FO: A new hope

B

boer_kameel

Still Mildly Glowing
Howdy all, it's been a while. Please allow me to elaborate a bit on my absence:
NMA has been one of the very few communities I've been active in. Mainly because most residents share some of my opinions on gaming.

The way the gaming industry is moving, away from half forgotten pearls as FO 1&2, JA2 etc, into copying the blood, sweat and tears of others - it plain saddens me.

A new FO incorporation (talking about FO3) got my hopes up for a little while, to be diminished and eventually smashed - through NMA oracles and eventual hands-on gameplay.

The only point of interest that sprung, was my kid brother's experience. Through playing FO3, he finally took my advice to check out it's predecessors. He got FO1 from the budget bin, and is now completely hooked. At age 13, being no native English speaker, he is at last capable of somewhat understanding the intricacies of the game. As I was his age when first playing the FO series, it almost made me wipe away a teardrop in nostalgia.
Seeing him make the juvenile decision of preferring FO1 over 3, makes me believe there is hope for the new generation. At least for a small number.

Reading now, that some of the original BIS team is working on a new FO game, slightly gets my hopes up again. However, I've only met disappointment in this area past FO2 - that's some 10y of game disappointment for you. So, I guess it's no wonder I'm not all that enthusiastic.

I'm sorry for what may read as an obsolete rant to some. However, for me, besides one real-life friend, I feel like this is the only place I can put this down - with the knowledge that some people understand.


On a sidenote: Based on a post here, I checked out Borderlands. While it merits some comments, it sometimes gave me a real Fallout feel. Wandering wastelands in 1st person, having a FO-like tune on the background, and no club-wielding ogres (sorry, mutants) to be spotted. Nice on one side, sad on the other side: having to resort to this unrelated game for some nostalgia, while the official license was being thrashed. Ah well...
 
I'm as critical of FO3 as the next NMA member... But I still love that game....
The orginals are great, and I still play them, but for all the things FO3 gets wrong, it adds so much to the franchise.... And regardless of how we feel, if it weren't for Bethesda picking it up, we may never have seen another Fallout game...
Beth bought the rights to Fallout for a reported 5 million, chump change in the big scheme of things... But, while the developers at Bethesda may have some fundamental misunderstandings of the Fallout universe, they did do something that the Obsidian guys (being touted as heroes now that they are working on the franchise again) never even bothered with. Since those original developers at Obsidian are presumably as passionate about the franchise as anyone, you have to wonder why they never made a move to acquire the liscence.
 
I've come to a point in my life where I keep Fallout secret for everyone who is not in on it already. Why? I'll tell you why.

"Fuck the ignorant." (Marcus Aurelius)

"It is not my duty to turn these sheep into wolves, my Lord." (Jesus Christ)

"Remember the dodo? Yeah? Well, 'nuff said then." (David Attenborough)

"Bethesda bad. Bethesda just like imperialist pigs from the past. They bring the shiny things that blind the eyes and cloud the mind. We be disoriented. We give them our land, our gold, our resources. Now our lands are dry and dead and empty and we have all these shiny things that will mirror our sadness forever." (Prince Owebuko Ratawangi)

It's also pretty pointless to want to change the course of history. The very fabric of reality may be into entropy and the beauty of complexity, but humans aren't. Humans are desperate for clearness, linearity, structure, continuity, well-defined goals, singular meanings. Order. Eenheidsworst. And the corporations know how to fulfill our wants. We see this happen in each and every medium out there. Music bands are created according to a recipe. 99% of what Hollywood sends out into the world is based on and modelled after statistics, human psychology, market research, 'creative' frameworks that were finetuned over the years, plots that can't fail even if they fail. Cartoonists with a clearly individual style like Jack Kirby and Peter Arno, people who had a soul and a calling, were replaced by a selection of vector based software and an ambitious, constantly renewed group of graduates from the academy who have yet to find out that the world of cartooning is big business and not an artist's workroom. At the end of the day people just want more of the same. We want more Fallout. The new generation wants more Fallout 3. Which group is more likely to be still gaming in the near -> far future? It's always the newbies, so the corporations cater to them.

People don't want to escape reality in a pixelbased world where their actions are restricted to the isometric grid. If they want to flee their lives of quiet desperation they want to do so in a world that is different but still feels, looks, sounds real. And that's the way the world of games is heading. Hyper-reality. That's the first goal: make them think it's real. 'Cause that's addictive, escapism is addictive. Not: make them think it's deep and profound. We're past that. They're catering to the masses now. The same audience that likes endless reruns and Lady GaGa. Good luck on saving the crowd. ;)
 
Alec, I agree most of what you said, in my mind I've thought that Bethesda equals the next Electronic Arts since I heard they bought id software. And like EA they market and sell buggy junk to the lowest common denominator all the while buying out smaller, higher quailty, software firms for their intellectual property (See westwood, bullfrog, maxis)
 
Even without anything to base my hopes on I still hope that one day I will see another legitimate fallout game like the previous ones.

