Fallout 3 previewed

[Slaughter Manslaught]

Hello Ausir,

I agree on the tribals but regarding the AIs, there where only three;

ODYSSEUS, Athena and possibly the Boulder Dome ZAX unit.

Athena? Ins't Diana you mean?

This wouldn’t have been such a problem if the first two games hadn’t set the bar so high originally.

Yes, silly them, for making ACTUALLY GOOD GAMES. After all, everyone knows that the only way is to do a FPRPG with lots of BLOOM and Bling-Bling.

 

[Sorrow]

With a game that has accumulated such a devoted following, the No Mutants Allowed site being a prime example, there are likely to be a large number of complaints about the game, no matter how much work is put into it.

There's a big difference between a large number of complaints and a large number of people writing the game off.

 

[Ausir]

Hello Ausir,

I agree on the tribals but regarding the AIs, there where only three;

ODYSSEUS, Athena and possibly the Boulder Dome ZAX unit.

It's Diana, not Athena (Athena was a prototype of a Superadvanced Power Armor). And there's a second ZAX in Vault 29, so there's four. FO1 and 2 each had only one (ZAX and Skynet) so I'd say there's an overabundance of them in Van Buren. Diana, ODYSSEUS and Boulder ZAX were essential to the plot, but the second ZAX could've easily been replaced by a non-AI computer.

 

[HoKa]

I'd say that Van Buren was definitely more consistent than FO2 - there were no generic towns that didn't fit the setting like San Fran and New Reno, pretty much all the locations were connected to the main plot and overall they were much more interconnected than in FO2.

Hey New Reno was my favorite town. I always found it cool I could go there to take a vacation from hunting down the GECK for those Arroyo assholes. It made the game feel more realistic and fun: if I had to go from A to B, I'd probably stop along C, D, E, & F for a couple of drinks.

It's a town I can't stay away from every time I play, like it probably would've happened in real life (even if I had this impending-doom-quest thing going on). New Reno is that kind of biggest little city...

 

[Ausir]

New Reno is a very well design town in itself, but it doesn't fit the overall setting much and isn't very well connected to other places in FO2.

 

[HoKa]

New Reno is a very well design town in itself, but it doesn't fit the overall setting much and isn't very well connected to other places in FO2.

Why does it have to be connected? It's a landmark, and it's there, a sin city representing mankind's inevitable vices, for if civilization were to begin again, debauchery, violence and corruption would still be rampart in human society. Also, might as well visit it while doing the groceries.

Hell, Shady Sands had nothing to do with Fallout 1's main storyline, yet it was a nice detraction that added to the whole 'wasteland' atmosphere. I'm pretty sure Fallout wouldn't have been Fallout without that little town in the V13-V15 bee-line.

 

[Sorrow]

Hell, Shady Sands had nothing to do with Fallout 1's main storyline, yet it was a nice detraction that added to the whole 'wasteland' atmosphere. I'm pretty sure Fallout wouldn't have been Fallout without that little town in the V13-V15 bee-line.

Shady Sands at least made sense - it had its own fields, Brahmin and irrigation system - it was visible that it struggles against wastelands. Similarly The Hub had its fields, Brahmin and the water tower.

New Reno has nothing like that. It's just a few bars and casinos.

 

[Roshambo]

Why does it have to be connected? It's a landmark, and it's there, a sin city representing mankind's inevitable vices, for if civilization were to begin again, debauchery, violence and corruption would still be rampart in human society. Also, might as well visit it while doing the groceries.

No signs of support for any of this, and the whole crime thing was kind of silly given that there was NO LAW, among many other factors.

Hell, Shady Sands had nothing to do with Fallout 1's main storyline, yet it was a nice detraction that added to the whole 'wasteland' atmosphere. I'm pretty sure Fallout wouldn't have been Fallout without that little town in the V13-V15 bee-line.

As the descendents of Vault 15, yes, they had nothing to do with the main storyline.

However, they had everything to do with the setting. Everywhere else you notice a good, "fictional" and characteristic Fallout name like "Necropolis", "Junktown", and "Boneyards", then you might see some good Fallout design. Part of the game was discovery, and in the process of figuring out exactly where you are and how the post-apocalyptic world is different from the real one.

 

[DarkCorp]

I'd say that Van Buren was definitely more consistent than FO2 - there were no generic towns that didn't fit the setting like San Fran and New Reno, pretty much all the locations were connected to the main plot and overall they were much more interconnected than in FO2.... Ausir

Correct me if I am wrong but I distinctly remember reading somewhere about some orbital weapons platform being in van buren and how a scientist is gonna use it to unleash another nuclear holocaust.

