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

[Anani Masu]

 

[Bodybag]

Spoilers

 

[Per]

I guess I'll just echo what Rad Hamster (whom I don't recall offhand does) posted just before Dan Ross.

A semiotician could add that in fiction, things often are as they could not be, because they are as they must be.

So now fiction = absolved from all considerations of quality?

In this case I don't see the problem since the motivations of raiders hoarding a cache and townspeople trying to get at it are both understandable.

Notice how you dropped the offending details etc.

 

[Anani Masu]

So now fiction = absolved from all considerations of quality?

No, but the creators are given reign to determine whether or not an event happened within that fiction, even if it might be unlikely. The unlikely presence of supplies creates conflict that improves the game. The unlikely decay rate creates a iconic ideal suburban home gone to ruin image that improves the game.

Notice how you dropped the offending details etc.

What offending details? There is a store with some supplies left. Raiders have made that store their base for that reason. A local store owner wants us to check it out to see what/how much is left. Those are, to my knowledge, all the details.

 

[UniversalWolf]

Not that I accept the premise of a double standard being applied, but it ought to be perfectly reasonable to hold "Fallout 3" to a higher standard than Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. For one thing, I'm repeatedly being told how much more advanced "Fallout 3" is than those old, behind-the-times games the likes of which would never sell today. For another, the original Fallouts have been around for more than a decade - ample time for all their flaws to be dissected and redissected. For a third, game technology has advanced greatly since the original Fallouts. Given that kind of head start, "Fallout 3" ought to be better than Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 in every way.

 

[TheWesDude]

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.

not true. ground blasts ( which is obvious by the hole, it was a reinforced bunker ) leave radiation around a long time. there are parts of the world that are uninhabitable due to this. plus in the 50s the rage was nuclear winter if WW3 happened. nuclear winter is only possible with lots and lots of ground blasts.

of course nowadays the concept of nuclear winter has been largely debunked as much harder than used to be thought possible.

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.

see the car in fallout 2. you would have to be assuming that the war killed all the mechanics in the world. even hobby mechanics know how to do pretty major car repairs even pulling out motors and such.

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

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.

supplies like that in a settled environ of current stuff makes sense. supplies of pre-war tech in an unsecured place that would have been ransacked? non-viable.

if its pre-war tech, its not viable. if its post-war tech, its eminently viable as it could be part of the "stores" of the raiders, but then again, they wouldnt stack things on the shelves in the store, they would consolidate the useful stuff and throw off the chaff.

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...

the only thing that is actual cannon is the lore in FO1+2, which means holodisks and endings.

and the endings and the lore state the oil rig was destroyed but that navaro wasnt. now it would take a long time for them to re-build, BUT to rebuild and move entirely? little far-fetched.

keep in mind, the CAPITAL of the US would have been considered a high-priority target just like a military base. merely for the psycological factor if nothing else.

it would have been hit by multiple nukes and absolutely levelled. why would the enclave be present in the remenants of a high priority target and why are there still buildings standing.

THATs my problem. explain that with "artistic liscence"

Members of the Enclave that were the guys that roamed the desert in the random encounters find out about the leader getting killed and decide to band together and move east and start anew? for me I see it as there are plenty of possible reasons for them being on the East coast that I don't bother to question it.

the most obvious argument would be when you get to navaroo the first time you can tell the guy you are from another base transitioned to navaroo and you being a tribal and him accepting you because they obviously are accepting them would be the best argument. there are other bases, and they are recruiting tribals.

but in 200 years, they would not have been able to move from 1 coast to another simply because that is a lot of territory even with vertibirds.

 

[ookami]

game technology has advanced greatly since the original Fallouts

Very good point, Wolf. Isn't it amazing how we're told that things have advanced so much, but so many game devs go on making the same dumbshit mistakes and the same dumbshit excuses for those mistakes, year after year, to this very day?

If you forget history, you are doomed to repeat it. If you talk to people who forget history, you are doomed to repeat yourself.

