Funny and Stark Example of Beth's Laziness...
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Oddball_E8
First time out of the vault
i think the main problem (and this applies to most games nowadays) is that the games are for the "console generation".
yes, i know that alot of people are older but still have the same view as the so called console generation.
they buy a game to have fun for about a month (or even less) before the next big thing comes out.
there is no need to provide alternate paths since most people will just railroad it anyway.
and compared to most other games this game actually gives lots more freedom (hence giving the illusion of being a sandbox game, wich its not)
what I (and most others here on NMA i think) want is a game thats still fun to play after 2-3 years (without modding!).
but thats just not gonna happen in todays consumer market.
yes, i know that alot of people are older but still have the same view as the so called console generation.
they buy a game to have fun for about a month (or even less) before the next big thing comes out.
there is no need to provide alternate paths since most people will just railroad it anyway.
and compared to most other games this game actually gives lots more freedom (hence giving the illusion of being a sandbox game, wich its not)
what I (and most others here on NMA i think) want is a game thats still fun to play after 2-3 years (without modding!).
but thats just not gonna happen in todays consumer market.
Erny said:
It is complex, just not perfect. This society is so fcked and hungry for perfection it's really getting tiring. Just because you can't kill 'certain' NPC's doesn't mean the games lost ALL complexity and depth. Wow, out of the endless enemies you CAN kill, the small handfull of NPC's you can't pretty much labels the game 'lazy'? You wont see a game thats so perfect it's like living an actual life and endless choices. I already have an actual life... and yes, I thought FO3 had a very good story (a little short but it was good), but it seems like people complain about the lack of conversational choices or not being able to shoot children in the game. Big deal... I'm sure there will be a mod that will allow you to get chic's pregnant in the near furture. Trust me... what the game lacks, people will find ways to make it themselves and for others that want the same for their games.
And why are you suggesting there are other games that I can play when I'm clearly not the one with the problem. I except the game for what it is, and enjoy playing it. It's not perfect but I'm not flipping out about it.
TheLastOutlaw
It Wandered In From the Wastes
I don't think anyone is "flipping out." And I'm not bashing FO3, I've put a lot of hours into playing it and I wouldn't be spending my time with it if I wasn't enjoying it.
But I find the rigidity of the main questline frustrating. It isn't just about invicible NPCs, it's about the feeling of player choice.
Being slapped on the wrist for trying to do something you should be able to do because the game writers want the story to go a certain way is frustrating. Wanting to RP an enraged character with abadonment issues should be viable. The vault life wasn't perfect but it's what the 101 dweller grew up knowing. Being forced out of it through no fault of his own could easily cause resentment and hatred of his father. Why would BethSoft assume that all characters, especially hardened slaver/raider types would want to tag along with dear old dad to help his work? Some would want to hunt him down to put a bullet between his eyes for ruining their life.
The father/PC link is a nice hook but it can develop in many different ways. BethSoft saw one way that they wanted it to develop and force the player down that path.
As I already said, I'm not bashing the game, it does some things well. But what it does wrong it does very wrong. Maybe it's just a case of them not presenting the urgency of the main quest early enough or well enough but even playing as a "good" character I don't feel strongly compelled to help dear old dad out other than the fact that the main quest related achievements are all I've got left to unlock. I can't picture a "bad" character giving a rats ass about his dad's idealistic dinking about with the area's water supply.
Just my opinion.
But I find the rigidity of the main questline frustrating. It isn't just about invicible NPCs, it's about the feeling of player choice.
Being slapped on the wrist for trying to do something you should be able to do because the game writers want the story to go a certain way is frustrating. Wanting to RP an enraged character with abadonment issues should be viable. The vault life wasn't perfect but it's what the 101 dweller grew up knowing. Being forced out of it through no fault of his own could easily cause resentment and hatred of his father. Why would BethSoft assume that all characters, especially hardened slaver/raider types would want to tag along with dear old dad to help his work? Some would want to hunt him down to put a bullet between his eyes for ruining their life.
The father/PC link is a nice hook but it can develop in many different ways. BethSoft saw one way that they wanted it to develop and force the player down that path.
As I already said, I'm not bashing the game, it does some things well. But what it does wrong it does very wrong. Maybe it's just a case of them not presenting the urgency of the main quest early enough or well enough but even playing as a "good" character I don't feel strongly compelled to help dear old dad out other than the fact that the main quest related achievements are all I've got left to unlock. I can't picture a "bad" character giving a rats ass about his dad's idealistic dinking about with the area's water supply.
