If they used almost anything other than Gamebryo I wouldn't have a lot of issue with first-person.
I have no qualms with Gamebryo; only with how they chose to use it. Perspective issue aside, many of the systems they had in place for Oblivion, could translate nicely to a Fallout sequel. Gamebryo has been used for RTS (and even race driving) games.
I had high hopes for the potential I saw in using their Oblivion engine for Fallout 3... until I saw the crap they did with it. I had never heard of Bethesda at the time; others who knew of them—knew better than I, just what was likely to come of it... and ultimately did.
...make menus, inventory management, and interactive shortcuts more easy to manage...
Agree. The classic Fallouts could definitely use some more polishing in terms of UI functionality.
I didn't have a problem with Fallout's UI. Most developers seem to approach UI as an overlay—separate from (but perhaps thematic of) the game itself. Fallout's UI was approached as being salvaged/re-purposed machinery from within the game world. The Barter menu was made to appear as a physical table; as in, "Bring what you have to the table—to trade".
They even drew a side profile of the dialog UI—device, in their concept art.
The inventory/barter UI did have a linear stack for inventory; but as long as one knew that, I didn't think it was that big of a deal to people—was it really?
Fallout 1 initially were choke-full of it and in much greater scale (the initial 150 days time limit to find the Water Chip, and then settlements have time limit before getting destroyed by Super Mutant invasion). Well.... that didn't work with the wider audience, doesn't it? They patched the entire thing and only left the 150 days time limit for the Water Chip. I'd like more time-related mechanics in my games and RPGs in particular.
I thought that was a shame too.
...maybe reduce the "roll of the dice" aspect of early RPGs when shooting close range. It would be interesting if an overhead Fallout game allowed you to explore the wasteland between towns, like Diablo II had you explore wide open areas on your own.
I would certainly not want a reduction of "roll of the dice" aspect. Bethesda doesn't make RPGs—and that's the main reason of it. They make digital costume-sims; akin to the Delos theme park experience, as seen in the movie West World.
FPP perspective is tricky to have in an RPG; I've seen it done well, but not by Bethesda. FPP intrinsically promotes player substitution of the PC; the player tends to consider the outcome in a very personal way. If the PC fails an action (doing their best to achieve it), players tend put themselves in the PC's position, and view the failure as something randomly inflicted upon them, rather than the result of the PC's best effort under their present circumstance.
In an RPG, holding a weapon should be strictly for show; even in FPP. Players should be able to indicate a target (perhaps by pointing the weapon), but the exact location of the cross-hairs should only influence the PCs choice of who to attack, not the quality of that attack. Removing the impartiality of the dice-roll (in this case when at close range) would mean that the player would then control the weapon, and not the PC; that's bad, because the player can probably aim better than the PC; but also the reverse can be true—when the PC is a better shot than the player. In the first instance, the player is a crutch to help the PC make shots they shouldn't be often able to, and in the second instance, the player is the handicap... causing the PC to miss shots; out of character for an expert marksman.
This applies to any skill, not just marksmanship.
Maybe the few innovative things one could do in a new overhead Fallout game to make it more freeform in character interactivity, and to borrow gameplay mechanics from other games. For instance, stealth aspects from Thief and Commandos when breaking into people's homes and stealing without alerting them, or to allow for stealth kills and moving bodies. It would be nice too to see enemy/NPC behaviors to be more dynamic, like in Dishonored. And why not give the player situations like in Half-Life, Deus Ex, and Unreal where NPCs are in trouble in real time, and you can choose to save them or let them get killed? Those are just a few ideas.
Fallout has stealth aspect, and real-time quests; stealth is a major path through the game. That said... The last thing I want in a sequel, is to dilute the gameplay with borrowed mechanics; FO3 is a TES-reskin. There is little to nothing of Fallout in FO3... It's more accurately —TES borrowing Fallout mechanics, and masquerading as a Fallout sequel.
**But none of these ideas seem dependent upon recent advances in technology or game design; as Black Angel mentioned, Arcanum did allow the player to explore the continent... IRRC, I read that the player could walk from coast to coast—in the span of 48 hours of actual play time—not game time.
I would not want the dogged exploration of the wasteland to play a major part in any Fallout game. The wasteland was just that—wasted land. Fallout New Vegas was set in the desert, and did a fine job of presenting a desert... but it was boring—because it was a desert; and had they spiced it up fantastically—it would not have been a very plausible desert then, would it?
But I did suggest it of FO3 and FO4, before either was released; that they design a procedural system capable of creating a landscape suitable to an arbitrary map location.between towns...
...like Fallout had.
This was to allow encounters on the open world in FO3—without the tedious need to walk the land for weeks, to get from town to town.
A side effect could have been that the locations streamed in the direction the PC was walking—or driving; but that otherwise, travel lead to hand crafted towns and other important locations.
