I feel Fallout 4 will be a rude awakening

[Radiosity]

Don't forget the standard Bethesda fan petition of asking for fast travel to be removed. Because nothing says immersion like walking for 5 minutes between towns.

You know, someone actually made a mod for Fallout 3 that removes the 'Empty' that pops up on empty containers, in the name of immurshun. "I find those annoying, I should have to spend additional time opening EVERY SINGLE CONTAINER just to see if it's empty or not!"

I just don't even.

 

[Practicat]

Don't forget the standard Bethesda fan petition of asking for fast travel to be removed. Because nothing says immersion like walking for 5 minutes between towns.

You know, someone actually made a mod for Fallout 3 that removes the 'Empty' that pops up on empty containers, in the name of immurshun. "I find those annoying, I should have to spend additional time opening EVERY SINGLE CONTAINER just to see if it's empty or not!"

I just don't even.

Someone actually made a mod that adds primary needs in the name of immersion. "I find it annoying that my character doesn't need to eat or sleep. It would be a lot better if they have to do that."

 

[Radiosity]

There's a difference between convenience and immersion. Primary needs is a thing that should exist (albeit in a form where you can disable if you wish, Obsidian understands this). Something popping up 'empty' when you look at it is simple good design to avoid tedious gameplay.

 

[Crni Vuk]

To be fair, I did give my input on the subject. However, for someone that was bragging about "writing school", this post was hard as hell to follow, due to the amount of grammatical errors.

I didn't knew you had to be a chef to actually criticize food.

And yes, I know there is a quote button. Shall I edit my post to appeal to your personal issues with remembering what the OP said? Or would that be too much of a "casual gamer" thing to do?

Forum etiquette. I was confused for a moment about your post as I thought that your post was aiming at someone else and not the OP, untill you explained it. It is simply better to directly quote the person/part that you're talking about, particularly if the stuff in question was discussed like 2 pages ago. I would have thought hat this would be obvious for someone who's complaining about the writing skills of others. Imagine the confusion if everyone would just write willy-nilly all over the place without ever quoting anyone where the reader has to guess the intention. It costs you really what, maybe 10 sec. to hit the quote button, while making the life of everyone else easier.

 

[Practicat]

There's a difference between convenience and immersion. Primary needs is a thing that should exist (albeit in a form where you can disable if you wish, Obsidian understands this). Something popping up 'empty' when you look at it is simple good design to avoid tedious gameplay.

That's a good way of describing the difference between the two.

 

[No Man]

There might be nothing bad about the mod. I mean, the whole point of what FO3 calls 'exploration' is checking containers anyway - most of the time you will find nothing of value (just the same useless/near useless crap over and over again), so the loot itself is not that important. And many Beth fans mention going through every single container. Maybe it's just about opening boxes that they like?

I mean, honestly, I'm surprised that people say exploration is such a big deal in FO3. What is the reward for exploration anyway? Caps? Junk? A bunch of ammo? That's stupid, I could find those at the nearest general store. History of the place? Yes, another office memo or going-to-madness log (BTW, all insane people type with their faces). I know there are people, who are gonna say 'yeah, but I collect hammers (or some other junk, who cares)' or 'reading mundane bullshit emails totally bings more flavour to random gray office #27', but how many people can actually believe that? Or go through all the hoarding just for the sake of hoarding? 'Bob's gotta pick up a bunch of goddamn tomatoes on his way home, but world ended, so he just ended up slapping his dick with a keyboard as a typing method, because he's Cr@Ze3!!!1!' gets boring when you've read this exact same thing about John, Frank and Ed.

 

[Chromevod]

Honestly I don't have high hopes for the story of Fallout 4. I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised at any competent elements I stumble across, but I'm probably going to enjoy Fallout 4 the way I enjoyed 3 and Skyrim. Which is ignoring basically all the story that was given to me and forging a story of my own in my head and just wander around and do things according to what I've decided the character's motivation will be. Unfortunately those motivations will probably mean I cannot stand listening to anything the local characters are concerned about.

It's a shame, but it's how I'm able to squeeze some enjoyment out of my experiences. And in the end, maybe someone will make a mod like Project Nevada. Or maybe someone will make a mod like that Morrowind mod for Skyrim, except it's a total conversion of Fallout 4 into New Vegas.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like Bethesda's game design philosophies (as well as other AAA RPG devs, but Bethesda especially) showcase the victory of capitalism over art.

To my eyes the goal of making RPGs that run on computers has always been to replicate the tabletop experience, which is why I love the original two Fallouts so much as they actually approach that feeling. But the thing about tabletop RPGs is that "what happens in the story" is a vastly malleable experience.