Just my opinion.
Erny
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Lishe said:
Because there are so many shooter games where undemanding people like you can enjoy "blowing stuff". You are very lucky.
But from a Fallout game we are expecting an RPG with depth on par with that 10 old low-budget game, you know that one... We dont wet our pants from nuclear-exploding cars and shoehorned main quest.
Dont get me wrong, this game has enjoyable moments and does some things really well. But also has many big flaws, many cases of bad/lazy design and writing. And simply worse than Fo2, when one expects a new game to be an improvement over the old one...
AstroManLuca
First time out of the vault
I think most people here (with several exceptions, of course) agree that Fallout 3 is at least an okay game by itself. Where you guys seem to disagree is your priorities. Some believe that as long as FO3 is decent, that's good enough. Just play it and have fun. Nothing wrong with that - that's how I see it too.
Others, though, say that while it might be an okay game, it's nowhere near as good as FO1/2, and that's a big problem because it doesn't live up to expectations. That's true too. FO3 is too similar to Oblivion and it's just a shame because it doesn't really break any new ground (whereas FO1/2 did).
So the issue is priorities. Do you want a game that is fun in its own right but doesn't live up to expectations, or do you really need one that is at least as good as the old ones? Both are entirely valid viewpoints.
Others, though, say that while it might be an okay game, it's nowhere near as good as FO1/2, and that's a big problem because it doesn't live up to expectations. That's true too. FO3 is too similar to Oblivion and it's just a shame because it doesn't really break any new ground (whereas FO1/2 did).
So the issue is priorities. Do you want a game that is fun in its own right but doesn't live up to expectations, or do you really need one that is at least as good as the old ones? Both are entirely valid viewpoints.
Erny said:
You cannot even compare FO3 with an FPS because thats all a FPS is. FO3 has way more than just shooting and blowing things up. Yes, I enjoy it, like I've enjoyed it in the first FO, FO2 and FO Tactics. It's one of the trademarks of the series... big explosions and body parts flying. Trust me, even if your needs are met, someone else will find something wrong with the game and bitch about that.
Also, your assumption of me is wrong. I despise FPS games like Call of Duty, Gears of War and Halo. But I love FO and I can tell the difference between an FPS and a Post-Apocalypic RPG. The difference is really quite noticeable.
In any game you play your going to be forced to do something you don't want to do at one point or another. Yes, it sucks, but games are limited and I know I can't do a better job than the creators, so why bitch about it? Alot of people like to whine, but they dont like to take the initiative... they wait for someone else to do it for them.
I'm going to go with "The Dunwich Building" for my example of incredible Bethesda laziness. (spoilers follow, but not really, since there's nothing to spoil!)
Beth teases you with a an entire building, ground-up dedicated to HP Lovecrafts' classic horror tale "The Dunwich Horror". It is filled with ravenous undead fiends, brief creepy flashbacks, 3-d maze, a whole backstory in the form of around 5 minutes of voice-acting talent on holotape, a uniquely rendered room at the end and a bobblehead!
Sounds amazing, right?
Wrong.
1)The building turns out to be the typical "ruined interior" dungeon crawl, with a completely linear path through it.
2)The ghouls seem scary at first, but if you've already run across them they're just boringly easy to kill now, and have no special abilities beyond the usual ghouls' ability to run at 100mph and know psychically when you are targetting it from afar through a scope.
3) There is one "funny" Lovecraft joke in the maze, which actually has more descriptive exposition than most areas of the game, but it still falls flat. (A local sports team called "The Dunwich Borers", hur hur.)
4) The first 1-5 tapes (out of 9) are all piled haphazardly on a table in a cafeteria as you walk in, it's actually pretty easy to miss them and thus any explanation of why you should care about this place.
5) Nothing happens next. You just go through and shoot ghouls in one room, and then move on to the ghouls in the next room until you are "done". The quest "resolution" is that you get to a final room and kill a ghoul wearing human clothes, in two shots, and you ding some karma. Done.
6) There is a statue that looks like it's ported over from Oblivion, a cool pagan nudie death cult thing with snakes and an altar! But... You cannot interact with it. Trust me, I tried everything. At the very least you ought to have been able to either blow it up or worship at it for a perk, but no.
7) There is a bobblehead in a final, final area that has no explanation for its' purpose, either in holotape or description, or...anything. It's just there, in a complete head-scratch. Oh well, ding 10 melee points I guess.