The whole orbital weapons thing seems too modern of an idea to me and another nuclear strike after WWIII, I woulda figured people would have more respect and if anything, huge reluctance to unleashing another nuclear armageddon.

As to ideas that FO2 that kinda puzzled me. I really thought the whole Chinatown thing was kinda impossible since the chinese decimated the United States not only with nuclear but with biological weapons as well. NCR and Vault City among others would be first to go down there and rub it off the map. Second, there just seemed way too much tech left around. I mean Vault City had a GECK but yet the BOS had no idea that such things existed. You would figure high priority military and government facilities would be the first to have one.

 

[Morbus]

Crap, you made me even sadder about Van Buren having been canceled

 

[Ausir]

Correct me if I am wrong but I distinctly remember reading somewhere about some orbital weapons platform being in van buren and how a scientist is gonna use it to unleash another nuclear holocaust.

The whole orbital weapons thing seems too modern of an idea to me and another nuclear strike after WWIII, I woulda figured people would have more respect and if anything, huge reluctance to unleashing another nuclear armageddon.

The orbital station and spaceship were going to be made Flash Gordon retro style. As for Presper's motives:

Victor Presper was born and raised in the area formally known as Shady Sands, now known as NCR. He spent many of his years as a scientific adviser to President Tandi before his disillusionment settled in – a disillusionment fueled by the Caravan houses that ate away at NCR. He and the others effectively grew frustrated with Tandi, the BoS, the caravans, and everyone else. They just want to start over by wiping the slate clean. Presper needed military help, so he wrangled all of the pissed off NCR Army people into helping him. Even though the NCR Army was winning the war against the Brotherhood of Steel, morale was really low due to the sheer number of causalities they suffered. For every Paladin the NCR took out, they would lose ten or more dumb yokels with leather armor and a bad rifle. The army was also really tired of fighting against powder gangs, which were essentially created because NCR didn't have enough money to pay its railway workers.

Presper noticed a report to NCR by a scientist named Goddard noting the locations of old-world power facilities and sent him out again to investigate certain areas in the old America's southwest. After Goddard returned, Presper and a small team of soldiers investigated Boulder Dome, finding it in need of repair but containing excellent labs and a fully-functioning ZAX unit. When his breaking point finally came, Presper became determined to find a way to rid the world of chaos and human impurities, and discovered his savior in the Limit 115 virus. Through extensive research, Presper discovered the history of Limit 115 and its genocidal potency, and also discovered a viable means to cleanse the world. Using ULYSSES, the Tibbets quarantine prison, and a ballistic satellite known as B.O.M.B.-001, the way to human planetary domination and order became clear. He needed to get to B.O.M.B.-001 and use the nuclear weapons to clean the filth and wretch that currently occupied the surface.

Over the next few years Presper invited or sent scientists and students to the Boulder Dome, where he explained his idea to remake civilization. Those who refuse are put in cold sleep, using technology the original Dome scientists developed to aid space travel. Presper knows he can use the CODE (Challenge, Opportunity, Discipline, Ethics) technology developed there to convince them to help him when the time is right.

While not as good as the Master in FO1, for me it's much more interesting than the Enclave in FO2. Van Buren did have its flaws, but as far as story and setting goes, not nearly as many as FO2, not to mention the stuff we can expect from Bethsoft's FO3.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Athena? Ins't Diana you mean?

You're right!

I must have mixed up names again.

It's Diana, not Athena (Athena was a prototype of a Superadvanced Power Armor). And there's a second ZAX in Vault 29, so there's four. FO1 and 2 each had only one (ZAX and Skynet) so I'd say there's an overabundance of them in Van Buren. Diana, ODYSSEUS and Boulder ZAX were essential to the plot, but the second ZAX could've easily been replaced by a non-AI computer.

Yeah, I was just corrected moments earlier about Diana, I guess I had the wrong Goddess on my mind.
Last night I also realised I forgot the Twin Mothers ZAX unit, but you can't really call it an active AI, its just stuck in the Vault.

Edit:

While perhaps a bit more technology heavy than FO1 and FO2, I loved the idea of finding all this retro tech all over the wasteland.

Most of it was what was left behind before the War while in FO2 a lot of the 'tech' felt as if it was recently constructed.