Fallout 4- doesn't have to be incremental, chronologically

[TorontoReign]

^^^ Well I always chalked the standing buildings up to SCIENCE!.

Since Fallout diverged from our current timeline and went into the realm of Robby the Robot and Gigantic Insects, it makes sense that a new kind of composite wood made of more durable stuff might exist. Besides....the buildings make the Wasteland look better.

SCIENCE! has rules. They aren't the same as the ones reality has, but the rules exist all the same. Retro 50s SCIENCE! doesn't use composite wood & instead goes for shiny metal surfaces & some plastics.

Looks better? To you and alot of other fans sure. Not to everyone otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The number of things we're having to explain away for Bethsoft is extremely worrying in the face of everyone saying Fallout 3 is a great game & game of the year. Why are fans having to fix/improve so much of the game if it's so great?

While I dislike about 60 percent of the game, the wooden buildings are the least of Fallout 3's problems. I would never defend Bethesda, but arguing about the wooden buildings still standing is a little crazy. If the wooden buildings were the only problem this game had we would all be much happier right now.

I don't think I said wooden buildings enough.....wooden buildings.

 

[Fade]

While I dislike about 60 percent of the game, the wooden buildings are the least of Fallout 3's problems. I would never defend Bethesda, but arguing about the wooden buildings still standing is a little crazy. If the wooden buildings were the only problem this game had we would all be much happier right now.

I don't think I said wooden buildings enough.....wooden buildings.

The buildings are more of an example of the lack of thought that went into the game. Ausir said it best:

They're pretty clearly pre-War buildings, still standing after 200 years. And yes, wood would be a basic commodity, which is why e.g. the pre-war Springvale wooden buildings should have long been disassembled and used by the people of Megaton.

Parts of Fallout 3 look/play/read great, but the whole looks more like Dr. Frankstein put it together than a polished game.

 

[Herr Mike]

I don't really care about the wooden buildings, it's just fun to discuss. I actually think they are a nice effect on the landscape.

Judging from old farmhouses around here (in Iowa), they will typically stand until someone tears them down. I'm sure I've seen houses that have been derelict for 60+ years, perfectly intact.

Of course, most likely someone would have taken the wood. But, you could look at Springvale and say that someone already has taken a lot of it.

 

[Fade]

I don't really care about the wooden buildings, it's just fun to discuss. I actually think they are a nice effect on the landscape.

Judging from old farmhouses around here (in Iowa), they will typically stand until someone tears them down. I'm sure I've seen houses that have been derelict for 60+ years, perfectly intact.

Of course, most likely someone would have taken the wood. But, you could look at Springvale and say that someone already has taken a lot of it.

With those burn patterns? It comes across as something that has stood since the fall of the bombs. Anyway, the wooden buildings would have looked great in a game set 10 to 20 years after someone arrived in DC.

Hmmmmmm. That is the big problem: People. 200 years after the war or 5 years doesn't matter if no one is around to change anything in DC. Set things just as people are moving into an area. The fetch quests & explore ones would fit as nobody has a clue where things are. Say two more groups move at the same time with raiders following them to steal their gear. All of the people in the groups could give their own quest based on how they want things to develop. Tying it together & modifying the outcome based on which quests you did & when would be a challenge.

 

[Herr Mike]

Right, and that's important to keep in mind if they wish to keep the games chonological. You can easily come up with a reason why an area was not repopulated until relatively recently, thus explaining the lack of development.

 

[Swiffness]

I don't think Fallout 3 was more primitive than Fallout 2 at all.. I think that it really varied depending on the community. The larger communities with scientists etc seemed to be thriving, developing state-like structures as well akin to the NCR (Commonwealth and its androids etc. for example).

Rivet City epitomises this, with their city being supported logistically by hydroponic farms and water purification combined with an extensive trade network.

I think there's a lot of communities with potential to "step up" so to speak but are either too small or lacking the expertise to do so, particularly in the face of the supermutants and the enclave. The advanced ones seem to be in the well defended strongholds that are developing quite well, again Rivet City is the prime example.

I think you're right in saying it would be different set even after Fallout 3, although nobody is able to accurately talk about realism especially in such a broad and blanket sense as we tend to do here when it comes to the world after a nuclear apocalypse... I imagine in such a fragmented and torn region as the continental US it is too much to simply say "everybody would be like ______ in ______ level of development" as the regions vary far too much to really do so accurately.