Who puts all that time and money ( voice acting, and a whole building with unique art) into a level-design and then completely fails to finish it off with any quests, options or anything remotely cool?
Beth teases you with a an entire building, ground-up dedicated to HP Lovecrafts' classic horror tale "The Dunwich Horror". It is filled with ravenous undead fiends, brief creepy flashbacks, 3-d maze, a whole backstory in the form of around 5 minutes of voice-acting talent on holotape, a uniquely rendered room at the end and a bobblehead!
Sounds amazing, right?
Wrong.
1)The building turns out to be the typical "ruined interior" dungeon crawl, with a completely linear path through it.
2)The ghouls seem scary at first, but if you've already run across them they're just boringly easy to kill now, and have no special abilities beyond the usual ghouls' ability to run at 100mph and know psychically when you are targetting it from afar through a scope.
3) There is one "funny" Lovecraft joke in the maze, which actually has more descriptive exposition than most areas of the game, but it still falls flat. (A local sports team called "The Dunwich Borers", hur hur.)
4) The first 1-5 tapes (out of 9) are all piled haphazardly on a table in a cafeteria as you walk in, it's actually pretty easy to miss them and thus any explanation of why you should care about this place.
5) Nothing happens next. You just go through and shoot ghouls in one room, and then move on to the ghouls in the next room until you are "done". The quest "resolution" is that you get to a final room and kill a ghoul wearing human clothes, in two shots, and you ding some karma. Done.
6) There is a statue that looks like it's ported over from Oblivion, a cool pagan nudie death cult thing with snakes and an altar! But... You cannot interact with it. Trust me, I tried everything. At the very least you ought to have been able to either blow it up or worship at it for a perk, but no.
7) There is a bobblehead in a final, final area that has no explanation for its' purpose, either in holotape or description, or...anything. It's just there, in a complete head-scratch. Oh well, ding 10 melee points I guess.
Who puts all that time and money ( voice acting, and a whole building with unique art) into a level-design and then completely fails to finish it off with any quests, options or anything remotely cool?
Lishe said:
You're missing the point. Obviously you can kill 99% of the people in the game - it's practically an FPS. But to you, it sounds like we're complaining about the other 1%.
What's the big deal, you think? Kill the other 99%.
But it's not about killing the 99%. It's not even about killing that unkillable 1%. It's that unkillable characters are distinct evidence of lazy design.
To put it plainly, say you're creating a game. You want this game to be 'open ended'. You create a character to give the player a quest. You, as designer, now have to ask yourself - what does the game do if the player kills this character?
There are two answers here:
1) Devise alternate ways for the player to discover the same information. This might require alternate plot lines (or at least, sub plot lines) as well as careful consideration of how many distinct variables interact.
2) Screw it. Bullets bounce off that character.
Choosing #2 is lazy. It's easier, sure, and it makes sense for certain games (the 'charm' of a game like Call of Duty, for example, is that it's extremely 'set piece' and linear. But if you're designing an open ended RPG game, then choosing #2 is a cop out. Period.
And for the non-discerning gamer, that's just fine. Most wont even notice. But I do. Just like when I notice game breaking flaws. Stupid dialog. Etc.
Is it fun? Sure. But it could have been a masterpiece, and it isn't.
Lishe said:
I dunno, I think it is more than valid to compare FO3 with an FPS. Not all the FPS consist of shooting and explosions - take Warfare of Unreal III that takes some strategy, or take the STALKER games. Take Alien Shooter as an example - an isometric arcade shooter with inventory, traits and skills. It's just that FO3 consists largely of dungeon crawls, or blowing shit up. It's more similar to and FPS than an RPG. I'd like to hear your argument on what makes FO3 an RPG - but answers like "dialogue" or "skill system" don't really cut it, as I showed in my earlier examples.
Agreed DeadSanta, I'm not familiar with Lovercraft's work so for me the Dunwich building was more creepy just because of the ghouls and the tapes I was finding. Was really disapointed though going through all that expecting some sort of ending and blahhhh.
An aside and to me an example of either laziness or just poor planning: Get to Paradise Falls the other day. My PC is a righteous type and decides to slay all the slavers once I find out what PF is from the front gate guard. As I'm getting closer to the main doors into the place I see a kid standing in between a few cars and a slaver. Make a note to myself to not shoot the cars as I know kids aren't killable but thought maybe in this instance they made an exception.
Get into a shootout with the guy, some bullets hit the car and BOOM, mini nuclear cloud as always, which causes another car to go BOOM.
