Gripes about the writing

B

bhlaab

Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
EDIT the writing really is bad i am sorry for doubting you brilliant souls.

One complaint I've heard from many people is that Fallout 3's writing is terrible. But I have yet to hear anyone say exactly why it's terrible, just broad proclamations and "FACEPALM"s

I haven't noticed anything particularly awful or particularly brilliant, just hoverring aroung the Quite-A-Bit-Above-Average-For-A-Video-Game mark.

I'm looking less for specific examples of, say, breaking canon (though I haven't noticed much of that either despite what others here say) and more in broad, general terms.
 
for starters the lines with stat checks are uniformly terrible

some examples:
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an [Intelligence] line is supposed to give you something insightful to say. these lines are simply restating the obvious, and dumbing down the rest of the choices to make it seem smart by contrast
 
From what I've seen people have fused the "writing" with the way in which the players dialogue is conveyed. Which in my opinion are two different things. The main problem therefor is more to do with a game mechanic than the actual writing.

I don't have any trouble with the writing in Fallout 3 or in TES for that matter. In fact the written works found in the world, like in the computer terminals and notes, are actually well done.

Games like Halo or Gears of War have bad writing. Fallout 3 does not.

And if so please can someone show examples of "bad writing". I may be wrong but I personally have yet to see any.
 
Watch some anime and play some JRPGS....it makes all this look like fucking shakespeare.
 
TheGM said:
Watch some anime and play some JRPGS....it makes all this look like fucking shakespeare.
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Lol very true. Especially bootleg anime with the poorly done subtitles with lines stumbling out like "How are you day to?" and "Watch out for a zombie! It has head that eats off yours!"

Ahh...life is funny...
 
Fallout 3 has good writing. I am sitting here at work right now playing Fallout 2 on my laptop. The writing is just as good. I think the big difference is that all the dialogue in F3 is spoken. Most of it in F2/F1 is read. Usually, read dialogue comes across as better writing, because we are voicing the characters in our heads. Nonetheless, F3 doesn't have superb writing, but it is well done, and much better than I'd expected it to be. I say kudos to Bethsoft for breaking their own mold.
 
It's not brain numbingly terrible, but the dialogue writing does not have much of the unique characterization that the past Fallout games had. As I've said on the official boards, none of the dialogue I've encountered so far comes close to Set's "Happy Tummy" bit.
 
That's bullshit, most of the technical crap in Fallout 3 they don't even bother to explain to the extent that it was done in the first two games.

There's nothing comparable to actually talking to Myron about Jet in FO2, and there's nothing comparable to the specifics of FEV in FO1. The most you get is some shoddy vague info on EEP and a scientist in the Those! quest that spouts some "big" words that anyone with a modicum of intelligence can understand.

The dialog options are too fucking short, all of them make the character sound like a total dweeb who either spouts the obvious or asks really stupid questions.
Most exposition is far too short and vague, I mentioned in another thread that convincing Eden to destroy himself and the Enclave is a four line exchange that makes absolutely no sense because it was so poorly written.

The dialog is god awful, you don't need to be a genius to realize that, just someone who has experience in literature beyond reading Wheel of Time books, AKA you aren't an idiot.
 
From what I've seen about Fallout 3, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines had much better writing. Fallout 1/2 even more superior.

Someone should change those lines so that instead of [intelligence] they would be [Captain Obvious]. At least we don't repeat what they just told us and then add a ?! (Metal Gear?!).
 
The only thing that hurt more than that sentence was the fact that I paid for that garbage. Like with real money. Realized I was the fool in that particualr situation.

Eyenixon said:
Most exposition is far too short and vague, I mentioned in another thread that convincing Eden to destroy himself and the Enclave is a four line exchange that makes absolutely no sense because it was so poorly written.
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I haven't gotten there yet but a lot of those types of situations relate more to trying to further plot and they sacrifice exposition to do so. We're talking about a FPS here, not a full blown RPG, it's faster. The exposition is found in the details as you search the cities and towns. Not entirely in the direct connection made with NPCs. At least thats what I found.

Also, exposition is not a direct necessity in a work, it is rather a way to explore the depths or inner workings of whatever it is you are dealing with. This is all very much a personal issue Eyenixon. It doesn't mean the story or game is broken.

I personally liked the fact that everyone you talk to isn't dumping their entire life story at you every step of the way. Mass Effect, now that game had exposition. I almost took a revolver to my face it had so much exposition.
 
oihrebwe said:
for starters the lines with stat checks are uniformly terrible

....


an [Intelligence] line is supposed to give you something insightful to say. these lines are simply restating the obvious, and dumbing down the rest of the choices to make it seem smart by contrast
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so true. I almost felt insulted by that crap ;/


the dialogue options are pretty low overall

the quests are not so well made -- in the majority of the quests there is no conflict, no side to pick, no consequences. I dont understand how Beth writers could miss all that
 
Ihniwid said:
Also, exposition is not a direct necessity in a work, it is rather a way to explore the depths or inner workings of whatever it is you are dealing with. This is all very much a personal issue Eyenixon. It doesn't mean the story or game is broken.

