Fallout in 20 gaming lows

[cabeça]

Hey, put your weapons away!!

 

[Sander]

yet it doesn't for me.
*walks around corner*
Argh! Supermutant!
*turn-based combat starts*
Hmm....first-person shooter indeed.

We had similar situations in Fallout 1 and 2, so then I don't see a point in dude_obj's statement.

And I didn't see a point in your flaming him. Hence why I objected.

Raped SPECIAL is no longer real SPECIAL. Having turn-based combat is a prerequisite for having proper SPECIAL system. Do you like how SPECIAL was handled in Lionheart? No, didn't think so.

Yet that was NOT what you said before. Hence why I objected.

You misunderstood me, as usual. I said that Fallout needs improvement rather than change. I wouldn't know about MGS, Perfect Dark and Super Smash Bros, since I don't play console games, but Europea Universalis 2 retains those aspects of previous sequels that were already perfect and improves those that needed improvement, while implementing a few new features that enhance the game experience without interfering with individual concepts that work fine. Example:

Fallout 3 gets a new, 3D engine and ability to craft items = improvement.

Fallout 3 gets real-time combat and topic-based dialogues in place of turn-based combat and dialogue trees = franchize-ruining change.

Deus Ex 2 = a poor sequel that doesn't improve over the original game, while unnecesarily changing its greatest aspects.

GTA: San Andreas = an awesome sequel that retains what fans loved about previous games while enhancing it with more features, greater freedom and improved interactivity.

No, Ratty, I didn't misunderstand you, I failed (and fail) to understand why you were flaming dude_obj for suggesting just that: that Bethesda throws in the improvements they want. You went off at a huge tangent, and that was what I was protesting against. I full well understand that you'd want improvement, since that was what you said, but I don't understand your bullshit first post.

For a moment I thought you wanted to have keywords in place of the existing dialogue trees. If not, then I guess it's okay to have keywords as an additional dialogue feature, even though most players likely won't bother with it.

Missing the point. They should use it. Fallout 1 had keywords, but they didn't add anything. An improvement would be to have people type in certain keywords for certain actions and quests. Instead of going 'Hey there's a dialogue option for "rope", that must be what I should do', they should go 'Hey, I have this rope in my inventory, maybe that's what I should use. *types in rope in keyword thingie*'

Had you been paying more attention to my posts in the past few months, you would have noticed that I always have been a proponent of 3D Fallout with freely adjustable camera.

Sorry, Ratty, for not reading everything you say. My bad.
Note that that is sarcasm.

However, I don't want Fallout to be turned into Neverwinter Nights in that respect. In NWN, camera behaves atrociously - when you are close to a wall it idiotically zooms in on you, no matter to what angle and zoom level you set it, it's always uncomfortable and forces you to pixel-hunt - simply put, it's a general pain in the ass. In Fallout 3 it should be possible to freely control the camera, but it should also retain some behaviour of the old 2D isometric camera, such as transparent walls and highlighting of concealed objects. If Bethesda can't deliver that, I'd rather have the traditional fixed angle isometric camera.

And yet again, that is not what you said before. You said that Fallout should remeain isometric, which is completely opposed to any form of free camera. Learn to use some nuance, or choose better words, please, that'll avoid stuff like this in the future.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

Yet that was NOT what you said before. Hence why I objected.

Here's what I said: "Making a first person Fallout would also mean ditching turn-based gameplay, which would inevitably mean ditching SPECIAL system and everything that defined the RP aspect of the game." The point remains the same: first-person = no turn-based = no SPECIAL. And as far as I'm concerned: raped SPECIAL = no SPECIAL.

No, Ratty, I didn't misunderstand you, I failed (and fail) to understand why you were flaming dude_obj for suggesting just that: that Bethesda throws in the improvements they want. You went off at a huge tangent, and that was what I was protesting against. I full well understand that you'd want improvement, since that was what you said, but I don't understand your bullshit first post.

dude_obj said nothing about improvements - he said that Fallout fans refuse to accept change. To which I pointed out that when a development team deliberately changes that which doesn't need changing, it unmistakingly results in an inferior sequel. Examples of this are... well, too numerous to be named.

Missing the point. They should use it. Fallout 1 had keywords, but they didn't add anything. An improvement would be to have people type in certain keywords for certain actions and quests. Instead of going 'Hey there's a dialogue option for "rope", that must be what I should do', they should go 'Hey, I have this rope in my inventory, maybe that's what I should use. *types in rope in keyword thingie*'

Again, people won't want to bother with this. It's too unintuitive. I personally would love something like that, but I get a feeling that Bethesda (or any other company, for that matter) will want more than a few thousand people to play their game. It would be cool if they added it as an alternative to point 'n click dialogue trees (which I'm guessing it isn't too hard to implement), but forcing the player to use it if they want to solve certain quests would just alienate many players. Face it, most gamers are stupid as hell nowadays, and even an in-game chat poses a daunting challenge for many of them. So until speech recognition and true A.I. become viable, complex dialogue trees will remain the most acceptable solution for character interaction in games. As for free talk and keywords, they should remain reserved for MUDs and similar games.

