Gripes about the writing

[Hroesvelgr]

And praytell why would they ask someone they have never encountered to do this?

And why couldn't that logic be applied to Fallout 3? Maybe Simms thinks someone fresh out of the vault would be appropriate for dealing with pre-war technology and since you are likely not corrupted by the wasteland you would be a good choice?

There's a difference here.
First of all, the Vault City situation is basically a win-win situation. Either he fixes it, or not, or maybe he gives Lynette an excuse to invade. It can't really get any worse for Vault City anyway. Furthermore, it's probably impossible for a Vault City resident to get inside the core given the distrust the ghouls have for Vault City.

Secondly, the situation with Megaton is entirely different. The bomb is located inside city borders, Simms can simply walk up to it and disarm it if he has the knowledge, and I'm pretty sure that Moira has enough explosive knowledge to do it considering the insane requirement of 25 explosives skill!

Don't fall into a double standard where it's okay for one to make this leap and not another.

If you are going to hold everything to the standard you think FO3 falls short of then practically everything in RPGs fall short, barring a few exceptions of self-imposed quests.

Hah!
This sounds an awful lot like 'Well they weren't any better, why should this be better"?
Not a really good argument.

I agree. In fact if you ask Moira why she doesn't disarm the bomb she says it wouldn't be nice to the people who worship it. I enjoy Fallout 3, but the more I play it and the original Fallout the more I realise that Fallout 3 forces the player to make shallow decisions which always run along the lines of good or evil. The originals put you in tough spots where many of the outcomes weren't better than the others... just different from the player's own understanding of ethics. The number one way that Fallout 3 fails its predecessors is in its total shallowness.

 

[Eternal]

Anadel... purely awful writing. End of Story. See my 'Thoughts on FO3' post for a deeper analysis of its awfulicity.


And yes I fully agree that FO3 is much more shallow, there are a few shining examples of grey area ethics based questions, but they are few and far between.

Its obvious different people wrote for different areas similar to how they did in FO1 and 2, unfortunatly it appears only a couple of the people writing for FO3 were actually FO fans, and the others were simply churning out a new game based off the source material they had rather than the source material + experiences playing FO1/2 + love of the series, as the original writers did, and as obviously a small (very small) group of bethesda members did.

 

[betamonkey]

This sounds an awful lot like 'Well they weren't any better, why should this be better"?
Not a really good argument.

No, it's just a fact of gaming. The only games that even come close to mimicing 'gaining favor and trust' are MMOs and that is only achieved through hours and hours of grinding bears for bear asses or other menial tasks to increase your 'reputation' to unlock more quests.

In the end you just have to accept you are going to be asked to do things that usually don't make sense. It would be awfully uninteresting if you started off as a legendary figure that everyone counted on.. and wouldn't lend itself to that whole 'carving your path' aspect that good RPGs provide.

 

[ferrety]

Fallout 3 dialog in a nutshell:


NPC: What do you think of my dialog, whoooo boy!

***
[Intelligence] Dialog is what we use to communicate.
[Perception] So you're saying dialog is how we communicate?
I think you talk very well.
-You make no sense, please explain.
Die, scum writers!
***

NPC response: Would you like to see my store?

***
Yes.
-No.
***

NPC: Oh, well in that case I have a mission for you. Please go see what getting shot in the head feels like and report back!

[Intelligence] Getting shot in the head hurts. (Lie, Karma hit)
Sounds like a plan! I'll be back soon!
-I don't like the sound of that. Sounds kind of dangerous.
Die, SCUM WRITERS.


NPC: Great! See you soon! Whoop!

 

[Grim-Ascension]

In this one, there was a guy who was sick and she asked me to help him out by giving him some stimpacks. I had some stimpacks, but there was no option to to save this guy's ass!

The reason you couldn't save him is because you need at least 20 Stimpacks. He has a heart condition, and I've gave him the stimpacks before... So, don't call the game horrible without all the details.

 

[lewis]

eeeerrmm the game its more simple with the story this time, you cant put a history like torment this days because kids will smash their heads with the walls trying to understand the most symple of quest

 

[Lonewulf]

Fallout 3 dialog in a nutshell:


NPC: What do you think of my dialog, whoooo boy!

***
[Intelligence] Dialog is what we use to communicate.
[Perception] So you're saying dialog is how we communicate?
I think you talk very well.
-You make no sense, please explain.
Die, scum writers!
***

NPC response: Would you like to see my store?

***
Yes.
-No.
***

NPC: Oh, well in that case I have a mission for you. Please go see what getting shot in the head feels like and report back!

[Intelligence] Getting shot in the head hurts. (Lie, Karma hit)
Sounds like a plan! I'll be back soon!
-I don't like the sound of that. Sounds kind of dangerous.
Die, SCUM WRITERS.


NPC: Great! See you soon! Whoop!

If I could nominate a post for "Awesomest post of the week/month/year", this would so be nominated.

Based on what I've seen of the dialogue, this pretty much hit right on with how the dialogue in Fallout 3 is.

The reason you couldn't save him is because you need at least 20 Stimpacks. He has a heart condition, and I've gave him the stimpacks before... So, don't call the game horrible without all the details.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you here, in that this does not redeem the situation (although I wouldn't call the game horrible from this one example). You need at least 20 Stimpacks? What the heck?

Also, why can't you use the Medicine skill on him, and why isn't there any other way besides "having tons of stimpacks"? If he has a heart condition, I'd also think that a STIMulant PACK would be the worst thing to overload him with, although that's just me...

