Fallout 4: Does anyone else find the pre-war opening contrived?

[Walpknut]

if they were smart about it they could use Traits as a way to enforce character history tos spice up the tutorial. Instead of being a generic "grizzled ex military person who lost his spouse" you could choose other backgrounds, like "Chinese Spy/Sympathizer/Sleeper Agent", Military Grease Monkey, alcoholic, Average Joe (the "neutral" class), anti government protestor, etc. But well, bethesda and smart don't gel well, hell Intelligence seems to be a dump stat now.

 

[fred2]

Here's a question, if your character has lived in that village all their lives, wouldn't it make sense they would give a shit about trying to save it? [..] It's their home after all. Even if it's not outright stated, one can assume there is reason enough for them to give a shit without resorting to emotional pandering. As for why WE would care about saving the village/Vault, well, we bought the game right? If we didn't care about playing and trying to achieve the goal we wouldn't buy the game.

Yeah... Now lets replace village with Daddy... Then according to your logic you should care about daddy in FO3 because: it would make sense that you would give a shit about your father and because you bought the game

As for emotional pandering, in FO2: you are the chosen one, villages only hope, sent to bring back salvation to your people. Only upon your success to learn that you were too late, that your home is in ruins and most of your people are dead, driven forward by your mentor dying wish.. Yeah, this is very close to the reason why I stopped reading fantasy crap.

I hope that this little trick helped to illustrate why I don't like arguing here i.e. many people suffer from confirmation bias, letting their dislike of FO3 cloud their arguments.

Anyway, like I said, I agree on the FO3 plot\quest structure, but on the main topic of opening, FO3 and FO4 are structured like all the previous FO-X titles, and since we don't know anything about FO4 plot your argument boils down to "FO4 looks like FO3 and hence It will suck" and I don't care on joining this circlejerk.

 

[Cyberfiend]

Yeah... Now lets replace village with Daddy... Then according to your logic you should care about daddy in FO3 because: it would make sense that you would give a shit about your father and because you bought the game

I don't see what's confusing about that? Of course it makes sense, from a character perspective, to care about your father. Or, at the very least, want answers for why he left you to fend for yourself. FO3 could have easily done without the saccharine "Daddy is perfect" intro to make us want to play. The difference between the village and Daddy, however, is there is a clear bias with what the game expects of you when it comes to Daddy than the village. Daddy dearest is a beacon of light, from quoting bible scriptures, to being beyond saintly even if you try and make your character act like a little shit towards him. There is an expectation right from the gate that you'll a) try to find your beloved father b) stand by him no matter what c) carry on with his good work. You can argue that the player is has the choice to be evil, but from the way it was initially set up, that seems out of place.

In FO2, however, wanting to save your village because it's your home is more or less a neutral origins. Even evil characters would want to protect their home out of self interest too.

As for emotional pandering, in FO2: you are the chosen one, villages only hope, sent to bring back salvation to your people. Only upon your success to learn that you were too late, that your home is in ruins and most of your people are dead, driven forward by your mentor dying wish.. Yeah, this is very close to the reason why I stopped reading fantasy crap.

Again, there is a nuanced difference between the two. I've already said that FO3 unloads it's emotions straight out the gate, while in other FO games you experience that emotional connection over the course of the game. At least in F02 your mentor doesn't just kill themselves for no reason because "feels".

I hope that this little trick helped to illustrate why I don't like arguing here i.e. many people suffer from confirmation bias, letting their dislike of FO3 cloud their arguments.

At what point did I state that I dislike Fallout 3? The fact that I found F03's plot to be the weakest and I worry for FO4 doesn't mean I don't like the game. I actually do, so your point that I'm just being biased is moot. Objectively Fallout 3's plot is the weakest in the main Fallout titles. That's not a bias, that's fact. Even if I DID dislike the game, my argument would still be valid.

FO3 and FO4 are structured like all the previous FO-X titles, and since we don't know anything about FO4 plot your argument boils down to "FO4 looks like FO3 and hence It will suck" and I don't care on joining this circlejerk.

I disagree, FO3 was not structured like the other FO titles. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who feels the same way. Also, that isn't really my argument at all. I'm not saying FO4 is going to suck because it's going to be like FO3. My argument is that, based on what we know, I don't like the opening because of how constrictive it seems, and I worry that FO4 will end up following the same footsteps as FO3 which, imo, offered the least in character choice, player agency, and compelling plot. Again, I can't stress this enough, there is nuance to this argument. I'm not saying FO4 is going to suck, or that FO3 is a terrible game, or that the other FO games can do no wrong. I just worry based on what I've seen, and I really don't care if you think this is a circlejerk, because goddamnit it I'm allowed to voice my opinion on the next game of my favourite franchise.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Ignoring how much it will damage roleplaying, from a thematic perspective it seems like a really terrible choice. Ot in that Bethesda will mess up any kind of true emotion coming from it, though they will, or that it shows us a mysterious golden age- no, it utterly misses the point of Fallout.