The kid? Still standing there with the same look on his face as if nothing had happened, no blood, no scratches, nada.
An aside and to me an example of either laziness or just poor planning: Get to Paradise Falls the other day. My PC is a righteous type and decides to slay all the slavers once I find out what PF is from the front gate guard. As I'm getting closer to the main doors into the place I see a kid standing in between a few cars and a slaver. Make a note to myself to not shoot the cars as I know kids aren't killable but thought maybe in this instance they made an exception.
Get into a shootout with the guy, some bullets hit the car and BOOM, mini nuclear cloud as always, which causes another car to go BOOM.
The kid? Still standing there with the same look on his face as if nothing had happened, no blood, no scratches, nada.
Ausdoerrt said:
It's not just FP, you have the option to switch between 3rd Person and FP. You create your character, which most FPS... well any and all that I've ever seen or heard of, just gives you the option to choose what premade character you want to play as, or it just throws you in the game automatically without choice. In FO3 you sit through several mintues of watching your character enter the world, run around as a toddler, have your 10th birthday party, AND grow up to adult hood. FPS, not so much of anything but shooting, shooting... running around, shooting, ducking, crawling, shooting somemore, etc. FPS doesn't bother with such a tedious character creation system, because most FPS fans like jumping right into the action and don't want to bother with going through puberty again.
You aren't just an arm holding a gun, your character has a purpose that's more than just taking your target down to complete the stage so you can move up to the next. You have choices that effect your character and everything else around you.
Lishe said:
In Unreal III you have 3rd person perspective. And it actually works unlike in FO3. You get to customize how your character looks. Watching some cinematics or having a tutorial doesn't really change much either. FO3 certainly has RPG elements, but it is most definitely not "tedious", it is nowhere even close to smart because of how little the skills or stats affect the actual gameplay - the usual "I killed 3 Super Mutants with a 10mm on level 4 with 20 in small guns" complaint - not very RPG. Besides, I'd have a hard time saying that FO3 is NOT mostly "shooting, shooting... running around, shooting, ducking, crawling, shooting somemore, etc. ".
/offtopic Describing an FPS as a game where all you do is "taking your target down to complete the stage so you can move up to the next" does not do the genre justice. It certainly was the case for classics like Quake, but... I mean, even the world exploration in Unreal or STALKER, or stealth FPS like Thief, or tactical games like Ghost Recon is much more than just that.
FuneralFog
First time out of the vault
Barbalute said:
but when you finally find him, theres really nothing special after that. like in FO 1 you had to destroy not only the base, but the master, and FO2 after getting the GECK, you had to not only find your villiagers, but find a means to get there which involved many big steps. THAT is lazy, and hurts FO3 IMO. because after the story, we dont know what happens to anything and the story itself is stupidly easy to finish with sweet talking
This thread really got off-topic for a while, and that's sad, but it wasn't the fault of my post, and that's cool. 
Since it's already in a limbo-like zone, I'll go ahead reply now. I don't think I'll reply again after that; have your say too, naturally, but lets let this thing continue to serve as a wastebasket for the garbage Fallout3 is upchucking out of our monitors.
First of all, in Fallout 3, I spent a lot of time shooting my father with my BB Gun immediately after he gave it to me. I really wanted him to die. He got very bloody, but only threatened me. As I shot him in the eyeballs dozens of times.
Star Wars is flashing lights and assholes in costumes. It is a series of children's movies that a bunch of weirdoes have tried way too hard to turn into something spiritual/philosophical/serious, when it so-much-isn't that I weep with embarassment for anyone who enjoys it. You RPG-people have made WAY too much out of that movie, you've really overblown its content and lifted it up onto a level that it was never remotely intended to operate on. You killed my father! Luke, I FUCKED YOUR MOTHER! Noooooooooookaywhatever, special effects time. That's Star Wars.
Bakshi's take on the Lord of the Rings was better than the recent string of doo-doos, primarily because it was far more original. Fuck, even the musical-cartoon version of Return of the King is better than the recent movie, because it at least moves at a steady pace and has a good sense of narrative - and doesn't take itself too seriously a solid half of the time, which is better than the new movie managed. Disco orcs - that's so awesome.
But I don't think the stories are that strong to begin with; I read the books, and three quarters of their content has nothing to do with characters or motivations or real thought, but are just some stinky old man playing make-believe with lots of weird made-up names and places. In the 908th Year of the Reign of Gleep-Glop, Nard'fling the Elder cast the Gilded Axe of Elrond Hubbard into the depths of Mount Shamwow in the land of yakitty yak. See, I can do it too.