Sorry, Ratty, for not reading everything you say. My bad.
Note that that is sarcasm.

Harumph.

And yet again, that is not what you said before. You said that Fallout should remeain isometric, which is completely opposed to any form of free camera. Learn to use some nuance, or choose better words, please, that'll avoid stuff like this in the future.

My bad, I should have been more accurate. I am all for free camera, but I fully intend to use isometric view. There.

 

[Sander]

Here's what I said: "Making a first person Fallout would also mean ditching turn-based gameplay, which would inevitably mean ditching SPECIAL system and everything that defined the RP aspect of the game." The point remains the same: first-person = no turn-based = no SPECIAL. And as far as I'm concerned: raped SPECIAL = no SPECIAL.

See, and that's not what I understand under no SPECIAL. Again: choose your words more properly.

dude_obj said nothing about improvements - he said that Fallout fans refuse to accept change. To which I pointed out that when a development team deliberately changes that which doesn't need changing, it unmistakingly results in an inferior sequel. Examples of this are... well, too numerous to be named.

Yes, but he was obviously talking about Fallout fans not being able to accept changes, even when they are for the better. And you completely buried him for that for meaning to change the Fallout franchise into Tactics, which was completely uncalled for and very unfair.

Again, people won't want to bother with this. It's too unintuitive. I personally would love something like that, but I get a feeling that Bethesda (or any other company, for that matter) will want more than a few thousand people to play their game. It would be cool if they added it as an alternative to point 'n click dialogue trees (which I'm guessing it isn't too hard to implement), but forcing the player to use it if they want to solve certain quests would just alienate many players. Face it, most gamers are stupid as hell nowadays, and even an in-game chat poses a daunting challenge for many of them. So until speech recognition and true A.I. become viable, complex dialogue trees will remain the most acceptable solution for character interaction in games. As for free talk and keywords, they should remain reserved for MUDs and similar games.

Bullshit. Sorry, Ratty, but you're dead wrong. All I'm hearing from gaming mags (the most popular one here, especially) is that games these days are 'too easy'. They scream for more difficulty.
I'm not saying that keywords should play such a vital role that the game will be broken if you don't use them, but I am saying that they should play a part and could really help people on.
This isn't, by the way, a discussion on alienation of players or anything of the like, that's completely secondary, but on that it would be an improvement. And it would. I'll go see if I can find the discussion Rosh had on this.

My bad, I should have been more accurate. I am all for free camera, but I fully intend to use isometric view. There.

Mkay.

EDIT: Gotcha: http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10122

 

[Per]

All I'm hearing from gaming mags (the most popular one here, especially) is that games these days are 'too easy'. They scream for more difficulty.

What critics (and articulate consumer representatives) say everyone wants rarely corresponds to what consumers really want as measured by sales figures. Every critic hails Torment and Fallout, but PC RPGs are still a niche market and the complex ones even more so. Sam and Max gets cancelled. Van Buren gets cancelled. Being a writerish person, the thing that always ticks me off is how critics call for better plots and writing in games, while the real trend looks more like the direct opposite.

 

[jr.]

But no matter what they do they will surely disappoint the die hard fallout fans, most of which don't seem to accept any kind of change at all.

where does this line of thinking come from? Van Buren and the changes it bought to Fallout were accepted by the majority. there's an entire forum here dedicated to ideas and suggestions for Fallout 3, most of which obviously involve change. the way to avoid dissapointing Fallout fans has been outlined and re-outlined in absolute clarity since Tactics was released, which is to simply make Fallout 3 a discernable sequel to the RPGs. not many developers have the extreme luxery of being handed instructions on how to please their core audience.

maybe you saw the PR shills on the Interplay forums talking about these "hardcore Fallout fans". Is that where you got it from? if so, hold on to your ass; they don't exist. there's no such thing as the "hardcore" or "vocal minority" Fallout fan that hates change and won't accept anything. they were a myth made to put a pretty face on things. after all, what's better, an inherently unreasonable minority or alienating your entire fanbase with giganticly retarded and suicidal business moves that they warned you against making every step of the way? Interplay preferred people to think the former.

i'm personally glad that Fallout fans not only haven't supported the abysmal commercial flops in the series, but saw them coming, too, and give developers every opportinuty to avoid them.

 

[dude_obj]

where does this line of thinking come from?

