Ben Soto
Professional Salt Shaker
We mentioned this in the podcast; FNV had 11 slides for Arcade alone. F4 has two endings, period.
If Fallout 4 had actual proper alternate endings.
- Thread starter Jogre
- Start date
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Yeah the endings for Fallout 3/4 are terrible and leave the rest of the wasteland hanging.
MercenarySnake
Kept you waiting huh?
Boston is terrible and pointless, with so few people there and almost the whole population consisting of raiders/ghouls/super mutants, no progression with people living in dusty skeleton ridden dumps who don't want to progress society to make it a better place then what is the point? Hell they still use caps as a currency! It's like, yeah Bethesda you do realize civilization in New California has been doing pretty well for themselves while Boston 46 years latter is barren with locked prewar safes and terminals with people living in run down homes.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
True. There could only be a couple of endings.
MercenarySnake
Kept you waiting huh?
Yeah one with the male and one with the female. It's along the lines of
"...and so the [INSERT GENDER] 'sole survivor' who ventured out from Vault 111 killed his/her evil son and the dumbasses at the institute while allied with [INSERT FACTION] while the wasteland continues to be a shithole without any progress, The End.".
Atleast that's how I imagine it.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Yeah one with the male and one with the female. It's along the lines of
"...and so the [INSERT GENDER] 'sole survivor' who ventured out from Vault 111 killed his/her evil son and the dumbasses at the institute while allied with [INSERT FACTION] while the wasteland continues to be a shithole without any progress, The End.".
Atleast that's how I imagine it.
That's almost what happened.
Ben Soto
Professional Salt Shaker
Um... yeah. They still use caps as currency. So does Vegas. In fact, caps are preferred by most people because they're worth a lot more than NCR money.
But why should people use caps in Boston?
Monco
The Duck of Death
Well there is actually substantial agriculture and people are producing at least some products, so having a fiat currency makes a lot more sense than in FO3
I am not arguing against a currency. I am just curious, why caps in particular? Could be something else for Boston really. No clue. Why not, for example subway tokens? Or baseball tickets or what ever. I am just brainstorming.
It's just that caps are now to Fallout what Septims are to Elder Scrolls. Probably because if F4 would not feature caps, some players might get confused ... as they are so used with caps now as the one and only currency of the setting.
I mean, yeah, alright. New Vegas had caps too, ok. But they at least gave the Legion their own currency. Which makes sense, when you think about it.
It's just that caps are now to Fallout what Septims are to Elder Scrolls. Probably because if F4 would not feature caps, some players might get confused ... as they are so used with caps now as the one and only currency of the setting.
I mean, yeah, alright. New Vegas had caps too, ok. But they at least gave the Legion their own currency. Which makes sense, when you think about it.
I would assume for the reasons you listed, brand recognition.
Though, there was an interview posted on this site somewhere where one of the original Fallout devs talked about why they used caps in the first place, them being small, lightweight, fairly easy to carry around in large numbers, and not easily reproduced.
These things are valid of caps everywhere, since caps are caps, east coast or west coast, its still the same bottlecap. Its not really that far fetched that multiple people across the country picked up on these facts and chose caps for those reasons.
Things like baseball tickets are made of paper, thus would tear too easy to remain a valid currency, and subway tokens likely don't have the numbers to be usable as a currency in a place with such a large number of people.
It also fits with the 50's theme, where everyone bought those now famous soda bottles.
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Earth
Vault Senior Citizen
With things like caps, jet and super mutants, these concepts being on the east coast just bring up problems. Are they really so "brand recognised" that they needed to be in Fallout 3, and now 4? Is it really that hard to come up with your own names?
Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
If you don't like caps there's a guy in the bad part of the Commonwealth that will let you apply for a "Chahg Cahd" (I think he means Charge Card). So caps aren't the only currency!
Jubal Quintus
Nacho Friend
The cap in Fallout 1 was only an accepted form of currency because it was backed by the Water Merchants in The Hub. This ties it to the core region and makes it worthless outside of the influence of the Water Merchants, which is why it was gone in Fallout 2 as the NCR expanded and circulated their own currency backed by their government.
