Fallout 3: The game that changed everything for the franchise.

S

snipertimeless

First time out of the vault


Not sure if this is allowed here but I don't see many fallout sites around anymore and every subreddit as soon as you post a video, it's just a ban. I just wanted to share what stood out to me about fallout 3 and why I think it's innovative for the series. Such as fast travel, vats etc.
 
Fast travel in Fallout 1 is NOT the same as Fast Travel in F3/FNV.
In F1/2 each location is a separate cell so the FT style is the only choice.
But F3/FNV is not that way, so Fast Travel is a big overpowered mechanism.
Fast Travel is a bad move from Morrowind days (Mark and Recall spell) because it just eliminate the real time travelling that allow the aspect of hiking simulator.
 
laclongquan said:
Fast travel in Fallout 1 is NOT the same as Fast Travel in F3/FNV.
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How so? [specifically]

In F1/2 each location is a separate cell so the FT style is the only choice.
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I don't see the relevance; they each fade away from the gameworld into an abstracted travel UI, and they each resume at the destination (excepting for random encounters along the way in the non-Bethesda games).

They also each advance the game clock during travel. It takes three hours to walk ( via 'fast-travel' ) from Vault 101 to Rivet City; it takes two weeks to walk the salt flats from Vault 13 to the Brotherhood's Lost Hills bunker.

Fast Travel is a bad move from Morrowind days (Mark and Recall spell) because it just eliminate the real time travelling that allow the aspect of hiking simulator.
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I disagree. I would not play FO3 /FNV at all if it did not include map traveling. I was irked to no end that NV didn't allow map traveling with crippled legs; the foremost situation where map travel is all but required.

I thought it was an egregious mistake on both Bethesda and Obsidian's part not to have implemented a map in the proper style of the established series.

vimeo.com/250021431/f233a23be7

*Vimeo embeds appear to be broken.
 
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Fallout 1/2 has exactly one way to travel from one location to another: go to exit grid, and the game start calculating time to get to target locations. THAT is their version of Fast Travel. And there's no alternative.

But Morrowind, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, all has another choice instead of click-n-teleport. They can always walk/run from one location to the next. THat is TWO different methods to travel, not one.

I dont know, Gizmojunk. You always act like you never play those games you keep talking about~
 
laclongquan said:
Fallout 1/2 has exactly one way to travel from one location to another: go to exit grid, and the game start calculating time to get to target locations. THAT is their version of Fast Travel. And there's no alternative.
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Again I don't see the significance of this. What does it matter that there more than one means of travel?

Aside: The caravans serve as an alternate way to travel and get paid for it, and travel in armed company.

I see only a cosmetic distinction between the aforementioned travel events.

Something that is —not— shared between them is that Bethesda doesn't appear to use the updating game clock for anything. In Oblivion the PC can be buffed on strength spells/potions to max out their carrying capacity, load up, and then [fast] travel to a destination across the continent, only losing the buff upon arrival; where that same magical effect is lost within minutes of reatime excursion. FO3 carries over the magical effects relabeled as drugs.

laclongquan said:
But Morrowind, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, all has another choice instead of click-n-teleport. They can always walk/run from one location to the next. THat is TWO different methods to travel, not one.
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Again... so what? That's a serious question; not meant to be flippant. What exactly does it matter if they have two or even ten travel methods? Barring exploits, the outcome is ultimately the same.

*One exception (but still in both cases) is a scripted ambush, or other encounter. Also, a second consideration is that certain encounters are non-revisit-able in the earlier titles; this is a good thing IMO.

laclongquan said:
I dont know, Gizmojunk. You always act like you never play those games you keep talking about~
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How so?
Do you mean for (the supposed missing of) details that you take as for granted proofs of something, but where I don't —or don't see the point or value of it?

I could enjoy the Interplay Fallouts even if they were Infocom text adventures —not so with Bethesda's attempted sequel/spin-offs. Bethesda is a one-trick pony whose (FPS hiking-sim) gameplay relies upon the visuals to be palatable. That by itself is not terrible, but by itself it's not Fallout.
 
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If you act like you never play those games, I will describe your action like you never play those games. You are not paying me to act otherwise, get it?
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Anyway, back to travel. Caravan Travel is not a travel method but a quest method. If you are in a transition location during Caravan Travel, and if you dont act approriately (kill hostiles while keeping caravan masters alive, and talk to him once battle end) the quest will fail. And you cant change your destination once you initiate travel with caravans.
With that kind of condition attached, I dont see how anybody use Caravan Travel as a travel method, unless they use mods to lower its difficulty to ensure 100% success (random chance mean the masters can get killed despite our efforts)
This is like to travel from Los Angeles to Fort Bragg, you dont drive or walk, but choose to join Army to travel to Fort Bragg... Of course you can, but call that a Travel Method is a bit too... I dont know, words fail me.
 