For a clichéed simplistic example suppose in a generic fantasy game the PCs are asked by the local queen to save the prince who has been captured by the "evil" sorceress next door. Here is a short list of potential outcomes for the this plot:
- Party storms the sorceress's tower, kills her, rescues prince.
- Party sneaks into tower, extracts prince quietly.
- Party approaches sorceress with diplomacy, forges an accord between the two states.
- Party kills queen, makes alliance with sorceress.
- Party conspires with captured prince to kill both Queen and Sorceress.
- Party kills everyone and unites two states under their rule.


All these things, and more ought to be possible in a tabletop RPG, which is what we ought to be aiming for. But the problem in AAA is that everything has to be lovingly rendered in 3D (and there are people who will pitch a fit if it's not 1080p and 60fps at least) and fully voiced. Not only that, you have a problem with your audience in that not only are they not going to play the game multiple times to see multiple potential outcomes, the majority of them aren't even going to see the end of your game even once. So not only is there an immense cost associated with every potential branch your plot line could take, but most of your audience won't ever see more than one branch, and some of those will resent the fact that they cannot consume absolutely everything you have made in their initial playthrough (like there are people who get legitimately angry when you can't get all the achievements in a single playthrough).

So I think AAA RPGs are even more doomed than the rest of AAA, and at best we can hope for something pretty great occasionally slipping through. I have no real hopes that's going to be Fallout 4, but maybe parts of Fallout 4 will be good (and the dumb parts won't be as dumb as they were in Fallout 3.) After all, Skyrim was very superficially fairly interesting and the stupid parts weren't quite as irritating as those of Fallout 3.

 

[generalissimofurioso]

The stupid parts of Skyrim were pretty fucking stupid.

Bethesda's writers keep aiming for the Unassailable Power Fantasy scenario.

It doesn't make sense that you can be Leader of The Mage Guild, Companions, Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, much less owe your soul to like eleven different daedric lords.

Do the Daedra not keep tabs on each other?

Do the Companions not notice that you've been sneaking out at night and coming back stained with blood and a really jingly bag of gold?

This is why you can have a scenario like The Pitt, where you have two groups that are irreconcilably opposed to each other, get through the majority of slaughtering your way through either's troops and then going "Welp, I changed my mind, sorry." and then going to work for the side that you just butchered without anyone doing much more than getting irritated with you.

The player should be free to make choices, yes.

But they should also realize that those choices should have meaningful consequences.

And I don't mean different loot for consequences.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

The stupid parts of Skyrim were pretty fucking stupid.

"Less dumb than Fallout 3" is faint praise. Darn near nothing in Fallout 3 makes any sort of sense. I choose to see Skyrim as progress at least in terms of "not insulting my intelligence at every single opportunity."

 

[MercenarySnake]

'Bob's gotta pick up a bunch of goddamn tomatoes on his way home, but world ended, so he just ended up slapping his dick with a keyboard as a typing method, because he's Cr@Ze3!!!1!'

My sides! I do agree with the insanity thing though, everyone seems to go insane including from vault social experiments. I still never understood what was so great or creepy about the stupid Gary clone vault.

 

[generalissimofurioso]

What was even the experiment in the Gary clone vault?

Was it to see the effects of extended cloning?

But then, when did all the clones becomes murderous?

How were all these murderously psychotic clones keeping themselves alive?

It was just for lolz basically.

 

[Crni Vuk]

The stupid parts of Skyrim were pretty fucking stupid.

Bethesda's writers keep aiming for the Unassailable Power Fantasy scenario.

It doesn't make sense that you can be Leader of The Mage Guild, Companions, Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, much less owe your soul to like eleven different daedric lords.

Do the Daedra not keep tabs on each other?

Do the Companions not notice that you've been sneaking out at night and coming back stained with blood and a really jingly bag of gold?

This is why you can have a scenario like The Pitt, where you have two groups that are irreconcilably opposed to each other, get through the majority of slaughtering your way through either's troops and then going "Welp, I changed my mind, sorry." and then going to work for the side that you just butchered without anyone doing much more than getting irritated with you.

The player should be free to make choices, yes.

But they should also realize that those choices should have meaningful consequences.

And I don't mean different loot for consequences.

Well. When the player dies, the Joke will be on them! Suckers! HAHAHAHA! Who gets my soul now? WHO GETS MY SOUL NOW!

 

[MessedUpPro]

Gabriel Garcia Marques won a Literature Nobel prize and he admited to having awful ortography and grammar.

Cool, but can you follow what he is meaning to say? I checked out an excerpt of one of his works, and the answer is yes.

Dude's just got a chip on his shoulder.

You see it with people who complain pedantically about grammar instead of the points being made.

Grammar is mostly just the realm of dead guys who thought we should all be speaking Latin.

For one, I did say something against his point. I contributed.

For two, there's a difference between having some grammar issues and just being unreadable. I make grammar mistakes, and you make grammar mistakes, however, I can follow what is being said with no problem. The main post took some extra effort to follow.