This idea has crossed my mind numerous times. I would like it if somebody makes a bank account to raise money for interplay. I really don't care about money and I would donate, and even if my money doesn't reach its final destination I would not care that much because at least I can say I tried to help. Even if it doesn't work I would still hope for this day.
 
This isn't the same industry as it was back in 1998. Even if the original team, or Interplay, makes a new Fallout, the chances of it being like the originals is slim. These people are trying to run a company, trying to make a living, and the truth is is that a game like Fallout won't sell well to the masses. I would love to see a new Fallout game in the same vein as the old ones, but it just not going to happen. Even if it did, it wouldn't be the same. And then there's Bethesda. It's already been proven to Bethesda that a Fallout game like Fallout 3 will sell, and sell well. If they allow another company to make a more classic Fallout, then they'll be isolating their demographic.

The best chance for the series going back to the way it was is if there is a massive fan made game, fans that did their homework and know what they are doing. But, as history shows us time and time again, fan projects usually fall by the wayside and are abandoned and forgotten.
 
As a modern game in today's game industry, Fallout 3 does well. As a successor to the previous two games, Fallout 3 fails miserably. That is why I play all three.
 
My "hope" is well represented by New Vegas in a way. If New Vegas turns out to be a good game and (more importantly) a good Fallout game, then the mediocrity that was Fallout 3 will have been worth it.
Sometimes a little disappointment can lead to a great success.
 
I'll probably find it entertaining for the first 20 hours. After that comes the turning point. Then it will be seen is it good game or even a good fallout-game.

Since this is the only way(though being the beth way) that new fallout game is able to come true(okay, besides fan projects and maybe-some-day-mmorpg), I try to convince myself to like it but it has to have the "edge" that makes fallout Imo.
 
I said I still hoped for a new good fallout game and I think I got an answer to my hopes and that is mutants rising, you could say i got an orgasm when I saw some artwork and the main plot. this is 85-90% of what I was hoping for.
 
Jax Sparrow said:
Because I want to play fallout done by the original producers that made F1 and F2
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I think this can be used here again:
Ausir said:
Why would we want to help Herve?
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The chance to see a "proper" Fallout sequel with Herve is as big like with Todd. Iplay fucked up Fallout already long before Bethesda even thought about the purchase.

francisthemutant said:
Crni Vuk said:
alec said:
... and Lady GaGa.
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Admit it. You would hit it at least ONCE.
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Nope. If I wanted a he-she, I'd head to Thailand.
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Hey didnt said with WHAT to hit ;). But it should be HARD. No matter what.

I would recomend a crowbar though.
 
Perhaps it would be better to put the Fallout franchise to rest?

Do we really want it to continue the half life it has now, joined by other hard PC games like X Com?

Sometimes I wonder if our generation should destroy all that is good and memorable in order to prevent it from being abused and altered to fit the flavor of a generation of gamers that has no real icons of its own.
To make sure that the games 'will forever remain beautiful' in our memories.
 
thing is coming up with a completely new franchise is a lot more time and money consuming then just using already something people know. Even if they didnt played it but you dont have to spend so much time working on a already established world with loore and even if people havnt played it they know the name. And the fact that the people which knew the old games are so few makes it even possible to fuck up the loore and story so it fits "your" game (hint hint Fallout 3 squezed in to the Oblivion gameplay/setting ...). Like SMs, Enclave, BoS etc. all present in Fallout 3. But who cares if it makes sense even! Its Cewl!
 
I was thinking the other day, that if Van Buren was largely finished before it was cancelled, and Bethesda now owns the rights to what was made, then how about they get a small team at Obsidian to finish it off.

Surely, if the game is nearly done it wouldn't cost too much money from a development point of view, it would make the old school fans extremely happy, and they could market it as Fallout Classic From the Vault, or something like that.

People are still buying and playing Fallout 1 & 2, so why don't Bethesda do it?

Man, I would pay a lot of money for a copy of a completed Van Buren...
 
I myself still dream of the quantum portal that gives access to all alternative timelines, parallel universe, imagine space and so on.

Being able to actually go to parallel realities with small changes like Interplay never going broke because Fargo was a business genius, Herve isn't around, and Van Buren was actually released.

I would try to find the version that has everything, even the stuff that was dropped before Van Buren was canceled (and the patches), and once I had returned home put it on the internet for free.

I just hope that it would be compatible with our version of Windows.

Seeing the looks on the Zenimax Bethesda people's faces would be priceless.

They wouldn't be able to get it removed from the internet as technically it doesn't exist.
 
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