, he's killable alright.

When I killed the sheriff of Megaton and stole his cowboy hat, the citizens of the city were none too happy with me and began to mob me. I had to flee the city and I lost access to the quests in the city. On the up side, however, I had a cowboy hat.

So much for breathing wrong and being fucking ended.

 

[Brother None]

Makes it seem likely that only NPCs directly related to the main storyline are immortal, which would be good-ish news.

Bethesda made it sound like that was there intention, and I hope they stick with it. So I'm not surprised.

 

[Per]

Guess I'll mention it: hey, you can kill the Sheriff! Major quest NPC, and he's killable! Did we already know this?

Sort of, since we knew you can blow up the city he's in.

 

[Brother None]

Sort of, since we knew you can blow up the city he's in.

Nah man, don't you remember? We were told ages ago that you could assassinate him in secret and take over the sheriff's clothing and...apparently...role. Plus, as mentioned, you can pick a fight for him in dialogue, which would be an exceedingly stupid dialogue choice in a conversation with an immortal.

"What's that you say, God, you're sheriff in these here heaven? Well no longer! HAVE AT!"

 

[Havok4]

Well the inclusion for blisteringly stupid choices for the player to make would provide more freedom. But I prefer it when the bad choices are more subtle.

 

[Brother None]

Well the inclusion for blisteringly stupid choices for the player to make would provide more freedom.

Calling a sheriff out inside a town that he runs would be fairly well defined as "blisteringly stupid".

But choice involves options. Immortality by definition precludes choices when it comes to life or death.

 

[Moving Target]

Plus *puts on Captain Obvious gear* having immortal NPCs seriously detracts from the whole "it's a deadly post-apocalyptic wasteland with few rules" trope.

 

[Brother None]

Depends on how you handle it.

Fallout 1 and 2 both had immortal NPCs. The Overseer in Fallout 1 and the village in Fallout 2 (not immortal, but the game ended if you killed 'em, kind of the same thing).

It's kind of embarrassing when it happens, fair's fair, and if even the TSR Division/BIS lot can't avoid then heck, that's the way it is. Even Arcanum cheated and put letters on plot essential characters, just in case the PC came in guns ablaze.

 

[Havok4]

Calling a sheriff out inside a town that he runs would be fairly well defined as "blisteringly stupid".

But choice involves options. Immortality by definition precludes choices when it comes to life or death.

You do have a point there, it would be a better option to just have very severe consequences to killing said NPCs. But there is the difficulty of adapting the game to fit all possible outcomes and the workload for adapting to one central NPC's death could severely strain the workload for the developers. And I would like to see a fairly polished game.

 

[Brother None]

Haven't you been listening? The game's spun out of control into twice the size originally intended, 100 hours of gameplay and massive square mileage.

They could have bucked the trend and instead of going for epic, large, empty and locked-in, they could have gone for small, detailed and open to many, many different choices and paths. Apparently, they had time to spare to do either one (but not both) and deliver a polished game.

The latter option sounds a lot better to me than an RPG in which I'm forced to fight at some point, and several NPCs are immortal.

 

[Havok4]

Haven't you been listening? The game's spun out of control into twice the size originally intended, 100 hours of gameplay and massive square mileage.

They could have bucked the trend and instead of going for epic, large, empty and locked-in, they could have gone for small, detailed and open to many, many different choices and paths. Apparently, they had time to spare to do either one (but not both) and deliver a polished game.

The latter option sounds a lot better to me than an RPG in which I'm forced to fight at some point, and several NPCs are immortal.

I forgot to consider that aspect, excellent point.

 

[Ranne]

Let's not blow these things out of proportions here. "Massive square mileage" means "smaller than Oblivion", instead of previously announced "much, much smaller than Oblivion". A "world" (bear with the quotation marks) of less than 4x4 miles is not that impressive at all, especially considering that hideous fast travel feature. 100 hours of gameplay? Well, Oblivion claimed to have over 200 hours of gameplay. These are marketing phrases that mean nothing.

I know you know this. I'm only mentioning this so some uninformed reader doesn't go:

-Wow, NMA's BN just said that that F3 was fricking huge and long as hell. I'm gonna pre-order 5 copies right away.