Fallout 3 - pray to god it will be intact

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Chill, Req. This thread's gonna be fun soon.

*sets up popcorn stand*

Rosh got first dibs on the popcorn for this thread and if it pisses me off I'm going to add my tuppence.

I've just had a similar arguement at DaC, there seems to be a small element of (mostly recent) Fallout players who think that RPG just means character stats and freedom of play. They seem to think that you can interchange all the other parts of the game, isometric for first person, TB combat for real time and world maps for real time environments. Ignoring that Fallout was intended to be as close to a pnp tabletop experience (but on a computer) and that all the elements that they think can be discarded, just because they see them as outdated, are as much a part of the experience as the setting and story.

Yet they seem to fail to understand that the freedom of play is a much due to the SPECIAL system and lack of classes as it is to the level design and writing. That the SPECIAL system works on formulas based on dice rolls and dice rolls work best with TB combat (I've never yet been to a group where every player brought their own set of dice with them). Turn Based combat in turn (no pun intended) doesn't work well with the first person view and real time environments would castrate the Fallout world as they would either have to cut the playing area right down or find ways of speeding up travel which would end up stretching the setting to it's limits and even breaking it or be more restrictive and linear than using a world map.

Most of these people pay lip service to story and setting, saying this is what they liked most about the game, others are more honest and say they liked running around with guns killing people. Reading the responses of those who say it's the story they liked and then the changes they want to make I'm sure that they would be just as happy with any game setting that would allow them to run around with guns killing people and building up their stats.

Sure FO3 will be different than the previous games, the world has moved on, technology has advanced (though not necessarily improved) if the FO3 devs are clever they'll think up ways of improving the recipe without ending up making bread instead of cake .

 

[Roshambo]

It'd make a nice desert hike simulator, but not a fun game. Playing Morrowind, I had the feeling that some of the ash wastes were overly big and repetitive.

And quite frankly, the locations in Fallout are far enough apart that it would feel like running between remote locations in Daggerfall. Or Arena. That is far more representative of the distance and otherwise emptiness in the universe, because it is a wasteland.

That kind of design is perfectly fine for people with nothing better to do with their lives, including developers who have to worry about minotaur nuts.

Back in the real world...

 

[Ratty Sr.]

And quite frankly, the locations in Fallout are far enough apart that it would feel like running between remote locations in Daggerfall. Or Arena. That is far more representative of the distance and otherwise emptiness in the universe, because it is a wasteland.

It would be *much* worse. Iliac Bay is as huge as Fallout 2 world, but pretty densely populated, and average distance between two locations is several miles tops. But in Fallout we are talking about post-apocalyptic wasteland. What was once a modern country is now a handful primitive communities, most of them so far apart that the only way to travel between them relatively safely is to join one of the caravans that depart once or twice a month. An average journey in Fallout is a 200-mile trek through irradiated, raider-ridden wastes and takes many days.

Signeon, want to give your idea a test drive? Go to Libya and try walking, say, from Al Jawf to Waw al Kabir. Toss in some vicious raider bands and a few packs of radscorpions, and you should have some idea of what your Fallout 3 experience would be like.

 

[Per]

As far as the actual Fo3 goes, though, for all we know it's set in a single city. Or a single basement. Restricted Area?

 

[Signeon]

I agree, my idea doesn't work well. It's another one of those situations where you have to balance fun and realism (as real as Fallout can get). A way to compensate for this would be to have a time-compression system (like Silent Hunter III), so if nothing was happening, the player could jack up the speed and maybe set some kind of auto-walk system. It doesn't sound like that great an idea, but I think that's as close as you could get to having a world map in an ES-esque game. But you're right, that would make the game linear and complicated.

Fallout was intended to be a PnP kind of experience, and the FPS view would ruin that. The only real benefit I can see from putting it in that perspective is that a cover system would be easier to work out.