I personally liked the fact that everyone you talk to isn't dumping their entire life story at you every step of the way. Mass Effect, now that game had exposition. I almost took a revolver to my face it had so much exposition.
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Personal? That is one of the most flabbergastingly inappropriate comments I have ever heard, exposition is not a personal issue, it separates a subpar experience with two dimensional characters from one with fully fleshed out events and personalities.

You're telling me that because Fallout 3 decides not to elaborate on the vast majority of its plot and character background thus destroying any possibility of the game developing deep and relevant writing is a personal issue?
No, it is not a personal issue, exposition provides depth to dialog, and Fallout 3 lacks it, it's directly tied to the issue of poor writing in the game, and since most of the writing applies to dialog it's the primary issue with Fallout 3's writing.

There isn't any exposition, little of the story is fleshed out, few of the characters are given elaborate explanatory dialog and as a direct result you're left with a shallow decrepit example of dialog in a videogame.

Please take a look at Planescape: Torment, I may despise everything to do with that title's gameplay, but there is no doubt it provided the necessary exposition with each character - and without having them "dumping their entire life story at you" - in order for the writing to be on par with a quality book.
It's not that difficult to do, and it's essentially required unless you're attempting to make a piece of surrealism, which Bethesda certainly wasn't.

And just because Mass Effect had a lot of it (which it really didn't) that doesn't mean it was done well, however it was done better than it was in Fallout 3.
 
Eyenixon said:
And just because Mass Effect had a lot of it (which it really didn't) that doesn't mean it was done well, however it was done better than it was in Fallout 3.
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Well, that's actually an interesting statement. Is it really better to be tediously long-winded? Because that's Mass Effect in a nutshell.
 
As I said, it wasn't well done, if it were well done it wouldn't be long winded and tedious, it'd be engaging and interesting.
 
I HATED that all dialogs are very short. You never discuss with anybody. You just say "No!" - "[Speech 100%]" - "Yes!" - and problem solved, dialog ends and nothing more to say. This was so much depressing..
 
My pet peeve? All of the gratuitous swearing in the game. It's like 6 year olds learning their first 4-letter word and popping it out at Thanksgiving dinner. Needless to say, Little Lamplight only served to cement that fact in.

Dialogue choices were also not of the best selection. They always seemed to boil down to:

1. Goody two-shoes "Please, good sir, allow me to assist" response
2. Neutral "Couldn't care less about you, just pay up" merc response
3. "I drink the blood of children and kick puppies for fun"-type evil guy response

Also, sometimes there simply was "too much" writing.
[spoiler:f66b3118d3]Heading to that vault with the white noise experiments, I felt like the writers were just beating me over the head with the minute details. Ok, ok, I get it already, these experiments were bad and held in secret, and they lead to people going crazy and murderous. Why are there so many holotapes about the dang place? Like 6 of them, I don't even think the Glow from Fallout 1 had that much info in it.[/spoiler:f66b3118d3]

Somewhat related to that, the fact that all sorts of Fallout trivia seem to pop up in the game as often as it could be worked in.
[spoiler:f66b3118d3]They put in a Vault-Tec HQ, RobCo plant, Nuka-Cola warehouse, like 5 vaults with different experiments (and no survivors, all dungeon-like) and more Vault Boy appearances than the previous games combined. It always felt like they were trying too hard to make the game "Fallout".[/spoiler:f66b3118d3]
 
TheGM said:
Watch some anime and play some JRPGS....it makes all this look like fucking shakespeare.
Click to expand...
Hooray for generalizations! Yeah, that Grave of the Fireflies has super shitty writing and totally proves this man! There is shitty writing in everything and yes, many JRPGs have mediocre to average writing but some actually are well written (above average, maybe good).

Fallout 3 comes off like a twelve year-old who thinks that he's the shit and tries to show off both how cool and how smart he is but comes off as a moronic douche bag. No, it isn't the worst writing I've ever read and certainly not the worst writing in a video game but so fucking what? Does shittier writing somehow elevate this to acceptable? Bad writing in a linear RPG without dialog options bothers me a lot less than in a sandbox RPG with options because the former feels like it has writing to progress the game and the latter feels like it's showcasing the writing and that it's an aspect to be focused on.

Fallout 3 doesn't have horrendous writing, it has bad writing.
 
I don't think the cursing is anywhere near as prevalent as pre-release writeups seemed to imply.

The dialog choices do seem to suffer from "bioware syndrome" a bit [good choice / neutral choice / evil choice] and are truncated. But I feel that might be a complaint with the gameplay systems than the actual writing. Frankly we should all be on our hands and knees that they didn't make it all one-word responses like:

-RUMORS
-FIRE ANTS
-BYE!
 
The dialogue looks more intelligent when you are 10 years old, than when you're a grown person.

Also, just like Lexx said:

NPC: So, will you do this for me?

You:

A: [INTELLIGENCE] By all meanings, I will help you!
B: [SPEECH] Yes
C: Fuck off you idiot! I'm not stoopid!

Most of the dialogue options, when you have several options like 3, most of them are just synonyms to other options. Usually negative options are like being an asshole "No you asshole!", "Yeah, whatever you're stupid anyway".

Examples:

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!



Or another one [spoilers]

[spoiler:b591f5dd1e]This woman knew my dad. He died and she knew him. The only ptions were these:



1. You love him sooo fucking much
2. you're an asshole
3. you're a fucking asshole[/spoiler:b591f5dd1e]
 
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