This is why it makes less sense and stretches believability that the opposite coast just happened to select the same item for their currency. So it's a lore vs brand recognition issue that's been a problem since Fallout 3 ported everything from the West Coast to the East Coast.
Which is actually fairly nonsensical, since physically backed monetary systems haven't been a thing in the U.S. for decades now, let alone by the times the bomb dropped in 2077.
The idea that everyone would go back to using such a system, when the reason why it was dropped was because there simply isn't enough of any precious resource to back a large scale economy that way, especially when we consider the fact the Fallout world went through that thing called "The Resource Wars", which resulted from nearly all of earth's precious resources being used up, meaning there was even less of things to back money with, only shows that the people of the west coast either had no understanding of how economics works, or are simply just complete morons who don't care.
Realistically, people would establish a monetary system like they had before the war. A fiat economy based on the people understanding the fact that they need a monetary system to trade on the large scale, due to the proven failings of the barter system, and the understanding that theres not enough of any single resource to realistically back any sort of large scale economy using a physical item, along with the acceptance that caps are worth as much as they are, along with the other quality that caps have that make them a good currency.(low weight, easy to carry, lots of them around, not easily reproduced, etc. etc.)
The fact that by the time of NV the NCR has switched to a fiat based economy shows that even they eventually realized it was the smarter idea. It only took nearly 200 years after the people on the east coast realized this, and the BoS destroying what little gold supply they had, but hey, no better time then the present to catch up!
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whirlingdervish
Brahmin Cavalry Commander
so many things wrong about that post... 
1: In a post apoc setting without any large settlements other than the Hub until well after the events of Fallout 2, what kind of large scale economy exists to not work with a gold or precious substance backed currency? They would indeed go back to a simpler system, because they lived in a world that was simpler with needs that were simpler and without a real economy beyond very basic trade and agriculture.
Valuable resources don't have to be shiny metal, and it's pretty easy to understand this if you actually played Fallout.
In a wasteland where something as simple as WATER is precious to all of the people and crucial to survival, you naturally get a much simpler economic system.
Just like in the world of Dune, the limiting factors of the environment control populations and their activities, and the west coast wasteland is a huge DESERT.
The limiting factor to all life in the wastes is the availability of a single resource that they had at the Hub, so backing their money with it was perfectly sensible.
The futuristic toys were still laying around in places, but the human population and the economy had not recovered to a point where it even mirrored the american west in the 1800s. Hydraulic despotism was commonplace then and would be again, when there were people with guns who could deny you access to livegiving substances like water for their own profit. If you don't have water (or electrical power in the case of NV), what use is gold?
2: The people in Fallout, with the exception of the magical sole survivor cryoman and Mr. House, didn't live prior to the war. Very few if any of them would know about the economic conditions of the world prior to the war, so how would they know if their system was even like that?
How many people now (in a time with state funded education) even have a decent understanding of the financial and economic realities of the world 200 years ago?
It's completely UNREALISTIC to think that the people from the Hub (the core of the economic system of the west and backers of the caps that started a system more advanced than basic bartering) would ape an economic system that the vast majority of them had no idea even existed, and which did not fit the shape of their world.
3: Your FACT that the NCR must have suddenly realized their system was bad and changed it is not a fact. It's actually nonsensical and fails to take into account the fact that the NCR is not static, and that even though it changes, it changes slowly and resists it every step of the way just like every state that is run the way it is, with multiple people in charge.
The shape of the world in the west and the economy of that world changed as the NCR expanded from a tiny agricultural/trading town into a republic of varied communities that controlled vast territory and population.
If anything their growth and the changing shape of the nationstate driven by that growth would be the main factors behind any change of economic system, not someone going "oh this system doesn't work so good, lets change it because reasons!"
4: Take another shot at trying to insult the west coast fallout lore to try to annoy people here. It won't work, but it highlights how blatant and stupid your troll routine has become.
1: In a post apoc setting without any large settlements other than the Hub until well after the events of Fallout 2, what kind of large scale economy exists to not work with a gold or precious substance backed currency? They would indeed go back to a simpler system, because they lived in a world that was simpler with needs that were simpler and without a real economy beyond very basic trade and agriculture.
Valuable resources don't have to be shiny metal, and it's pretty easy to understand this if you actually played Fallout.