Oh, and of course I loved killing people with guns, but the story was just so immersive, more so than any other game I've ever played. But the guns... good times.

 

[RPGenius]

Presonally I've always been more of a fan of teh supersledge. Love to watch enemie fly.
(Buys some popcorn for 35 caps)

 

[astar]

ok Im a huge fallout fan and always have been. But I have to say this, you are bashing morrowing as some kind of dumbed down hunk of cheap story telling.

Well what did fallout have for a story?

the world got nuked because war never changes.

You live in a vault, the waterchips broken.

a bunch of inane sidequests.

A few plot elements like the ghoul side story, nothing really deep if you ask me, but maybe you live in a shallow world.

Oh a fev virus that turns people into mutants.

I realize their was a lot of nuances, but morrowind had those to. Problem with morrowind was it was dry. It wasn't any less deep then fallout it was just dry storywise. Well, if you think it's a feet of imposibility to put charm, references and nice nuances into a story line your pretty mislead. I really do get the impression they have been drolling over fallout for a long time, and they will have a long time before the product is done. They quite possibly could make an entertaining game. Everything interplay made wasn't always so spell binding. With oblivion between them and fallout3, I think there will be enough experience and brain storming/day dreaming to make fallout3 entertaining.

 

[astar]

then again, they may totally miss the charm, and even with a deeper story it would be unappealing. But premature doomsaying is always annoying in large doses.

 

[Per]

 

[riot]

i don't have any hope left: fallout 3 will never reach f2's level even with the same game designers, so don't take it on bethesda so soon.
i just hope that some modders will figure that out soon and stop making all the stupid maps and shitty guns with crappy graphics and better start improving f2 by implementing the fot hiq graphics and sounds. or even making it better.
i would love the details of fot and the story/gameplay of f2. maybe it's not possible, but i think that with the right people it can be accomplished!

 

[RPGenius]

The right people were Troika, which was founded by several of Fo's original designers, and they tried to get the liscence, but were outbid by Beth. Troika have now gone bust, due largely to putting their last hopes into Fallout.

 

[riot]

well then why would an outsider company want the license so much instead of letting the old people get it?
and again why doesn't troika make a Fallout 3 the way they want (the way it should be done) under a different name. also i'm curios why interplay gave the license away...

 

[Ashmo]

well then why would an outsider company want the license so much instead of letting the old people get it?
and again why doesn't troika make a Fallout 3 the way they want (the way it should be done) under a different name. also i'm curios why interplay gave the license away...

1. Interplay is practically bankrupt because they cancelled Fallout 3 and instead focussed on FOBOS, which became a financial flop. It's not like they could do much with the license anymore.

2. Troika doesn't exist anymore and even if it still did, they couldn't make a Fallout game without owning the license. Also Troika isn't the original Fallout team either -- they're just one of the companies that have a lot of former team members in them (as founding members too).

3. The Intellectual Property (IP) has been successful in the past (apart from the spin-offs) and thus holds potential for income. Beth saw that potential and figured the money they would be willing to pay for it would be outweighed by that potential. So they bought it.

Would you mind reading the news archive (search for "Fallout" and "license") before posting again?

Also, for the nth time: Troika stated that they were not outbid by Beth because they never bid in the first place. They didn't have any sponsors that could have provided them with the money to bid either.

If Troika would have had the spare money, they wouldn't have become bankrupt (one symptom of bankrupcy being not having ANY money to spend), would they?

 

[RPGenius]

Troika stated that they were not outbid by Beth because they never bid in the first place.

Not according to Wikipedia

The anger became greater when it was revealed that Troika Games had made an offer for Fallout's rights, but was soundly out-bid by Bethesda.

Here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(computer_game)
Go to the section entitled "The Fallout Community, and read down."

 

[Per]

Gee, should we believe a Wikipedia entry or what Tim Cain has actually told us in person?

 

[Roshambo]

Or perhaps Leon himself?