We all know the line- "War. War Never Changes." But it's more then a slogan formBethesda to slap on a product- it has a deeper meaning, a meaning that I feel New Vegas hammers home.

We have three primary factions- the NCR, Legion and House.

The NCR is built upon old-world values of Democracy, and Rile of Law. A grand idea. But it comes with a problem- old world values. Ultimately, the attempted pushing forward of those values, across the Mississippi, across Latin America, and eventually across the Canadian border, led to a degeneration into greed, shirking of those values and, at allegedly at the service of those values, into atomic war. We see the same thing in the NCR- a slow corruption of democracy and justice in favor of bloated bureaucracy, and maintains the interests of corporations like Crimson Caravan and the Brahmin Barons ahead of their people. If things are not corrected this will lead the NCR down the same steps the US walked.

Edward Sallow saw this, and he saw a solution: Antithesis. Create a new ideology, something that runs counter to the party line, but is able to find equal justification. Morality, albeit a twisted one. And, he would find it, but there was a problem- Edward Sallow was not a creative man. So,meh reached down deep into the dustbin of history, and pulled out Roman Autocracy. Without realizing the supreme irony of this choice, he took on the name Caesar and set about raising his Antithesis that he called Legion. One day, they would meet the Thesis- Old World enlightened ideals- they would meet, conflict, and ultimately meld into a cohesive whole. A superior übermensch.


And then , we have House. A genius, a dreamer. He wants to take man above the clouds of Howard Hughes, and into the inky black. He has pragmatism, he has robots, but most importantly, he has a plan. But like the other two, he runs into an old world problem- quite literally! He *is* the old world embodied. Undemocratic, uncompromising, genius, and hopelessly optimistic. His whole shtick, his "Rough Road to the Stars" is the perfect embodiment of old world optimism- yes, there will be death. Yes, there will be autocracy. And yes, you are a number on a chart- but, when we blast away, it'll all have been worth it.


And there are the DLCs- Old World Blues, showing us House's optimism turned up to eleven. Lonesome Road, where the Giants of the old world still cause pain to the new.


And then, the wonderful piece of work that is Dead Money essentially summed up all the choices of the series- humanity can either evolve with the Master, or die out. Or the Enclave maintains old world blood in opposition of any sort of evolution. And then the Enclave... Does the same thing, sort of. Er, moving on... We choose which manifestation of the old world we need most. Or, we go independent, we dive headfirst into the chaotic future.


But Dead Money. Dead Money surmises it all from Mariposa to the Oil Rig to the water MacGuffin to the Hoover Dam. For all of our choices, just as in the MacGuffin, we only really have two.


Begin Again, or Let Go?


We can't have it all, the forward progress of the future and the utopia of the past. Ultimately, the only sensible choice is to... Let Go. March bravely forward.


But the SS is literally the past. He IS the problem. Humanity needs to learn from its mistake, to not let old world relics get in the way. And yet, there he is.




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[Kathy]

Long winded and possibly limiting? Yes. Contrived? No. Actually, it'll probably feel really smooth.

 

[Oppen]

Here's a question, if your character has lived in that village all their lives, wouldn't it make sense they would give a shit about trying to save it? [..] It's their home after all. Even if it's not outright stated, one can assume there is reason enough for them to give a shit without resorting to emotional pandering. As for why WE would care about saving the village/Vault, well, we bought the game right? If we didn't care about playing and trying to achieve the goal we wouldn't buy the game.

Yeah... Now lets replace village with Daddy... Then according to your logic you should care about daddy in FO3 because: it would make sense that you would give a shit about your father and because you bought the game

While you do have a point here, it's not quite the same: your village didn't abandon you and left you in a vault full of loonies that try to kill you, your father did. I personally, IRL, loved my father deeply, but because he did show he cared about me and loved me back, I'm not too sure if I would've, have he been an asshole to me. For all I know, Lone Wanderer's father didn't give a crap about abandoning him or her to die, so why would he or she care about that asshole?

if they were smart about it they could use Traits as a way to enforce character history tos spice up the tutorial. Instead of being a generic "grizzled ex military person who lost his spouse" you could choose other backgrounds, like "Chinese Spy/Sympathizer/Sleeper Agent", Military Grease Monkey, alcoholic, Average Joe (the "neutral" class), anti government protestor, etc. But well, bethesda and smart don't gel well, hell Intelligence seems to be a dump stat now.