Wow. For people that claim Bethesda fans don't have the patience to read, you people seem to have a major issue with reading.

"This is coming from someone who actually goes to WRITING school" the OP said.

Before you go and ape me I'll clarify, I often type really fast and sometimes i just don't catch mistakes. I'm also a bit dyslex. As for W R I T I N G. Writing school. I'm becoming a a W R I T E R to further develop my W R I T I N G Ability.

The issues I had reading your post had nothing to do with the spelling of words, nor was it just one or two mistakes. It was a ton of them. I mean, this reply was typed so strangely, it took me a minute to figure out what you were saying.

Soooo no writing = better writing? Okay, that's enough NMA for tonight.

Who said no writing?

I bet I and so many others could do make a better story. Remember, there is always a reason for having bad grammar and frankly, who cares?

You said having no backstory to your character was better writing. Therefore, having no writing = better writing. You're just sour that you can't be a crazy raider, right out of the box. Oh, wait a minute... You couldn't do that in any Fallout game. They ALL gave you a background of some sort. Fallout 1, you are forced to be a resident of Vault 13 and are forced to be the one chosen to go save the day. Fallout 2, you are forced to be a tribal from Arroyo, who is "The Chosen One". Sure, Fallout 4 gives you a bit more of a background, but is it REALLY such a big deal that you had a family?

As for your point about grammar, again, it's not one or two mistakes I'm complaining about. It's the entire fucking OP.

There, I used quotes. I'm a big kid now.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Sure, Fallout 4 gives you a bit more of a background, but is it REALLY such a big deal that you had a family?

Depends how much of a role it plays in the game I would say. How tight the narrative will be to this pre-war-amercian-dream-family-man fantasy that Beth has probably built around your character. If it's just serving as some sort of cleverly done tutorial? Probably not more than in any other Fallout game where you really don't have to worry to much about your background. But if it actually serves also to set the tone of the game from the start? Closer to what you have with The Witcher 1 or Mass Effect? Than it would be quite a deal I would say. If for what ever reason most of your options in the game like with the dialog will one way or another be focused around your characters boohooo-I-lost-my-family complex.

For example no matter how hard you try, but in The Witcher or Mass Effect your actions and dialog options will always reflect your work as professional monster slayer and beeing this me-shepard-save-galaxy-now thing. It still gives you room for different outcomes, like helping team a or team b etc. But at the end of the day, no matter if you're chosing to fight or to negotiate, you're doing it within the predefined tone of the game. This isn't what Fallout was about - nor what it should be about. Your background didn't dictate your choices. If you wanted to play psychopath, you could do just that. If you wanted to play a diplomath, you could just do that. If you wanted to be evil. Just go and be it! And in many parts, this was reflected by the dialog and skill/stat checks. The Witcher really doesn't allow you be a civilian killing psycho for example. And in ME pretty much all decisions have been about doing good things as good guy or doing good things and beeing an asshole about it.

We have to wait and see how much of that character freedom will be in F4. But I doubt it will contain much of it. My guess, and that's just pure speculation, is that a lot of the focus and resources in production was throw in to the post-apocalyptic minecraft experience where everything else like the story and character choices is just subsidiary and more like an afterthought, because things like story and dialog is simply something that an RPG must have, somewhere.

It would explain a lot in hindsight. For example why they have almost shown nothing from the dialog in the game - nothing that is really telling us what kind of game we can expect. Will we have most of the time 2 or 3 answers that lead all to the same result? Or will the game always be limited to this A - B - C -D thing? Or will we have more options than that? Or showing us zero parts from the story-direction. Not even hints. Like explaining a bit about the factions, hell for now we don't even know if there will be any - albeit I would say that is pretty much a given. And why they are somewhat reserved with showing more of the perks in action while a lot of the focus in the media and advertising was spend with their minecraft gimick of building your own post-apoc village and power armor.

I am curious what the explanation will be for that anyway. Just for the lulz? Or maybe because your character has this deep emotional need to recreate his hold american-dream that he lost with the bombs? We will see I guess.

 

[No Man]

You said having no backstory to your character was better writing. Therefore, having no writing = better writing. You're just sour that you can't be a crazy raider, right out of the box. Oh, wait a minute... You couldn't do that in any Fallout game. They ALL gave you a background of some sort. Fallout 1, you are forced to be a resident of Vault 13 and are forced to be the one chosen to go save the day. Fallout 2, you are forced to be a tribal from Arroyo, who is "The Chosen One". Sure, Fallout 4 gives you a bit more of a background, but is it REALLY such a big deal that you had a family?

