Fallout 3 QA guy on subject of "200 years later"

[Westbend]

My whole estate is made of identical houses.

Fucking council with their lazy/bad design.

You might want to read peoples posts fully before posting a knee-jerk reaction post that makes you look silly. Like Ausir said. Its about identical houses with identical damage patterns next to each other thats the lazy/bad design.

 

[Per]

I guess I'm a little late to the party, but:

I'm sure I could make a list with unexplainable and unrealistic things from Fallout 1+2 just as long as you can make from what we know of Fallout 3 so far.

Just as long as they aren't all "it's not realistic that people turn into ghouls", given that there's a difference between realism and believability/consistency. But other than that, you're welcome to try. We might end up going, "Yeah, you're absolutely right. So, looks like Bethesda is emulating Fallout's bad design spots?"

if we were talking about, say... Baldur's Gate 3 here - would you all cry about there being lots of magical items lying around?

I'm sorry, but if your argument is that "if you don't complain about the dragons you can't complain about anything", then you haven't understood the subject.

For example, i don't want to find a flamethrower in a bookcase like in boneyard! (if i remember correctly).

You might be thinking about the one Talius gives you in the Follower basement with the bookcases?

 

[aronsearle]

My whole estate is made of identical houses.

Fucking council with their lazy/bad design.

You might want to read peoples posts fully before posting a knee-jerk reaction post that makes you look silly. Like Ausir said. Its about identical houses with identical damage patterns next to each other thats the lazy/bad design.

My bad.

Still couldnt give 2 figs though.

Such a non issue.

 

[aenemic]

my point is simply this (yeah, I'm gonna keep this simple not to start any flame-wars and so that there's nothing for you to over analyze): there's no reason for you to hold Fallout 3 to a much higher standard than any other game. you're already expecting a bad game in itself, so why are you forcing yourselves to expect all these tiny little details you don't see in any other games anyways? just think about that for a moment.

and don't give me that usual "well, Bethesda said so and so" - they've never ever said they're making a game as realistic as possible. yes, they're aiming for immersion (oh god I'm tired of that word) but immersion isn't about realism in that sense. it's about getting pulled into the gaming experience and feeling as close to the gaming world as possible.

 

[Brother None]

there's no reason for you to hold Fallout 3 to a much higher standard than any other game.

Who says we are? I criticize obvious flaws like this in any game.

The only thing that sets Fallout 3 apart is that we pay more attention to it, so the details are bound to stand out more. That's only natural.

and don't give me that usual "well, Bethesda said so and so".

Huh? Nobody has even hinted at saying that. Straw man much?

 

[Anani Masu]

But is it actually bad design in the first place?

The old Fallouts, as well as the new one, have things decay at unlikely rates because that makes it a better game. The Glow would not have dangerous radiation levels during Fallout 1 if we went for realism, but the heavy radiation made it a more interesting and hostile experience. Pre war stimpaks, ammo, etc. would all have likely been looted/decayed to uselessness even by the time of the first game.

A more realistic game in which EVERYTHING had long since been looted, Washington DC had been completely incinerated, everything had decayed at appropriate speed and so on would be a far less interesting and worse playing game than the one we're getting.

The presence of a supply cache at the supermart creates conflict. People in nearby settlement want the supplies. The raider's who have set up on the cache want to keep it for themselves.

 

[sarfa]

*snip*
3) with how valueable a power cell or generator from a car with enough power still in it to blow up after 200 years, it would have been scavenged. not explainable by artistic liscense.

I disgree. These cars look very volatile to me, sort of "Don't breathe on it to hard" volatile. Therefore I could see people not scavenging them for fear of the thing blowing up when they try to opne it/move it etc. Some explosive devices simply become more dangerous after a while, and if you're not a highly trained expert, the best thing to do with one such device after 200 years is to leave it alone and keep your distance. Very few people would feel confidant enough to have any idea what they were doing with scavenging such a device, and even fewer would be able to do so without ending up as meaty chunks on the floor. It's not unfeasible for all such people to have been killed in the war, and for no such people to have plundered DC. After all, teaching new people these skills would be difficult and quite possibly not a priority after the bombs fell.

Ofcourse, if any idiot ends up trying to use the exploding cars for cover...

 

[Westbend]

My whole estate is made of identical houses.

Fucking council with their lazy/bad design.

You might want to read peoples posts fully before posting a knee-jerk reaction post that makes you look silly. Like Ausir said. Its about identical houses with identical damage patterns next to each other thats the lazy/bad design.

My bad.

Still couldnt give 2 figs though.

Such a non issue.

Let me try this again.