While your idea is good from a quality point of view, I'd say they are being smart, just their purpose isn't in line with what we'd want. For making money, what you propose is an extra cost (they have to actually write and implement these different tutorials), and being a relatively minor part of the game for anything but role playing, they are not likely to make much more money because of this feature.

Similar you can say that Fallout 2 was pretty much planned out for you. You are a tribal, descended of the Vault Dweller, who has been training from birth to go through the temple of trials, following your mama steps.

Except you never trained to follow your mama steps and going through the temple of trials, as long as the game imposes.

Despite your choice in Char creation, starting with the adulthood test implies that you are young (20 year old by cannon). Beside your mentor, you had no living family, friends or lovers (at least none that cared enough to say goodbye) and overall you are assumed to be an altruistic village fool who will rush to save the day...

Nobody says you aren't expecting a reward, and nobody imposes you to not just kill all of those fools. There is a thing that is imposed, and that is that you can not join the Enclave on their plan. In this, Fallout 1 wins. It states you've lost the game, but you can choose to side with the Master and sell your Vault.

 

[fred2]

While you do have a point here, it's not quite the same: your village didn't abandon you and left you in a vault full of loonies that try to kill you, your father did. I personally, IRL, loved my father deeply, but because he did show he cared about me and loved me back, I'm not too sure if I would've, have he been an asshole to me. For all I know, Lone Wanderer's father didn't give a crap about abandoning him or her to die, so why would he or she care about that asshole?

That the point, you don't know why he left. You are removed from the only place you have ever known, your father is the only person you know, and who hold answers. Most people will seek that anchor. In comparison in FO2 there is FAR less compelling reason to care about your backward tribal community, much less so after seeing the big world and all it holds.

@Cyberfiend, And giving up a priceless GECK is not self intrest, and "You bought the game, this is YOUR village\daddy now care about it" is not my idea of compelling story\presentation)

Nobody says you aren't expecting a reward, and nobody imposes you to not just kill all of those fools. There is a thing that is imposed, and that is that you can not join the Enclave on their plan. In this, Fallout 1 wins. It states you've lost the game, but you can choose to side with the Master and sell your Vault.

True, there are many differences, but overall we were talking about the intros (discussion started in another thread) and I argued that FO1, FO2, FO3 and FO4 INTRO's has generally the same structure and freedom, which is different from FO:NVs amnesia scheme.

 

[Eumesmopo]

Personally I do like those long introduction sequences when they contribute to building the main character and, more importantly, the game world. I think the introductions for Fallout 3 and Skyrim do this job reasonably well (if anything, I wish they were longer). They make you 'feel in' simple facts about the world the game is going to be set in: You were born inside a vault, every day you meet those same people, there is this hierarchy you must abide, you study for a few years and then they give you test to assign the job you will do for the rest of you life, etc... Or in Skyrim's case: The borders are closed because there is a war going on, the rebel side is all rallying behind this stormcloak guy, the empire are subservient to the elves and they are executing people for no reason, dragons are coming back, etc...

I think they are good for making sure the player takes a breather before he just tries to run around the world aimlessly. Those introductions feel like a good way of outright scaring off players that can't take their time to be fully immersed into the game's world.

"Player: I don't care about the story! I just want to get the most powerful weapon in the game and I want to go look for it now!"
"Introduction sequence: Hold your horses cowboy! We got a bit of worldbuilding to do first."

 

[TorontoReign]

The key to a good introduction in these types of games is replayability and world building. Fallout 3 failed in this because the Vault can only offer so much variety. New Vegas did this well because it threw you right into the world, as did Fallout 1. I don't know of too many people that enjoy playing the Vault 101 sequence every time they play a new character. Fallout 2 had the infamous Temple of Trials. Blech.

 

[shihonage]

Never expect Bethesda to successfully produce emotion in the player. These are the people who are giving you the invulnerable dog.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Goodsprings is a pretty decent region for a tutorial. You have a lot of choices here, where you can either do good or bad things for goodsprings or simply leaving and ignoring it the moment you step outside the docs house.

 

[Oppen]

That the point, you don't know why he left. You are removed from the only place you have ever known, your father is the only person you know, and who hold answers. Most people will seek that anchor. In comparison in FO2 there is FAR less compelling reason to care about your backward tribal community, much less so after seeing the big world and all it holds.