I think I found a fitting ret-con for the PIPBoy 3000 using the Vault Boy mascot. Vault-Tec must have bought that property/license from RobCo. which meant they could "do whatever they want with it."

 

[sarfa]

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.

see the car in fallout 2. you would have to be assuming that the war killed all the mechanics in the world. even hobby mechanics know how to do pretty major car repairs even pulling out motors and such.

No, you didn't just find the car in Fallout 2, having not been maintained in centuries. Some explosive devices (possibly including whatever powers the car and makes it explode) can become very fragile and volatile as they decay, when they haven't been maintained, like in Fallout 2. I'd argue that the car still working in Fallout 2 is a case of luck- getting a mechanic able to keep a car running for that length of time is tricky buisness, the car in Fallout2 was lucky to be near one. Clearly the ones in Fallout 3 weren't.

I'd only have to be assuming that the war killed all mechanics in the world if it was a case that the world had as good (if not better) transport links from one location to another, (Planes, trains, cars, ships, etc) as the real world does now and that in a post acopalyptic society people would be willing to put in the effort required to bring on here. The mechanic in Fallout 2 is clearly a specialist, a small area of a few hundred people (Whats the NPS count?) not having a particular specialist is not unfeasible, it's quite likely.

As for why the Brotherhood haven't touched them, maybe, due to the 'engine decay' all the explodey powersource is good for is unreliable, breath on it hard and it goes boom, bombs. They have better stuff (Presumably) and thus don't want it. When I have a machnie gun, you can keep your pointed stick.

 

[PaladinHeart]

A better direction for the quest to go, would be for the super duper market to NOT have any of the medicine left, and you eventually find said medicine for sale in some random shop somewhere. Or perhaps in a cave.. or on a person, or somewhere where someone is likely to have stashed supplies. But on the shelf? Where they tell you it can be found? Sloppy quest design. The quest giver should repeatedly give you erroneous information which, although not solving the quest, would point you in the direction of places you might not normally have checked out...

Inside one of the preservation tube thingies (that the chinese soldier was found in) might also be a good place to find it. Oh, btw, are those things only accessible for people wearing pipboys? Otherwise, they'd be looted. It would be more interesting if they were all locked. Something like the Moredhel word lock puzzle chests from Betrayal at Krondor would be nice. (although of course, a player with a high science/repair skill should still be able to get inside)

 

[ookami]

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?

It's not that far-fetched that a few piddly things like that would be stashed in a locker (not sitting out in the open on a shelf) by the last raider party who saw it as even being worthwhile to look before it became infested with critters. Seems plausible that they may have had to leave a few items in order to carry more valuable ones. Note, however, what you were sent there for which ended up not being in there.

The medicine still sitting there on the shelf in plain sight at Super Duper Mart is just like if a waterchip had still been installed in broken-down, raided, infested, musty old Vault 15.

 

[Phancypants]

Notice how you dropped the offending details etc.

Enlighten us, great keeper of the facts. Which details are we missing?

It's a simple early-game fetch quest. "Please go here and get this". You can shoot your way through, you can stealth your way through, and there is likely an option to talk your way through. It's very possible for someone in the town to have knowledge of what's inside the base.

As for why they didn't go themselves? Probably because the raiders kept putting holes in people who showed up. On the other hand, there's this new guy who just showed up...

So now fiction = absolved from all considerations of quality?

No, it means that good fiction is a two-way street. We're offered the chance to view and interact with a struggle between a town and a group of post-apocolyptic raiders, and have an impact on its outcome. I think that it'll be fun trying to figure out how to retrieve the needed meds (or, making the judgement call on if it's worth it to retrieve them, or just let the person suffer). All you have to do is accept the small detail that the object in question exists. If you want to argue something as trivial as that, then the whole experience will fall apart and you won't have a chance to explore the true conflict, which is the tension between the two parties.

 

[ArmorB]

but in 200 years, they would not have been able to move from 1 coast to another simply because that is a lot of territory even with vertibirds

From one coast to another = about 2000 miles
Walking at a fair pace = 4 mph (power armor means you don't get tired)
Walk 10 hours a day
It would take 50 days to cross the nation.