In a wasteland where something as simple as WATER is precious to all of the people and crucial to survival, you naturally get a much simpler economic system.
Just like in the world of Dune, the limiting factors of the environment control populations and their activities, and the west coast wasteland is a huge DESERT.
The limiting factor to all life in the wastes is the availability of a single resource that they had at the Hub, so backing their money with it was perfectly sensible.
The futuristic toys were still laying around in places, but the human population and the economy had not recovered to a point where it even mirrored the american west in the 1800s. Hydraulic despotism was commonplace then and would be again, when there were people with guns who could deny you access to livegiving substances like water for their own profit. If you don't have water (or electrical power in the case of NV), what use is gold?
2: The people in Fallout, with the exception of the magical sole survivor cryoman and Mr. House, didn't live prior to the war. Very few if any of them would know about the economic conditions of the world prior to the war, so how would they know if their system was even like that?
How many people now (in a time with state funded education) even have a decent understanding of the financial and economic realities of the world 200 years ago?
It's completely UNREALISTIC to think that the people from the Hub (the core of the economic system of the west and backers of the caps that started a system more advanced than basic bartering) would ape an economic system that the vast majority of them had no idea even existed, and which did not fit the shape of their world.
3: Your FACT that the NCR must have suddenly realized their system was bad and changed it is not a fact. It's actually nonsensical and fails to take into account the fact that the NCR is not static, and that even though it changes, it changes slowly and resists it every step of the way just like every state that is run the way it is, with multiple people in charge.
The shape of the world in the west and the economy of that world changed as the NCR expanded from a tiny agricultural/trading town into a republic of varied communities that controlled vast territory and population.
If anything their growth and the changing shape of the nationstate driven by that growth would be the main factors behind any change of economic system, not someone going "oh this system doesn't work so good, lets change it because reasons!"
4: Take another shot at trying to insult the west coast fallout lore to try to annoy people here. It won't work, but it highlights how blatant and stupid your troll routine has become.
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omegaspruz
First time out of the vault
so many things wrong about that post...
1: In a post apoc setting without any large settlements other than the Hub until well after the events of Fallout 2, what kind of large scale economy exists to not work with a gold or precious substance backed currency? They would indeed go back to a simpler system, because they lived in a world that was simpler with needs that were simpler and without a real economy beyond very basic trade and agriculture.
Valuable resources don't have to be shiny metal, and it's pretty easy to understand this if you actually played Fallout.
In a wasteland where something as simple as WATER is precious to all of the people and crucial to survival, you naturally get a much simpler economic system.
Just like in the world of Dune, the limiting factors of the environment control populations and their activities, and the west coast wasteland is a huge DESERT.
The limiting factor to all life in the wastes is the availability of a single resource that they had at the Hub, so backing their money with it was perfectly sensible.
The futuristic toys were still laying around in places, but the human population and the economy had not recovered to a point where it even mirrored the american west in the 1800s. Hydraulic despotism was commonplace then and would be again, when there were people with guns who could deny you access to livegiving substances like water for their own profit. If you don't have water (or electrical power in the case of NV), what use is gold?
2: The people in Fallout, with the exception of the magical sole survivor cryoman and Mr. House, didn't live prior to the war. Very few if any of them would know about the economic conditions of the world prior to the war, so how would they know if their system was even like that?
How many people now (in a time with state funded education) even have a decent understanding of the financial and economic realities of the world 200 years ago?
It's completely UNREALISTIC to think that the people from the Hub (the core of the economic system of the west and backers of the caps that started a system more advanced than basic bartering) would ape an economic system that the vast majority of them had no idea even existed, and which did not fit the shape of their world.
3: Your FACT that the NCR must have suddenly realized their system was bad and changed it is not a fact. It's actually nonsensical and fails to take into account the fact that the NCR is not static, and that even though it changes, it changes slowly and resists it every step of the way just like every state that is run the way it is, with multiple people in charge.
The shape of the world in the west and the economy of that world changed as the NCR expanded from a tiny agricultural/trading town into a republic of varied communities that controlled vast territory and population.
If anything their growth and the changing shape of the nationstate driven by that growth would be the main factors behind any change of economic system, not someone going "oh this system doesn't work so good, lets change it because reasons!"