I don't find too compelling knowing why he left either. The important thing here is the following: he knew the deal with the Vault, and chose to leave me. Not worth it, he can be deathclaw food for all I care. I am more likely to care for Amata, as stupid as the character was, at least she shows any interest in my survival. Same for all I can guess about the tribe.

True, there are many differences, but overall we were talking about the intros (discussion started in another thread) and I argued that FO1, FO2, FO3 and FO4 INTRO's has generally the same structure and freedom, which is different from FO:NVs amnesia scheme.

Still, the point about the intro is that you are forced to care for someone specific, at least that's the part I was answering to. That is only true in the cases of Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, and it's only half a truth for Fallout 2, where you could be just expecting a reward and later on ensuring your own survival (the FEV virus would kill also you). In Fallout 1 you are entitled to not care on the mutants quest, and you could be expecting a reward in the water chip quest. AFAIR, you could even never complete the water chip quest, so not caring is still an option except for the game over countdown. The intro in these games is basically "well, you lived here, and they expect you to do this". Pretty much everything else is up to you. Fallout 3, meanwhile, decides you love your dad, despite him abandonning you to die, and I think that's defining a lot of the character for you. This trait is not a positive one for role playing. Might be in another context. In the new one, AFAIK (from things I read here, so correct me if I'm wrong) they made more character choices for you, as you did have a child, you did marry, apparently you also love your significant one, they even decided what kind of man or woman your character was, being an army guy/girl, whatever. The intro isn't necessarily bad, but it is too defining for good role playing.

 

[Cyberfiend]

@Cyberfiend, And giving up a priceless GECK is not self intrest, and "You bought the game, this is YOUR village\daddy now care about it" is not my idea of compelling story\presentation)

It is self interest to bring it back if you will otherwise die with the rest of the villagers from famine and drought.

You can't get my point at all it seems. What I'm trying to say is that, from an initial set up, you don't need to try so hard to tug at the emotional strings. "Your village is running out of food, get the GECK to keep it going" is a pretty simple, neutral objective to start off with. The thing about FO2 is that retrieving the GECK is just the initial stepping stone for the rest of the story, like finding the water chip in FO1, or finding the guy who shot you in FONV. It's a set up to bigger and better things.

The reason Fallout 3 doesn't work is that it goes out of its way to try and make you give a shit about Daddy. The thing is though, if Daddy was such a good person, why would he abandon you in the Vault run by an control freak overseer who he must have surely known would come to get you in revenge for dad's disappearance? Unlike the other Fallout games, FO3 relies on that forced emotional attachment to steer the game right to the very end. Sure, FO2 relies on emotional attachment to an extent (although it's nowhere near as forced), but it still offers more in player agency and roleplaying choice. In FO3 the plot holds your hand and not so gently pushes you to be a goody two shoes (otherwise certain plots points just wouldn't make sense), in FO2, yes I'm going to eventual save my village and shut down the Enclave, but at least I can be a right bastard along the way and it won't break the plot to do so.

Anyways, this is getting off topic. As I've already said we will have to agree to disagree, otherwise we're just going to go around in circles.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

Goodsprings is a pretty decent region for a tutorial. You have a lot of choices here, where you can either do good or bad things for goodsprings or simply leaving and ignoring it the moment you step outside the docs house.

I literally feel worse when Cheyenne dies in the shootout with the Powder Gangers than when Dad dies in Fallout 3. I feel bad, in large part, because the dog is not invulnerable and it only died because I wasn't good enough.

 

[Oppen]

It is self interest to bring it back if you will otherwise die with the rest of the villagers from famine and drought.

You don't have to die with the rest. After middle game, you already proved you can survive on your own, so this is a moot point. By that point of the game, your own self interest will never again involve saving the tribe, unless you care about the tribe, until the Enclave plot (and even then, if it were only self-interest, you could just let them inside the Rig when you blow it up, which I'm not a 100% sure you are not allowed to do).
While this doesn't mean the intro defines your character, you have to care enough about them to bring the GECK with you, and to actually not abandon them on the rig.
EDIT: kind of forgot to make the point in my last phrase: this means you actually had your character defined *by* the intro in those aspects, even if not right *in* the intro.

 

[Moosick]

tbh if the Chosen One decided to settle down in, say, New Reno, they'd be in charge of the entire city by the end of the week.

 

[TorontoReign]

Goodsprings is a pretty decent region for a tutorial. You have a lot of choices here, where you can either do good or bad things for goodsprings or simply leaving and ignoring it the moment you step outside the docs house.