Now take in Vertiberds with faster travel and hauling capacity.

Even if it took 10 years to get all the stuff back and forth, it would be pretty easy to do if 'they' wanted to. Some of you people think so small it's silly.

 

[PaladinHeart]

Anyways, it's basically just a sloppy quest. Nobody is saying, "I hate this game and I'm never going to buy it ONLY because of this quest!". We're just pointing out that the medicine, in question, most likely would not be there.

I mean, if we say it's okay that it's not there, and it sounds okay, even though it makes no sense, then that tells Bethesda that it's alright for them to have MORE sloppy quests.

This is pretty much the equivalent of telling someone to go pick up a particular golden apple that has fallen from a particular tree a week ago.

 

[sarfa]

I don't know actually.

I think if the super duper mart had been fully stocked or whatever and hand't been plundered yet, then it sort of makes sense for a group of raiders to just move in (And heavily fortify the place as much as possible, you know, boarding up access points etc) and 'rearrange' the entire place so that these supplies were easy to guard. Furthermore, medicine may well be on a shelf behind a counter (depending on the medicine) in the sort of back room where all the supplies would be moved to to get them further from the entrances and thus easier to protect, at which point it may have been left on the shelf as thats as good a place as any to keep it. This ofcourse makes that room a treasure vault at that point. Either way, due to volume, a properly defended super duper mart with enough people is probably among the better places to store the supplies that the Raiders would be stealing.

So hopefully if you go in this one with all guns blaxing you'll be hellishly out numbered.

I doubt very much that Bethesda has thought about it that much though. There would have to be a lot of useful supplies there to justify such a move on the raiders part. Ofcourse if they can pull off the 'supermarket turned fortress' look it'd be pretty shiny.

 

[TheWesDude]

armor, dont know what country you are talking about, but the US is 3k miles across. i have driven it.

 

[Per]

Enlighten us, great keeper of the facts. Which details are we missing?

BN and I have both explained our specific concerns more than once. If that's not enough for you, I can't really be bothered to try again.

All you have to do is accept the small detail that the object in question exists. If you want to argue something as trivial as that,

Read the fucking thread before posting, will you?

this is bad not because it requires medicine to survive intact for 200 years, but ...

the main problem is not that there's actually medicine there.

then the whole experience will fall apart and you won't have a chance to explore the true conflict, which is the tension between the two parties.

Well, that is kind of the problem with internal logic breaking down and other flaws, isn't it? That it mars the rest of the experience. But hey, push the blame onto the player, never mind the people paid to design the game.

I swear that more and more each day, apologists are sweeping in with blanket excuses for specific criticisms. "Ignore the details, it gets in the way of the fun!" Is it because they simply are utterly unable to address the specifics? I don't know, but one could certainly get that impression. Here's a list for future reference or something:

The top ten reasons why we shouldn't complain about something we've been shown or told about Fallout 3

10. Most games work like that now, so it makes sense that this one does too.
9. It's fiction, so it's not supposed to make sense.
8. It's just being true to the original in its own way.
7. If you don't like it, you can pretend it isn't there.
6. They'll fix it before release.
5. It's not broken until you break it.
4. It was bad in the original, too.
3. It has to be like that in order to sell the game.
2. Most people won't be bothered by it.

And finally, the number one reason why we shouldn't complain about anything:

1. It will be fixed by the modders.


Bonus geek points to whoever knows the original inspiration for the list.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

From one coast to another = about 2000 miles...

...Walk 10 hours a day
It would take 50 days to cross the nation.

Yeah like America was totally flat before the war, no mountains, rivers or canyons. Even with the destruction centered around the cities, industrial infrastructure and military targets the rest of the country would still be in a right state. It just takes one storm to take out a bridge or wash out a road. One earthquake to bring down a flyover or collapse a tunnel, without anyone or the infrastructure required to repair and maintain the roads, tunnels and bridges it would be a long slow and arduous trek without even taking into account storms, mechanical failures, wild animals and mutated creatures.