4: Take another shot at trying to insult the west coast fallout lore to try to annoy people here. It won't work, but it highlights how blatant and stupid your troll routine has become.
Its a horrible excuse, but how about its a game and is meant to be enjoyed?
Thats the problem so many people here have, you focus on stuff which doesnt matter. 'Nuff said.
And I dislike aspects of Fallout 4 and Fallout 3; cabots house, kid in a fridge, dialogue, t-60(although admittedly its very nitpicky) the list goes on.
But stuff like caps? Its a game mechanic it works. its not an uber realistic world of metro 2033, which is based on an actual book, where they didnt have to think about game mechanics and had ammo as currency. This is pure genius from gameplay mechanics as well because every shot counts, every shot costs.
But that Fallout. Its a metaphor, a prolonged satire about the world wraped in pulp and cheese. Something are meant to be overlooked. Not to the extent Pete Hines does that, but still. If you dont like caps, go make a mod which will replace them with chopsticks. Who cares about caps people? Care about the atrocious ending, which is worse than Fallout 3, based on the fact that its not Ron Perlman among other things. Hate Fallout 4 on internal inconsistencies, on stupid Arthur Maxson( who i so wish can go and kill in Fallout 3 now, but I cant), hate Fallout 4 on Cabot House and its crazy lore and the diluted hundreds of pre war residents on the wastelands, House's achievement means nothing when you can just drink magic blood( who let Robert orci and Alex Kurtzman into Bethesda). But stop it with stuff like caps and megaton bomb. Fallout 1 and 2 has just as much small stupid things like that.
edit: Also Assaultrons, hate them.
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whirlingdervish
Brahmin Cavalry Commander
Internal logical consistency of the game world DOES MATTER, and when it makes the game less fun (being confused by nonsense is not fun) there is a huge additional problem.
In addition to just being a game money mechanic, Caps made sense in Fallout and tied the outlying communities in the gameworld together in a sensible fashion that helps make you feel like it is a living breathing world and not an amusement park. They even serve as a sort of de facto compass point in the direction of the Hub to further the storyline, since if you are looking for better gear or supplies for your character you will naturally go to the trading hub that supports all of the currency and caravans of the wasteland.
The Fallout devs wrote the story and gameworld so that these things tied together and made sense, and this is important to pretty much every feature of a game that is trying to create a consistent gameworld in which you can experience what they call immersion. (incredibly important to cRPGs)
I cannot go into one of the Bethesda sandbox/playground/amusement park game worlds and maintain the suspension of disbelief required for a real role playing experience, and it is a direct result of their inability to write their characters and design their settlements as convincing elements in a living world.
In addition to just being a game money mechanic, Caps made sense in Fallout and tied the outlying communities in the gameworld together in a sensible fashion that helps make you feel like it is a living breathing world and not an amusement park. They even serve as a sort of de facto compass point in the direction of the Hub to further the storyline, since if you are looking for better gear or supplies for your character you will naturally go to the trading hub that supports all of the currency and caravans of the wasteland.
The Fallout devs wrote the story and gameworld so that these things tied together and made sense, and this is important to pretty much every feature of a game that is trying to create a consistent gameworld in which you can experience what they call immersion. (incredibly important to cRPGs)
I cannot go into one of the Bethesda sandbox/playground/amusement park game worlds and maintain the suspension of disbelief required for a real role playing experience, and it is a direct result of their inability to write their characters and design their settlements as convincing elements in a living world.
omegaspruz
First time out of the vault
I agree that internal consistency does matter. No argument there.
However, you are over reacting. While you personally may find it hard to roleplay in Bethesda game, show me a game where you can actually roleplay in modern gaming. All of them suffer the same problems. Bethesda is more showy of it. Where have we ever, in modern gaming, been given a template to imprint our personality on and roleplay? Witcher, you play Geralt. Mass Effect, you can occassionally get cutscenes where your character does what you cant according to the chosen class. Latest Dragon Ages, I wont even mention them. While this is my opinion, I in all seriousness like to find a game like that, so if you do know please tell me.
New Vegas you could do that pretty well and Wasteland 2, where you can write your own brief story.