How is Bethesda having 3 structures with identical meshes, damage pattern, and textures, right next to each other, an unimportant non issue?
I would like an elaboration since, to me anyway, this seems like a surefire way to ruin the oft mentioned "immersivness" Bethesda wants to achieve.

Edit: Not to mention that (if I got my preview vids right) the houses are located in the destroyed suburb right outside the Vault.
If they do cost cutting measures like clone stamping out the exact same destruction variant houses right next to each other in an area of the game witch they planned to show to "Journalists" and the public, one can only wonder about the polish of the rest of the game.

 

[vault_dweller]

I disgree. These cars look very volatile to me, sort of "Don't breathe on it to hard" volatile. Therefore I could see people not scavenging them for fear of the thing blowing up when they try to open it/move it etc.

It's a car

 

[ookami]

Very few people would feel confidant enough to have any idea what they were doing with scavenging such a device

With one of the small/micro fusion cells that power the damn things? That is the nuclear component. A lot of people didn't seem to have too much trouble handling those. Now consider that the BoS is in town. Do you really think they would pass up such a useful and potentially dangerous thing that was just left laying around? Even if the goody-goody faction of the BoS didn't, the other would. It's simply their established MO. Breaking that breaks consistency and thus breaks verisimilitude. Hell, for that matter, how did someone else not already manage in 200 years to blow them up? All you have to do is hit them with a couple of bullets apparently.

Now in highly dangerous/contaminated areas where nobody really wants to go scavenging, I could see there still being some left. I could certainly picture bodies of people who tried to take things away from these areas heaped around much like you find in front of the Sierra Army Depot. That would make them fairly few and far between, though.

If Bethesda implements it that way in the final game, that's fine. So far, they've only made it seem like you'll be able to find these incredibly-able-to-explode cars on every corner, as ubiquitous as the exploding barrels in so many FPS games.

 

[Brother None]

The old Fallouts, as well as the new one, have things decay at unlikely rates because that makes it a better game. The Glow would not have dangerous radiation levels during Fallout 1 if we went for realism, but the heavy radiation made it a more interesting and hostile experience. Pre war stimpaks, ammo, etc. would all have likely been looted/decayed to uselessness even by the time of the first game.

Things don't decay - works with the whole 50's vibe

Things don't get looted -doesn't work with the whole Mad Max vibe

So, uh, the raiders sat on that loot for 200 years?

Good on 'em, I guess. Did it ever occur to them to maybe trade the medicine for something?

A more realistic game in which EVERYTHING had long since been looted, Washington DC had been completely incinerated, everything had decayed at appropriate speed and so on would be a far less interesting and worse playing game than the one we're getting.

Which brings me back to my question related to this topic - why is this game set 30 years after Fallout 2 anyway? Why isn't this game chronologically simultaneous with Fallout 1? It's in a whole different location, so why the chronological jump, since it brings up so many issues?

 

[aronsearle]

How is Bethesda having 3 structures with identical meshes, damage pattern, and textures, right next to each other, an unimportant non issue?.

Because i don't care to much about such graphical issues if the game play is good, in fact i just don't care at all.

The game play/writing is where they need to get it right, and that's where they deserve criticism, in buckets.

 

[Goral]

The old Fallouts, as well as the new one, have things decay at unlikely rates because that makes it a better game. The Glow would not have dangerous radiation levels during Fallout 1 if we went for realism, but the heavy radiation made it a more interesting and hostile experience. (...)

Huh? Are you one of Fallout creators? If not, how can you know that radiation in the Glow wouldn't be dangerous? Do we know what was stored in the Glow? After all it was weapons-research facility where Power Armors and energy weapons were created. They must have had radioactive materials, who knows maybe they had nuclear bombs themselves. Also do we know what type of bomb was used? For all we know it could be cobalt bomb (which was known in the 50's, at least in theory) or some other nasty weapon that would contaminate the area for centuries. Creators say there was massive amount of radiation and that's it. You're going to extremes.

 

[PaladinHeart]

A little random, but it would be nice if we could take the cars apart and loot them for useful goodies to sell. Especially if we can remove the nuclear power cells and use them in homemade explosives and/or ammo for energy weapons.

 

[IanLacy]

I want to see Fallout 4 dated 200 years after Fallout 3 and based in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Colorado...

/sarcasm

 

[Anani Masu]

Things don't decay - works with the whole 50's vibe

Things don't get looted -doesn't work with the whole Mad Max vibe

So, uh, the raiders sat on that loot for 200 years?

Good on 'em, I guess. Did it ever occur to them to maybe trade the medicine for something?

Why did a vault which spawned 3 different groups of raiders and was supposed to have been thoroughly looted still have 2 lockers on the first floor with flares, stimpaks and a medkit? Because it gives the player something interesting to find.