Even vertibirds wouldn't have a easy time of it, there's the problem of navigation, even with today's global communication network people still can go off course. Without that support just finding your destination is a task in itself. Then without a weather service you have no advanced warning of any storms in your flight path. It might sound simple enough, to fly from a to b. But without the support structure todays pilots enjoy, it would be just as, if not more hazardous than a ground crossing.

Sure it's not an impossible journey, but to make out it's so easy is being just as stupid.

(power armor means you don't get tired)

It's not a vehicle, you don't sit in it and let it do the walking. It's a powered exoskeleton that fits around you but it doesn't walk for you. You'd still have to put one foot in front of the other, your muscles would still be working still burning energy. Even if it totally supports your weight as well as it's own you'd still have to work it. You'd might be able to travel further and faster than without PA, but you'd still get tired.

It's not far fetched that the Enclave survivors of Navarro made it to Washington , it's not far fetched that the Super Mutants made it to the East or the ghouls. It's not a problem that the Brotherhood made it to DC, but it is far fetched to run into all four groups across the country, even if they aren't the same mutants or the same ghouls etc.

It just shows how unoriginal and uninspired this game is.

 

[sai | GLYPH]

To BN and Per

"One thing that stood out for me as iffy was the quest described in a preview of going to the Super Duper Mart to retrieve medicine. Because supermarkets would stock medicine, right? And then you actually find it on the shelf where it was being sold."

Ok. So...

'If you have enough mechanical skill, you can repair a broken well in Arroyo.'

How has Arroyo survived with a broken well?
Why has no one else fixed it?
If no one knew how to fix it, how did you - who taught you?

'If you get involved with thieves, one quest is to go to the other side of town and steal a diamond necklace from a rich guy.'

How does he keep from being robbed/attacked left and right?
Why do they want the necklace anyway?

My point isn't that these were flawed quests. My point is that a brief summary can make any quest sound silly.

Per and BN, I'm gonna have to chalk this one up to lack of information. Not even Bethesda is stupid enough to write a line such as, "I need medecine. It's on the third isle of the Super Duper Market. Go get it," which is what we'd have to assume would be the dialogue if all we get in game is all Per told us.

I'm not one to play the 'not enough info' card, but this time around I think it's warranted. Ofcourse, this doesn't mean Bethesda will come up with a good or interesting explanation. Infact, I doubt they will.

But anyway... suppose...

The quest giver has a sick daughter. He's searched up and down for the medication. He's checked all the traders. Eventually he was so desperate that he went to the raider's camp, having heard that the raider's had a variety of rare things. This camp happens to be the Super Duper Market. The raiders took him in to show him the item, feigning sympathy, then robbed him and booted him back out.

Now you come along. The quest giver knows what the item is, where it is, and explains to you why he needs it. And, as it turns out, the market is not stocked with its original items, but restocked and reorganized with raider booty - the medication being one of these items.

Now suppose, if you're pursuasive enough, you manage to get the medication and convince the raiders to clue you in on how they got hold of it. You then track down the doctor who lives way out in the middle of nowhere (according to what the raiders tell you). Unfortunately, the raiders killed him, but searching around you find detailed instructions on how to make more of this medication. You take it to a doctor with the right equipment, hook him up with the quest giver, and get a good 500 bonus points - atop the initial 100 for retrieving the pills.

At this point, my main gripe is that the raiders chose a super market for a base - something not easily retrofitted for a strong defense.

In any case: Assuming there is no information is still assuming. And as for my above example, it's merely an example, not what I expect to see in the game. I assume there will be an explanation, but since it's Bethesda, probably a very unmoving one.

EDIT: When pursuading the raider's to tell you where the meds came from - you find a relatively boastful/pompous raider. Upon befriending him with an imaginary (or true) tale of your own amazingness, he attempts to top you by telling you about this doctor they killed, and this loser who came looking for the last of the doctor's pills. Through this conversation you get enough information to figure the general location of the doctor's house. Looking through the waste basket in the house you find crumpled papers that turn out to be instructions on how to make the medication. The raiders obviously wouldn't destroy something that's already assumed to be garbage. Smart doc.