From watching people frothing at the mouth.
Just a general observation.

 

[Claw]

Yes. For two reasons, one for each point of view.

The first being that people even tried.

'The second being that the rich game industry got out under from what every other industry does have to deal with: limitation on sales if products are deemed improper for children.

No.

 

[jr.]

From watching people frothing at the mouth.

what people? where? you must not mean Fallout fans, because first of all, they aren't against change. second, i just explained in detail how and why it's a load of bullshit to say otherwise. so if you mean Fallout fans, you must be very fucking dense.

wait a second. is this what you mean by "frothing at the mouth"? if it is, you've been mistaking an allergy to stupidity for an allergy to change.

 

[Ancient Oldie]

Keywords?! Gross.

I'm with Ratty on this one. The way that you want keywords to be implemented would definitely make games more difficult, but not in a positive sense. It's too unintuitive, time-consuming, and, quite frankly, wouldn't make a game more challenging. If it's that kind of difficulty we're concerned about, then in-game journals should be eliminated as well. It would kind of make typing a word out superfluous if you could still check your journal to see who you needed to talk to and about what. IMO there really isn't any added satisfaction in typing out a word combination on the correct character to get the plot moving. If anything, it detracts from the gameplay.

Often times, the way the game itself is setup is what makes it easy. On the rope example, you should already know that you need to speak to person A about the rope. If you didn't, either the game is fucked up somewhere (brings back memories of using keywords on all NPC's), you're just unbelievably dense, or you only have an average of one hour a day to play a game, and don't have the time to keep a personal journal of clues and details. Also, well written dialogues are

I think it's safe to say that that some of the best RPG's have used dialogue tree's exceptionally well. From what I've gathered, most of this boards favorite RPG's use them.

The only way that I could see it work would be if they implemented a system similar to Geneforge. Have the keywords highlighted and selectable(or better yet, a dialogue tree ) that are important to the plot and primary sidequests, but use typable keywords sparingly, only to open up secret quests, ultra-rare items, witty dialogue, etc.. In other words, it should be optional and fun.

Either that, or an ingenious AI that I could speak to and that could totally understand what the fuck I'm talking about. Now that would be nice!

 

[Briosafreak]

Jr. is overall right as usual, although things are a bit too tight on the Fallout3 forum, we should use BB guns to the individual fallout fans, no matter how wilde their ideas are, and keep the heavy artillery to when it`s needed and to those with power that may deserve it.

But not believing the bad hype is important, i agree with Jr.

Damn have you guys banned Marcelo? I was trying to help him out with the portuguese translation of the Fallout games, his english is quite limited. Oh well...

 

[Ratty Sr.]

I don't think he was banned. Rosh gave him a special title and avatar for flaming, trolling and generally acting like a dolt.

 

[Per]

About that translation, I still don't see how it's possible to pick up and convey all the finer points of a text, especially one packed full of internal and external references, if you can't even string together a few sentences in the language yourself. Oops, bit OT perhaps.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

About that translation, I still don't see how it's possible to pick up and convey all the finer points of a text, especially one packed full of internal and external references, if you can't even string together a few sentences in the language yourself. Oops, bit OT perhaps.

You know what would really rock? If Bethesda hired Haris and made him the lead designer of Fallout 3!

 

[cabeça]

Per wrote: " I still don't see how it's possible to pick up and convey all the finer points of the text, especially one packed full of internal and external references, if you can't even string together the few sentences in the language yourself. Oops, bit OT perhaps ".

 

[PsychoSniper]

You know what would really rock? If Bethesda hired Haris and made him the lead designer of Fallout 3!

Dont even joke about that.


*shudders*

Im going to have nightmares tonite............

 

[cabeça]

Ok

 

[PsychoSniper]

Marcelo, incase you havent noticed this fourm speaks english.


Posting content in a forengn language (execpt on hosted foumrs) is frowned upon.


Odds are that your post (and this one too, most likley) will soon be vated.

I recomend writing in english, who knows maybe even edit that post to english.

 

[Briosafreak]

Well he couldn`t send the pm, that´s why he left this here. I`ve read it now, so if you want remove it.

Marcelo i don`t have a problem with a good brazilian portuguese translation, maybe you can get some help from the guys that made that Brazilian P&P Fallout game too, they were great fun. But although your use of Portuguese is admirable, your english is limited to a point that it might result in a too narrow translation (tradução demasiado literal) or even some screw ups. But again i wish you good luck, and sorry if all i could get to translate outdoorsman was the same things you got plus "explorador".

Well back to topic now, sorry for this.

 

[Sander]

No.