Well, you gotta admit FO3 was a lot more restrictive about your backstory. I mean, FO2 has us playing as a tribal, but that was pretty much it. Same for FO1 being from V13 was the only backstory you had. That is not much. This is pretty much the same amount Beth gives to NPCs in their games. The rest was up to you, because it was your character. And this is where the 'no writing = better writing' actually comes into play. See what FO3 tells us:

• You were raised in a Vault.
• You were most likely subjected to Overseer's propaganda all your life, but it seems nothing really stuck.
• You were a child of a doctor, an outsider, who came to the Vault and was rather resentful of the Overseer.
• You were bullied as a child.
• You were fairly unpopular (there are four kids at your birthday party and only one of them is actually your friend - who the hell invited Butch anyway?).
• You seem to be on at least somewhat friendly terms with your teacher (unless he just allows anyone to skip tests for no reason whatsoever).

Now, imagine a backstory like this: 'ABC XYZ was born in a respectable Vault family. It was tradition that all men in the XYZ household would go on to become Vault Security Officers and ABC was no exception. He was raised in the spirit of 'Vault patriotism', taught from early childhood to value the good of the Vault and respect the Overseer above all else.'
Not workable in FO3 at all, but could fit the Vault Dweller - and both backstories are basically 'a Vault Dweller'. The fact is FO3 offers way too much backstory for the PC, especially since everyone else is given so very, very little of it. This restricts you ability to create your own character. Bottom line is: the old games gave you one sentence of this backstory and said 'you fill it in yourself', FO3 gives you almost a biography and the only blanks are 'were you a dick about it'. If Bethesda writers have so many ideas for backstories, why not give some to the main NPCs in your game? Companions, maybe? Because I'm having a hard time finding a justification for using 'was brainwashed' as a handwave twice.

 

[Taskeen]

Here's a thought - not that this will actually happen at all - but I wouldn't mind seeing a new FO game where you choose your origin story beforehand, and thus your starting out point and background is different. Which might allow for differing end goals and totally different endings, and better yet, being able to cross paths with the other starting point characters.

To me, a Fallout game doesn't mean it needs to have a connection to a Vault at all - but certainly things to visit or uncover. I'd rather be some other character in that world. Like Sulik. Let me start as Dumb or Smart Sulik in some offbeat Tribal community.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

Here's a thought - not that this will actually happen at all - but I wouldn't mind seeing a new FO game where you choose your origin story beforehand, and thus your starting out point and background is different. Which might allow for differing end goals and totally different endings, and better yet, being able to cross paths with the other starting point characters.

This was basically a good idea when Mass Effect did it, so I wonder why it didn't catch on. For plot reasons Shepard had to be a highly decorated and accomplished soldier, but the game at least let you choose what sort of thing you were decorated for, and this had gameplay effects. This is basically a good idea if you want an RPG to be both responsive to the player and have a plot that assumes certain things are true about the main character.

So like Fallout 4 letting you dictate what exactly your job was pre-war (a la Oregon Trail) and giving you modifiers based on your choice, would be a good way to get around this. Hell, make the player choose a job and a hobby and let those two things take the place of traits.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Here's a thought - not that this will actually happen at all - but I wouldn't mind seeing a new FO game where you choose your origin story beforehand, and thus your starting out point and background is different. Which might allow for differing end goals and totally different endings, and better yet, being able to cross paths with the other starting point characters.

This was basically a good idea when Mass Effect did it, so I wonder why it didn't catch on. For plot reasons Shepard had to be a highly decorated and accomplished soldier, but the game at least let you choose what sort of thing you were decorated for, and this had gameplay effects. This is basically a good idea if you want an RPG to be both responsive to the player and have a plot that assumes certain things are true about the main character.

So like Fallout 4 letting you dictate what exactly your job was pre-war (a la Oregon Trail) and giving you modifiers based on your choice, would be a good way to get around this. Hell, make the player choose a job and a hobby and let those two things take the place of traits.

We already know that won't happen because... it's Bethesda duh.

But I would really love that... maybe a mod?

 

[Eliminate_ToddHoward]

WE REALLY NEED TO POUR OUR GLORIOUS RAGE UPON TODD HOWARD AND HIS CREW. THEY WILL PAY. WAIT TIL NOVEMBER 10, YOU'LL BE SURPRISED.
FIRST SCENARIO: WE HAVE TO MAKE STRATEGIC PLAN ABOUT THIS. START WITH RIOT FOR 2 DAYS IN FRONT OF BETHESDA'S BUILDING, THEN 'SOME PEOPLE' WILL DISGUISE AS POLICE OFFICER TO CALM DOWN THE CROWD. FEW MOMENTS LATER, ANOTHER DISGUISED POLICE OFFICER WILL ENTER THE BUILDING AND MAKE 'BLOODY MESS' PARTY INSIDE. THIS WILL BRING SO MUCH ATTENTION.
SECOND SCENARIO: HIRE SOME HACKERS TO TAKE DOWN BETHESDA SERVER FOR A MONTH. THAT WILL DEFINITELY PISS THEM OFF.