Now why was the doc so concerned with this specific medication? A half burnt journal in the far corner of the room implies we may never know?

EDIT2: Some alternatives...
1. Maybe if you're a raider already you don't have the buy the meds - just walk in and take them. In this case, the conversation with the other raider would require less speech skill. On the flipside, to assuage the quest giver's fear of you, getting the quest from him may require more charisma.
2. Go in guns blazing - get the pills - never find out about the doctor.
3. Go in and trade for it. Depending on your charisma/luck/barter skills, you might get robbed and booted out without the meds just like your quest giver friend.
4. Sneak in and steal the meds - don't find out about the doctor as it would blow your cover.
5. Kill the quest giver for a quick 120exp.

Top Ten... Letterman?

 

[Per]

Re: To BN and Per

Per and BN, I'm gonna have to chalk this one up to lack of information. Not even Bethesda is stupid enough to write a line such as, "I need medecine. It's on the third isle of the Super Duper Market. Go get it," which is what we'd have to assume would be the dialogue if all we get in game is all Per told us.

But our point doesn't hinge on the description being correct, and I thought we had gone to rather great lengths to say that it might not be. OK, I'll take the whole thing from the beginning again. A bunch of people had pointed out that the world of Fallout 3 in various aspects (not all) looks and acts as if the war was just a few months or years back, not 200 years back. A guy from Bethesda posted the "they built it better" rationale in their forum. BN and I acknowledged (gasp!) that this was a good explanation for the "looks" part, but pointed out that there might be "acts" parts which are not covered by it. As an example of a possible flaw we brought up a quest as described and said that if it's like that in the game, the original concern - this is more like 2 years later than 200 years later - has not been properly addressed. This should be simple enough, though I realize we've had misunderstandings over much less. But then it seems a bunch of people think we shouldn't even had said anything in the first place because "the original has silly quests too" and "you don't know what it's going to be like" and "don't look for explanations, it spoils the fun", none of which adds anything useful to what we or the QA guy said. If people choose such an attitude for themselves that's fine I guess, I just don't see any reason to bring that mentality into a thread about an explanation brought to us in earnest. If he's right to provide it, then I would say we should be free to discuss its applicability.

But anyway... suppose...

The quest giver has a sick daughter.

...

Right, that's one quest description out of infinitely many possible ones where this point of criticism would not be applicable. It does not in any way mean it was wrong to bring it up in the first place.

Top Ten... Letterman?

I don't really know about Letterman, but I don't think that would have warranted geek points?

 

[Goral]

Re: To BN and Per

(...)How has Arroyo survived with a broken well?

Who said it was the only source of water? How can you know it didn't break recently and the person responsible for conservation wasn't around? Or even better, almost anyone could do it but someone was smart enough to use you do to the work. It's nothing as far-fetched as Bethesda's quest (I wouldn't be surprised if they altered it after reading NMA).

Why has no one else fixed it?

Because they didn't know how / preferred to use you?

If no one knew how to fix it, how did you - who taught you?

*Sigh* The chosen one had at least 17 years to learn certain things, also it was just a primitive well (without any pump or sth), how difficult could it be to repair it?

'If you get involved with thieves, one quest is to go to the other side of town and steal a diamond necklace from a rich guy.'

How does he keep from being robbed/attacked left and right?
Why do they want the necklace anyway?

What's wrong with that quest? (Actually it's one of my favorite ones).
He has guards and a locker, what else would you want him to do? If you didn't have enough lockpicking skills you wouldn't be able to steal from him, if you didn't watch out you would be noticed and shot at. And what would they want with a necklace? Hmm, let's think, barter it for sth maybe? Sell it? Or maybe they wanted to test abilities of someone who could be sheriff's deputy and not a thief?

What the bloody, bloody, bloody hell are you doing here?

Also, great post requiem_for_a_starfury.