We can't even predict modern levels of development over the centuries accurately let alone in the event of nuclear apocalypse... I mean looking at Africa in the past 200 years there hasn't been substantial development in a blanket sense.. its been restricted regionally depending on stability, expertise, and access to resources. I think it would be pretty much the same in the Fallout setting, or any post-nuclear apocalypse setting.

What he said.

What's unrealistic again? Staples of the franchise include concepts as fanciful as Plasma Rifles, Ghouls, and a "Forced Evolutionary Virus" that turns people into monsters. Come on, that last one has more in common with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than Mad Max. A realistic depiction of life after a Global Thermonuclear War would be fascinating.....for a RPG/RTS hybrid. But it would only fleetingly resemble Fallout.

And I strongly disagree with Commiered's argument that things would be "getting back to normal" after 200 years. I mean.....

Given the nature of the Fallout universe, I think its safe to assume that nuclear proliferation would continue to grow exponentially, ESPECIALLY during the Resource Wars. Since the Pre-War Fallout civilization basically eschewed development of miniaturized electronics, munitions targetting would also be relatively primative. This means that militaries would compensate by using (much) larger payloads in their nuclear arsenals (this was true with the real-world USSR, hence them being batshit crazy enough to put 20 megaton missles in service). By 2077, 50mt+ Tsar-Bomb-style nukes would be frighteningly commonplace in the Fallout world.

So in other words, Fallout's nuclear war would literally be like ten times worse than any real-life equivalent.

Under those circumstances, I would expect mankind to return to "normal" - as in a vibrant, interconnected, interdependent world community - in no less than 1 or 2 THOUSAND YEARS. That's a nice big window for some Wasteland action.

 

[Swiffness]

The number of things we're having to explain away for Bethsoft is extremely worrying in the face of everyone saying Fallout 3 is a great game & game of the year. Why are fans having to fix/improve so much of the game if it's so great?

Because the vast majority of people who bought and played Fallout 3 loved it. I'm seeing it all over the place on people's personal "Best Games of the Decade" lists. Let's face it: most NMA members were ambivalent at best about FO3 because they wanted to relive the glory days with a 3rd person isometric, turn-based ONLY (or else!) RPG. I remember Luddites bitching about Van Buren using 3D graphics, for crying out fucking loud. The horror!

 

[Swiffness]

And the "Fallout 0" idea is the coolest Fallout 4 concept I've come across, imho. They could start it with you being born outside the Vault right before the bombs drop, then getting rushed in by your mother before the door shuts. The whole point of that being that you get a nice Call of Duty 4 style intro where you get to look around and gawk at the abject panic, hellfire, and mushroom clouds in the distance.

 

[Ravager69]

And the "Fallout 0" idea is the coolest Fallout 4 concept I've come across, imho. They could start it with you being born outside the Vault right before the bombs drop, then getting rushed in by your mother before the door shuts. The whole point of that being that you get a nice Call of Duty 4 style intro where you get to look around and gawk at the abject panic, hellfire, and mushroom clouds in the distance.

Keep your Call of Duty out of my Fallout - it was never meant to be an action game with explosions and shit. It is about humanity's lust for war, as Avellone (I think) said. In Fallout, the nuclear war happened so long ago no one even remembers it (aside from few ghouls) and the world before it is lost and gone. It's about dealing with the aftermath of the war, not the war itself.

If the devs intent to move closer and closer to the apocalypse itself, perhaps it would be better to start a new franchise.

 

[Alvarez]

I like the Fallout 0 idea, that will sure reveal many facts about the war, if Beth wouldn't forget about the plot while playing Emmerich.

Fallout 3 doesn't make sense at all.
It just look...pretty. Fabricated. It would even sound ironic, but Fallout 3 is the apogee of apocalyptic wasteland clichee.

Barren and grim, but full with mostly intact remnants of civilization and a lot of monsters to kill. Crops and big, flourishing towns wouldn't look apocalyptic enough. Everyone should bathe in their PA misery, but don't die an unspectacular death.

I wouldn't even be surprised, if Capital Wasteland were to be an advanced Tranquility Lane.