The facts are that Troika had a discussed interest that the fan base was supporting, and had talks with Interplay. Then Bethesda came in and took the license, without any authoring or development courtesy to contact those who developed the game before (and we know Herve was only interested in mo' money), effectively pulling a Hasbro since they have yet to make a real CRPG and expect us to believe that they can, but have acquired the license and they expect us to jump because they have The Almighty Fallout License. Sorry, we've already seen what overhyped designers can do with both Fallout (FOT, FOS) and the SPECIAL system (Lionheart). It doesn't help that they pull the same boneheaded stunt that every other hack who has touched Fallout has said - that they are Fallout fans. Well, if they were Fallout fans, then they would care to explain why they took the license from those the fans considered the greatest hope of having a faithful sequel, considering Feargus "SLAM DUNK! Whore" Brainfart and J.E. "Romero's Coffee Bitch" Sawyer were bent on fucking with the design to sell out, which is ironic since Sawyer got his job by asskissing on the Fallout 2 IPLY Feedback forum.

Bethesda did give an explanation, that they didn't care, and even took a cheap shot at Troika.

We're not impressed so far already with billing a game and story progression that has jack shit to do with any serious role-playing. TES' "role-playing" essentially amounts to increasing your stats to fight and move better, as they really don't have any real interaction with the important part of a CRPG - the story and the interaction of the actors within it. When that is story-driven or linear progression as with Morrowind, then it's neither CRPG nor really that good. Hell, Gothic has better gameplay, merely because you CAN role-play to a certain extent before it turns linear. In Morrowind, it's lacking from start to end.

As for Wiki, one entry about Fallout (can't find it at the moment) has people saying that they should start using parts of the Fallout Bible.

Which is just more amusing, since the Fallout Bible had more canon-breakers than Fallout Tactocs.

 

[Ashmo]

Wikipedia articles about games are mostly written by fans or players of that game.

In the case of Fallout, many of those who editted the article are members of NMA and DAC.

i.e. the very same people you're talking to right now.

Wikipedia is not an authority. It's a free encyclopedia filled with the knowledge of individuals -- and this knowledge can be wrong.

I'm not against Wikipedia, I just don't think you can use it as an authority when it comes to things the editors only had outside knowledge of.

 

[Silencer]

Keep it up to date, stupid!

 

[Kahgan]

ok Im a huge fallout fan and always have been. But I have to say this, you are bashing morrowing as some kind of dumbed down hunk of cheap story telling.

Well what did fallout have for a story?

the world got nuked because war never changes.

You live in a vault, the waterchips broken.

a bunch of inane sidequests.

A few plot elements like the ghoul side story, nothing really deep if you ask me, but maybe you live in a shallow world.

Oh a fev virus that turns people into mutants.

I realize their was a lot of nuances, but morrowind had those to. Problem with morrowind was it was dry. It wasn't any less deep then fallout it was just dry storywise. Well, if you think it's a feet of imposibility to put charm, references and nice nuances into a story line your pretty mislead. I really do get the impression they have been drolling over fallout for a long time, and they will have a long time before the product is done. They quite possibly could make an entertaining game. Everything interplay made wasn't always so spell binding. With oblivion between them and fallout3, I think there will be enough experience and brain storming/day dreaming to make fallout3 entertaining.

Dude, I can do that trick with any story, take Lord Of The Rings for example, wich has a HUGE fanbase more fanatic than the fallout-fanbase:

The setting is some wierd mix between the regular fantasy genre and old norse mytholigy together with varius more or less similar old mytholigies.

Some evil Lord who wants to controle the earth.

Some heroes who against all ods manage to destroy this evil lord

Conclusion: Lord Of The Rings SUCKED!

was that a very good summary of the LOTR setting/story? I THINK YE NOT!

 

[Signeon]

Summaries never do a good job anyway, especially for games. They're something that has to be experienced. Unless it's a game novel or something.