Now, to the world consistency in Bethesda games. They did for brand recognition, there is no doubt. That said should that detract from enjoyment of the game? Yes, if you really hate those games. Because while I wont try to argue that there is a smart reason for it, and I dont think Bethesda writing is deep enouh to have caps as some sort of real world commentary, but I cant fathom a reason to even think about it more than 30 seconds, unless I really hate the game. And I dont, I think it was one of the better written Bethesda games, RPGs in general(once again in modern gaming). But one of better written is not the hall of honor.
Like some arguments here, you purposefully destroy whatever enjoyment you can have about it.
Opening scene for example, I was like no way its BS. I thought about it for 30 seconds and moved on. Why? Because frankly its not a game that deserves everything to be nitpicked. Because thats not the worst part. Because its just something I am willing to forget, because engine limitations, design philosophy and there are things far worse.
You dont have to like the game, nobody has to like anything. But what annoys me here, is that people purposefully look for things to ruin the game for them. We talked about all the plot holes, now lets talk about things which were done wrong in the previous game. Its a retcon, who cares? In history of the retcons, its not the worst one. Hell, its not even close.
whirlingdervish
Brahmin Cavalry Commander
If they called the game Skyborderlands 4 or BorderRim 4 I wouldn't care if they mangled the crap out of the story and the images and symbols.
Since they chose to make it Fallout 4, I do care, for the same reason I joined this site and post here.
I actually care about Fallout being, well.. Fallout. One of the key things that differentiated this series from other crgps is quality and consistency of the setting in a believable and dark post apoc world. Various changes to the gameplay are less important to me and even the shift of viewpoint/perspective to first person doesn't really bother me, as long as it's done well and for a good reason.
Bethesda capitalizing on the various ingame images/symbols that they didn't even come up with or understand to create a distinctive brand doesn't even bother me much, and it wouldn't bother me at all if it meant we kept getting good Fallout games because they kept selling.
The believability of the story, and communities and NPCs directly drives one the key feature of these titles to me, and that is the quality and cohesion of the game's world/universe and how it can draw me in and make me think or care about it. Every time they make it nonsensical, or silly for no reason, or shallow for the sake of pandering to the masses, I care less about the world and I think less deeply about the things that happen in it.
Every single time they disregard quality or the unique properties of Fallout, and make a bunch of money regardless of doing so, the chance of getting a proper Fallout game that I want to play decreases drastically.
Every single time they shit up the story, and nobody cares that they did, it means Fallout 5 will be written even worse than it could have been and it will be mostly our fault for not holding Bethesda to account.
We said this stuff would happen before Fallout 3 came out, and people said we were crazy and stuck in the past, but hindsight shows that we were 100% correct in assuming that the simplification of the IP would be a slippery slope that Bethesda would slide right down installment after installment.
Since they chose to make it Fallout 4, I do care, for the same reason I joined this site and post here.
I actually care about Fallout being, well.. Fallout. One of the key things that differentiated this series from other crgps is quality and consistency of the setting in a believable and dark post apoc world. Various changes to the gameplay are less important to me and even the shift of viewpoint/perspective to first person doesn't really bother me, as long as it's done well and for a good reason.
Bethesda capitalizing on the various ingame images/symbols that they didn't even come up with or understand to create a distinctive brand doesn't even bother me much, and it wouldn't bother me at all if it meant we kept getting good Fallout games because they kept selling.
The believability of the story, and communities and NPCs directly drives one the key feature of these titles to me, and that is the quality and cohesion of the game's world/universe and how it can draw me in and make me think or care about it. Every time they make it nonsensical, or silly for no reason, or shallow for the sake of pandering to the masses, I care less about the world and I think less deeply about the things that happen in it.
Every single time they disregard quality or the unique properties of Fallout, and make a bunch of money regardless of doing so, the chance of getting a proper Fallout game that I want to play decreases drastically.
Every single time they shit up the story, and nobody cares that they did, it means Fallout 5 will be written even worse than it could have been and it will be mostly our fault for not holding Bethesda to account.
We said this stuff would happen before Fallout 3 came out, and people said we were crazy and stuck in the past, but hindsight shows that we were 100% correct in assuming that the simplification of the IP would be a slippery slope that Bethesda would slide right down installment after installment.
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