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laclongquan said:
If you act like you never play those games, I will describe your action like you never play those games. You are not paying me to act otherwise, get it?
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No I do not; what games? Do you mean the Interplay or the Bethesda titles?

laclongquan said:
Anyway, back to travel. Caravan Travel is not a travel method but a quest method.
If you are in a transition location during Caravan Travel, and if you dont act approriately (kill hostiles while keeping caravan masters alive, and talk to him once battle end) the quest will fail.
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It's still traveling; a method that pays you for the trip.

laclongquan said:
And you cant change your destination once you initiate travel with caravans.
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Same as with traveling by ship (in life, and in many games that have it). What's the point here?

laclongquan said:
With that kind of condition attached, I dont see how anybody use Caravan Travel as a travel method...
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People got jobs on trains, planes, and cruise ships—and they got to visit the destinations. The work required is the cost of travel. It's partly from where the expression "Jumped ship" came from.

Is this (rabbit hole) qualifier not a bit of a tangent? Will you enlighten us all to the importance to you of having multiple means of travel?
 
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laclongquan said:
If you act like you never play those games, I will describe your action like you never play those games. You are not paying me to act otherwise, get it?
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Only works when you have actual evidence, which you never do. You just claim that someone hasn't played the game when your argument is shit and you can't counter the other person's argument.

Edit: You are seriously arguing that a repeatable sidequest where you TRAVEL with a caravan is NOT a travel method. Not to mention there's the benefit of getting caps for defending the caravan, so that's a big incentive to travel with caravans.

I swear at this point you just argue for the sake of arguing.

laclongquan said:
And you cant change your destination once you initiate travel with caravans.
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And neither can you when you fast travel in the 3D Fallouts. What even is your point here?
 
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You are obviously arguing without the facts support your talks.

I said caravan travels is a quest method, not a travel method. Said so right there. And you use the facts that it contain many quest mechanism as if it support your talk. IT IS NOT. Those quest mechanism limit caravan travel to a quest method, that players need to complete quest first, and travel to destination is just a side benefit. Say: if players decide to do otherwise, freedom in travel so to speak, that would make quest fail.

It seem logic fail to hit you in the head. So let me illustrate it once more:

You want to go to Fort Bragg from Los Angeles. You are free to choose walking, driving, take a train, take an aircraft. This is your freedom, and you can choose each choice at your free will. There is no benefit once you arrive at target, since arriving is the main purpose. But no punishment either. And you have nearly absolute freedom: in the middle of driving you can just leave the car and start walking. That's the point of travel.

You join the Army to go to Fort Bragg. So you are to follow Army's rule (quest steps, mechanism) in order to go there without failure. There is no freedom in this process, but in return you dont pay anything, more like Army pay you (same as caravan master pay players). Arriving at target, say Fort Bragg, there's benefit if you complete all the steps (of this travel quest), but also punishment if you dont complete all the steps (in real life Army's punishment, in game caravan quest count you as failure). You have very little freedom in the whole process: every step you take has some pre-determined process already.

Do you see the difference between the two? Do you?
 
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Gizmojunk said:
I thought it was an egregious mistake on both Bethesda and Obsidian's part not to have implemented a map in the proper style of the established series.
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Not to mention that, at least in the case of F3, using an actual world map like the early games Bethesda could have actually taken advantage of the VA-DC-MD region instead of creating a painfully inaccurate map and passing off 6 mostly dysfunctional vaults in the same metro area. They could have slapped Little Lamplight in Luray, Rivet City in Baltimore, and had Point Lookout and the Pitt accessible from the same map had they the foresight. New Vegas did a more accurate job of recreating Clark County (at the cost of actually neglecting Vegas), but somehow it's Bethesda who gets all the praise for open-world exploration in F3. I don't think there's much of a point in doing an open world based on a real place if you're not going to make it accurate.

It's not as though an F1/F2-style world map isn't possible on the engine either. Salt Lake Stories gets close, if somewhat janky.
 
As I recall, Todd Howard stated that the world was initially a lot bigger (and mostly complete) before he made a call to cut out quite a bit of it as simply not needed. :(
 
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