I literally feel worse when Cheyenne dies in the shootout with the Powder Gangers than when Dad dies in Fallout 3. I feel bad, in large part, because the dog is not invulnerable and it only died because I wasn't good enough.

BINGO! We have a winner. I feel the same. It is exactly because Cheyenne can die too. If she was some immortal mutt that lived the whole game no matter what, it would be forgettable. What is memorable is if half the town gets killed in the gunfight.

 

[Moosick]

Goodsprings is a pretty decent region for a tutorial. You have a lot of choices here, where you can either do good or bad things for goodsprings or simply leaving and ignoring it the moment you step outside the docs house.

I literally feel worse when Cheyenne dies in the shootout with the Powder Gangers than when Dad dies in Fallout 3. I feel bad, in large part, because the dog is not invulnerable and it only died because I wasn't good enough.

BINGO! We have a winner. I feel the same. It is exactly because Cheyenne can die too. If she was some immortal mutt that lived the whole game no matter what it would be forgettable. What is memorable is if half the town gets killed in the gunfight.

also there are world consequences that aren't one-dimensional, unconvincing + flat condolences like in 3. Sunny Smiles stops being quite so smiley and it's much more effective.

 

[Meadowbrook]

Hey. My main concern with FO4 isn't exactly the fact it starts with pre-war USA, it's that my character already has his own personality and what have you. We can infer that from the fact he'll grobble-grobble on about sugar bombs having its dose of sugar, you have a basic cue regarding what he might say based on a blurb, and apparently he's completely interchangeable with his wife. Was she ex-military as well? Why do I care about the family since we start in that happy-settled phase of the relationship rather than the falling in love bit or having the kid? If you're going to bother to try to hit some feels regarding what's been lost, give us some agency to care. I mean, even FO3 you start out being born and grow up in the vault until you bust out, dad seems to like you so you actually may or may not care. In FO4, you're just sorta dumped in and go through the motions, you wife walks in, then apparently you can swap to her and carry on, you find a prop that's supposed to look like you, bombs drop, apparently events happen and you're alone and you only have your robo-buttler to get caught up with. Then, you get to roleplay based solely on how good the VA delivers his or her lines, and since they're mapped to the XYBA buttons, I'm not thinking you're going to be spoiled for choice.

Knowing Beth, you'll either pull a Rage or end up 'No! I must kill the institute!' and then they reply, No, playername, you are the institute' and the PC was an android. I can hack the loss of mechanics like power armor being a vehicle section, crit being a resource like focus was for a hunter in WoW, the dumbing down of mechanics where you potentially have no skills which may potentially just become 'perks' where you can get a +1 to repair so you can scuttle a giddyup buttercup for screws and wait for three more perks to get your required science perk up to build a generator which'll eventually let you power your outhouse so your caravan NPC'll sell the good shit, because as Todd said 'they have the best shit'. But man, at least let me have my own internalized voice and make some meaningful choices where I can read exactly what I'll beyond infer what the toon might say for me with his 'what?' 'Food?' 'No food' 'Get food' where any of those choices might make me an ass without realizing it. I even heard that the XYBA buttons will have the tone of your response mapped to specific keys, like B is always Dick, A is good, X is neutral and Y is for whatever. I'm the one supposed to be reacting to the world, not some guy commenting on cereal for me.

 

[haeerhum]

Actually, I've always kind of felt that you should start at least one Fallout game before the war. All of the protagonists in previous games were born into the setting and accept a post-apocalyptic reality as normal. That incredible sense of loss of thousands of years of glorious history and vivacity and that regret at man's idiocy that only a survivor could have is one of the most salient parts of a post-apocalyptic story for me. I always thought it was weird that Fallout never delved into it before. It's very exciting.

That said, I don't know why they'd give me a fucking baby to mourn instead of human civilization. Of course instead of actually exploring the implications of the setting in a meaningful way, Bethesda creates half-assed plots and motivations that would be just as at home in a generic soap opera.

A lot of people apparently don't find pre-War to be an interesting era, but it's probably my favourite part of the lore. Resource wars, propaganda, annexations! So much tension, so much intrigue! The consuming greed for oil and land, and the terror that your enemy will destroy you, all on the backdrop of palatable 50's slogans and pin-ups! Of course we'll get to experience a grand total of none of that, but I can roleplay I guess.

stuff

God, I regret reading that. This would be so much fun. Now I'll forever be condemned to play that ten-minute sequence in the house, dreaming about what could have been.