 

[Ausdoerrt]

No, it's just a fact of gaming. The only games that even come close to mimicing 'gaining favor and trust' are MMOs and that is only achieved through hours and hours of grinding bears for bear asses or other menial tasks to increase your 'reputation' to unlock more quests.

In the end you just have to accept you are going to be asked to do things that usually don't make sense. It would be awfully uninteresting if you started off as a legendary figure that everyone counted on.. and wouldn't lend itself to that whole 'carving your path' aspect that good RPGs provide.

Maybe I missed something? A lot of classic-style RPGs will have characters that won't speak to you/won't help you if they don't trust or don't like you..

 

[Rev. Layle]

My opinion, the writing itself isn't necessarily bad... the conversation scripting varies from OK to "WTF??" (Eden = WTF)

All the logs and recordings from computers and tapes are VERY well written (IMO)

 

[Erny]

you know whats odd, in the settlements there are numerous NPCs whith voiced dialogue who basically say the very same thing, sometimes absolutely word-by-word same. they dont bear any usefull info, dont play any roles in quests... why even bother making them talkable charachters if the writers couldnt come up with different dialogues and information to obtain from those chars?
Looks like they had a plan "populate the town with 10 interactable NPCs". But no one bothered to write roles for those actors. You could say they had no time? But they had time to voice them with different voices ?

 

[Sorrow]

Wow, the writing I saw on the screens was the most awful writing I saw since I played Dink Smallwood.

 

[DJS4000]

NPC response: Would you like to see my store?

***
Yes.
-No.
***

nice one. just a little addition: in my experience conversations of this kind usually provide you more or less with these answers:

"Yes."
"No."
"No. Fuck You."

outcome remains the same, however.

 

[Erny]

you forgot the
"tell me irrelevant oneliner about this place" option

 

[ferrety]

My opinion, the writing itself isn't necessarily bad... the conversation scripting varies from OK to "WTF??" (Eden = WTF)

All the logs and recordings from computers and tapes are VERY well written (IMO)

[Intelligence] Why is there such a disparity? Some logs are good, but the dialog is universally awful.
[Perception] Perhaps this is because writing a diary is easier, since you can tell a story. Dialog requires interaction, and Bethesda can't do human interaction.
I agree. Logs and diaries are better than dialog.
*This is no excuse. By the way, have you seen my middle-aged father?
Die, asshole.

 

[Rev. Layle]

My opinion, the writing itself isn't necessarily bad... the conversation scripting varies from OK to "WTF??" (Eden = WTF)

All the logs and recordings from computers and tapes are VERY well written (IMO)

[Intelligence] Why is there such a disparity? Some logs are good, but the dialog is universally awful.
[Perception] Perhaps this is because writing a diary is easier, since you can tell a story. Dialog requires interaction, and Bethesda can't do human interaction.
I agree. Logs and diaries are better than dialog.
*This is no excuse. By the way, have you seen my middle-aged father?
Die, asshole.

I award you... an internet, good show!

 

[bhlaab]

What I've noticed is that [INTELLIGENCE] dialog choices arent meant to be super brainy observations, but more of a personality type.

Like pointing out that the raiders were using super duper mart to store their stuff isn't a brilliant deduction, but it's one that only a person with an intellectual outlook on things would pick up on as something of interest.

 

[Deadman87]

Dialog requires interaction, and Bethesda can't do human interaction.

That's a good point. Beth seriously needs to get some more psychology into their games. Talking to people in Fallout 3 gives me the feeling of talking to a very dumb child most of the time. It's totally boring to not fear or wonder what a character might do or how he might react if I say something wrong.

I miss saying something wrong and then getting yelled at or attacked for doing so

Fallout character: Set

Random Fallout 3 character: Mr Derp

 

[Pliskin]

If you want a good example of exactly how shallow the well of dialogue in FO3 runs, head over to Rivet City.

My gawd, with every second I spent there, I could feel my IQ dropping. At one point, I had to check my INT stat to make sure it hadn't actually decreased from using the available dialogue "options". Two sentences of totally non-sensical dialogue = Quest Completed! Most conversations seemed created by random dialogue generator. Most quests seemed to be stubs; placeholders until somebody got around to actually fleshing out the dialogue trees --- oh, whoops! Time to ship! Too late!

The only explanation I could figure, was that the entire population had succumbed to lead poisoning from living on that rust-bucket for so long.

Really, how much would it have cost Beth to bring in a professional to punch up this shit? I know graffix = Everything these days, but come on...

 

[Tom_Sawyer]

Grim-Ascension wrote:
The reason you couldn't save him is because you need at least 20 Stimpacks. He has a heart condition, and I've gave him the stimpacks before... So, don't call the game horrible without all the details.

Another pet peve beyond the horrible conversational choices. The out right theft of plot devices from Fallout 1 and 2. I thought it was New West in NCR in F2 that had the heart condition, upon researching my memory I recall it was one of your NPCs Cassidy. Although you could use super stims on West to take him out which was evil

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Another pet peve beyond the horrible conversational choices. The out right theft of plot devices from Fallout 1 and 2. I thought it was New West in NCR in F2 that had the heart condition, upon researching my memory I recall it was one of your NPCs Cassidy. Although you could use super stims on West to take him out which was evil

I don't remember about West, but I'm sure that Cassidy would die if you fed him a Buffout =)