Ah yes, the difficulty of making any form of decent argument, or in fact, useful remark. "No." is a word that shows that you do not agree with what is said, or that you are answering negatively to a question. However, I did not pose a question, and I stated two reasons why it could've been a gaming low. A form of logical argument as to why those are bad reasons could very well have changed my mind, or at least initiated a debate. Alas, it seems that your only response to this is of the short-sighted and rather unimaginative form, so I cannot be convinced nor can this actually initiate a debate, since there are no points to debate right now.

Marcelo, incase you havent noticed this fourm speaks english.


Posting content in a forengn language (execpt on hosted foumrs) is frowned upon.


Odds are that your post (and this one too, most likley) will soon be vated.

I recomend writing in english, who knows maybe even edit that post to english.

Psychosniper, the recently unbanned, and still spammy as hell would-be-moderator.
Note0 to PS: you're not a mod.
Note1 to PS: he wrote that he couldn't send a PM, and hence had to do it like this.
Note2 to PS: you were recently banned for posting spammy and annoying messages, and I don't see any improvement. Alas, I am but a simple moderator of the Fallout General Discussion board, so I have no authority on this subject.

What critics (and articulate consumer representatives) say everyone wants rarely corresponds to what consumers really want as measured by sales figures. Every critic hails Torment and Fallout, but PC RPGs are still a niche market and the complex ones even more so. Sam and Max gets cancelled. Van Buren gets cancelled. Being a writerish person, the thing that always ticks me off is how critics call for better plots and writing in games, while the real trend looks more like the direct opposite.

True enough. But I don't think that difficulty is really a problem. As I said: it's the biggest gaming magazine in the BeNeLux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) with a couple of hundred thousand subscribers, IIRC, who are constantly saying that. I'd think that at least counts for something, since the readers seem to agree with them.

Keywords?! Gross.

I'm with Ratty on this one. The way that you want keywords to be implemented would definitely make games more difficult, but not in a positive sense. It's too unintuitive, time-consuming, and, quite frankly, wouldn't make a game more challenging. If it's that kind of difficulty we're concerned about, then in-game journals should be eliminated as well. It would kind of make typing a word out superfluous if you could still check your journal to see who you needed to talk to and about what. IMO there really isn't any added satisfaction in typing out a word combination on the correct character to get the plot moving. If anything, it detracts from the gameplay.

As I've said, I don't think making it a critical feature is a good idea (yet). However, I don't see what your problem is. If you'd read Rosh's thread (maybe you have?) I linked to, you'd notice that there are more reasons to use it. FOr one, jumpstarting conversations can be really handy.
Secondly, to give the user a bit more space to do what he wants. Really, just starting a conversation and immediately seeing "Hey, he's the guy I need to ask for information" is completely different from typing in a keyword (in the New Reno Jet Poisoning quest, for instance, this could've been used). Instead of everything being handed to you, just because you happened to talk to someone, you have to take some time and go through some trouble to get somewhere. And really, that does pay off, because the more trouble you go through, the greater the feeling of satisfaction once you pull it off.
It's also a way of rewarding explorative players, with more information (say that you asked someone about the history of the town in keywords), or extra items and quests.

Often times, the way the game itself is setup is what makes it easy. On the rope example, you should already know that you need to speak to person A about the rope. If you didn't, either the game is fucked up somewhere (brings back memories of using keywords on all NPC's), you're just unbelievably dense, or you only have an average of one hour a day to play a game, and don't have the time to keep a personal journal of clues and details.

I strongly disagree here. Look at the Glow, it wasn't that obvious that you had to use a rope there, you had to take a little bit of effort to even get a rope to get in there. That wasn't clear0cut, it wasn't told to you in any way, and that's an example of a good quest: not handing players everything on a silver platter. Because if you do, it stops being a game, and starts to be nothing but an interactive story.
I really don't get your argument here, either. You're saying that everything in a game should be obvious. Why? What would be the fun if a game was that easy?

Also, well written dialogues are

Are what?

I think it's safe to say that that some of the best RPG's have used dialogue tree's exceptionally well. From what I've gathered, most of this boards favorite RPG's use them.

As I've said before, I'm not saying the dialogue tree should be thrown away, it should be complemented by a keyword system.

The only way that I could see it work would be if they implemented a system similar to Geneforge. Have the keywords highlighted and selectable(or better yet, a dialogue tree Smile ) that are important to the plot and primary sidequests, but use typable keywords sparingly, only to open up secret quests, ultra-rare items, witty dialogue, etc.. In other words, it should be optional and fun.

Your first suggestion completely eliminates the point of keywords. Have smilies next to them so you can see what the effect will be on players? Is that what you're saying? What happened to ANY form of difficulty? Now that's what I call handing players things on a silver platter.
Your second suggestion looks a lot more like what I want, though.