I'm not going to tell you what constitutes a classic movie. It took me a decade to find that out - why would I help you? The Godfather is about a big fat Italian mama who's too busy eatin'a the spaghet's to tell her husband or her kids to knock off the shit and not get themselves killed. Pulp Fiction is Tarantino jerking off onto the stack of forgotten 16mm films that he stole every single one of his ideas from. That is NOT a tasty burger!
I don't buy that "Writing Class for Dummies" bullshit that every story is one of 7 archetypical stories and that you can only combine them in different ways. I don't think that "grizzled sensai" is a legitimate building block of an artistic work of fiction. I don't think that you can LEGO-build a movie or a book without being a hack who would be of more use to the world by taking up a bag filled with apple seeds and walking across New England, or by cleaning up trash from the sidewalk so that my Ferragamos don't get mussed. Anybody who goes for that rubbish is just lazy and trying to find some route by which to circumvent inspiration taken from their lives and invention derived from their intellect. People like that - and, from what I'm reading in your posts, people like many of you guys - think that fiction should distract, mislead and detach the audience by dazzling them with a fantasy world, instead of pushing them cornea-first into the rapidly mounting pile of red-hot rhino shit that constitutes the monstrously absurd (and absurdly monstrous) essence of the era in which we are living.
i want to punch and kick your beliefs
Since it's already in a limbo-like zone, I'll go ahead reply now. I don't think I'll reply again after that; have your say too, naturally, but lets let this thing continue to serve as a wastebasket for the garbage Fallout3 is upchucking out of our monitors.First of all, in Fallout 3, I spent a lot of time shooting my father with my BB Gun immediately after he gave it to me. I really wanted him to die. He got very bloody, but only threatened me. As I shot him in the eyeballs dozens of times.
Star Wars is flashing lights and assholes in costumes. It is a series of children's movies that a bunch of weirdoes have tried way too hard to turn into something spiritual/philosophical/serious, when it so-much-isn't that I weep with embarassment for anyone who enjoys it. You RPG-people have made WAY too much out of that movie, you've really overblown its content and lifted it up onto a level that it was never remotely intended to operate on. You killed my father! Luke, I FUCKED YOUR MOTHER! Noooooooooookaywhatever, special effects time. That's Star Wars.
Bakshi's take on the Lord of the Rings was better than the recent string of doo-doos, primarily because it was far more original. Fuck, even the musical-cartoon version of Return of the King is better than the recent movie, because it at least moves at a steady pace and has a good sense of narrative - and doesn't take itself too seriously a solid half of the time, which is better than the new movie managed. Disco orcs - that's so awesome.
But I don't think the stories are that strong to begin with; I read the books, and three quarters of their content has nothing to do with characters or motivations or real thought, but are just some stinky old man playing make-believe with lots of weird made-up names and places. In the 908th Year of the Reign of Gleep-Glop, Nard'fling the Elder cast the Gilded Axe of Elrond Hubbard into the depths of Mount Shamwow in the land of yakitty yak. See, I can do it too.
I'm not going to tell you what constitutes a classic movie. It took me a decade to find that out - why would I help you? The Godfather is about a big fat Italian mama who's too busy eatin'a the spaghet's to tell her husband or her kids to knock off the shit and not get themselves killed. Pulp Fiction is Tarantino jerking off onto the stack of forgotten 16mm films that he stole every single one of his ideas from. That is NOT a tasty burger!
I don't buy that "Writing Class for Dummies" bullshit that every story is one of 7 archetypical stories and that you can only combine them in different ways. I don't think that "grizzled sensai" is a legitimate building block of an artistic work of fiction. I don't think that you can LEGO-build a movie or a book without being a hack who would be of more use to the world by taking up a bag filled with apple seeds and walking across New England, or by cleaning up trash from the sidewalk so that my Ferragamos don't get mussed. Anybody who goes for that rubbish is just lazy and trying to find some route by which to circumvent inspiration taken from their lives and invention derived from their intellect. People like that - and, from what I'm reading in your posts, people like many of you guys - think that fiction should distract, mislead and detach the audience by dazzling them with a fantasy world, instead of pushing them cornea-first into the rapidly mounting pile of red-hot rhino shit that constitutes the monstrously absurd (and absurdly monstrous) essence of the era in which we are living.
i want to punch and kick your beliefs