Assuming that the raiders have been sitting on the cache for 200 years is just as much of a leap as just assuming the supplies were inaccessible for that same period or time. The difference is one of those choices ruins the game for yourself and the other is sane.

Which brings me back to my question related to this topic - why is this game set 30 years after Fallout 2 anyway? Why isn't this game chronologically simultaneous with Fallout 1? It's in a whole different location, so why the chronological jump, since it brings up so many issues?

Because they wanted to play around with factions from the first games without trampling on the canon? Yes I know what I just said invites people to huff and puff about how you consider them to have already done that.

Huh? Are you one of Fallout creators? If not, how can you know that radiation in the Glow wouldn't be dangerous? Do we know what was stored in the Glow? After all it was weapons-research facility where Power Armors and energy weapons were created. They must have had radioactive materials, who knows maybe they had nuclear bombs themselves. Also do we know what type of bomb was used? For all we know it could be cobalt bomb (which was known in the 50's, at least in theory) or some other nasty weapon that would contaminate the area for centuries. Creators say there was massive amount of radiation and that's it. You're going to extremes.

This actually came up during a much earlier discussion. Here are two posts from that exchange.

The Seven-Ten Rule: for every sevenfold increase in time after detonation, there is a tenfold decrease in the radiation rate. E.g., if the radiation intensity 1hr after detonation is 1,000 Roentgens (measure of radiation exposure) per hour, after 7hr it will have decreased to 1/10 as much. In 7 more time periods (7 X 7 = 49 hours or two days) the radiation level will be 1/100 of the original rate. After about a two-week period, the level of radiation will be at 1/1000 of the level at 1hr after detonation.

"As of 2005, Cs-137 is the principal source of radiation in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl power plant." When it comes to nuclear explosions, Caesium-137 is one of longer living isotopes. It has a half-life of 30.23 years, which means it won't be be of any significance in 200 years.

So if fallout 1 took place 84 years after the bombs dropped thats 84 years * 356 days * 24 hours = 717696 hours since the end of the world. 7^6 = 117649 and 7^7 = 823543 so the radiation in Fallout 1 should be between 1/1,000,000 and 1/10,000,000 of what it was right after the war (though closer to the one/ten millionth).

 

[Brother None]

Why did a vault which spawned 3 different groups of raiders and was supposed to have been thoroughly looted still have 2 lockers on the first floor with flares, stimpaks and a medkit?

What's that? A flaw? In Fallout 1? It's not like we haven't already recognized that three times over already.

Jesus H. Christ, AM, please at least try to bring up a new argument.

And no, the gameist answer of "dungeon = loot!" doesn't work. That's exactly why "You enter a room of 4x4 meters. Standing to one wall is a single orc guarding a chest" is so incredibly stupid. You have to massage your game elements into your setting, not over your setting.

Assuming that the raiders have been sitting on the cache for 200 years is just as much of a leap as just assuming the supplies were inaccessible for that same period or time. The difference is one of those choices ruins the game for yourself and the other is sane.

Heh. You're trusting Bethesda to offer logical explanations for these kind of things? That's funny.

Also, where was I assuming they've been sitting on it for 200 years? It's not necessary for my argument. Whether they sit on it 200 years or 2 years doesn't matter; why didn't they trade the medicine?

But yes, you can hide behind "they could explain it in the final game" for now, if you wish. I could point out how Fallout 3 has way too many flaws which all needs stretching to make acceptable, meaning the stretching becomes a flaw in and of itself.

Because they wanted to play around with factions from the first games without trampling on the canon? Yes I know what I just said invites people to huff and puff about how you consider them to have already done that.

Uh...huh? If Bethesda wanted to use the factions from the first games, they should have set the game after Fallout 2 on the west coast. The decision to move cross-continent should, to any sensible designer, automatically preclude the choice of playing with a lot of the original factions, thus making a time-shift viable.

Hell, if Fallout 3 were set at the same time of Fallout 1, an Enclave presence on the east coast would actually make sense.

 

[ArmorB]

Hell, if Fallout 3 were set at the same time of Fallout 1, an Enclave presence on the east coast would actually make sense.

So if the Enclave were on the east coast in FO1 it would not be okay for them to still be there in FO3?

 

[Brother None]

So if the Enclave were on the east coast in FO1 it would not be okay for them to still be there in FO3?

I was actually thinking along the terms of the Enclave being there at that time and getting wiped out by the PC. thus forcing them to concentrate operations on the west coast.

Prequel foreshadowing and all that.

 

[ArmorB]

Well my issue is that you all say that the Enclave got wiped out in FO2, but how many sequals of TV, Movies, Video games, Books, etc were based off of that false assumption? Just because the PC assumes that they were wiped out doesn't mean he had all of the info possible...