TheGM
The voice of reason
UncannyGarlic said:
No not really. Just a thought on what would be said by maybe two to three people.
Not my opinion radioactive doughnuts.
IGN Fallout 3: Six Hours of Exploration
- Thread starter The Vault Dweller
- Start date
No not really. Just a thought on what would be said by maybe two to three people.
Not my opinion radioactive doughnuts.
UncannyGarlic said:
As someone studying Computer programming, Gstaff/Emil's comment is utterly stupid.
With the previous games (esp. Obivion) they have a huge library of software code they could reuse and modify. Hence why some mechanics from the previous games are still prevalent.
But from my understanding (I've only played Morrowind and never NEVER beaten it. It was just too much work keeping track of everything and really no immersion), they haven't really addressed issues fans have had with those concepts in any reasonable way.
It seems they rushed themselves to finish the game. I mean seriously, the last thing I would tell my boss is I "didn't want to deal with doing anything different". They really need some new blood and someone from outside to lead the design.
It seems they are stuck on the "This worked before" approach. As a gamer, it's very disconcerting and this comment out of ANY of them has me SERIOUSLY doubting I will pay for this game even near release.
As a programmer, I'm just disgusted. I really hate forms of "favoritism" or just plain laziness.
Seems to me that a mix of radiation, rubble, and maybe high level raiders or other enemies would be a good way to block off the outside world. Maybe they're super-high levels because they have to be extra tough to exist outside of the city or maybe they've absorbed extra radiation. Wouldn't be that hard to explain it.
AskWazzup
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
What kind of prototype is this? If everyone and their mothers has one 200 years after the war.
I just can't understand it, what's wrong with people at bethesda? Do they actualy plan their development stages, or is it a matter of creating a big world and then throwing random cool ideas into it. By the looks of it they don't have a clear vision of what they want to make, just a big budget, a bunch of amateur developers and a basic idea.
If they are so keen on hanging to this immershun exuse with the benefits of hype purposed, immershun braking game mechanics, why can't they at least add some more in depth descriptions, so that it would provide some food for thought instead of a confused look and a scratch on the head.
Where are their writers? With some imagination it's possible to camouflage even the more absurd looking ideas, without gathering much unneeded attention.
AssassinEdge187
First time out of the vault
I hope that when/if they release the editor that someone mods the hell out of the game so that it is a more plausible sequel. What the hell is up with the crab men? The more I see, the more I don't like. Unfortunately, I fear my memories of the fallout universe must be buried with Fallout 1 & 2.
Am I the only one who find it a little silly that people think the fat man is stupid because the davy crockett uses a tripod? I mean, we are in fact talking about a game where PLASMA and LASER rifles exist, as well as GAUSS weapons. So while a working gauss weapon probably would fill a garage or so, a nuclear weapon that is fired by a tripod is deemed impossible, especially considering that you can wear strength amplifying armour..
The point about it being very short range is of course valid. It does not fit with the theme as nuclear radiation damage seems to be rather realistic elsewhere, and no amount of Rad-x would save you from that shockwave.
Oh and I also find it strange that people who want things to stay like they were in the originals find invisible walls stupid, considering that in Fallout 1 and 2 the map simply stopped, which is basically the same thing.
The point about it being very short range is of course valid. It does not fit with the theme as nuclear radiation damage seems to be rather realistic elsewhere, and no amount of Rad-x would save you from that shockwave.
Oh and I also find it strange that people who want things to stay like they were in the originals find invisible walls stupid, considering that in Fallout 1 and 2 the map simply stopped, which is basically the same thing.
Degas said:
What's so strange about asking for consistency? We're told that the core game play mechanics needed to be changed to add to the IMMERSHION.
Are you telling me it's ok to change the way the game itself is played, but the cosmetic things are just fine to be un-immersive?
Someone above mentioned that they didn't do anything different for the invisible walls because that would have taken time and effort. Well that pretty much sums up this game. It's why the core game was scrapped and Oblivion With Guns is what they ended up with. It would have taken them a massive amount of effort to learn how to design and balance a game like Fallout 1 and 2, so they took the easy way out and made a total conversion of Oblivion.
They talk about how Fallotu 1 and 2 had no IMMERSHION, and thats why the whole game needed to be remade from the ground up, and then proceed to keep every piece of crap feature from their own games in the name of being lazy.
psychosomatic
First time out of the vault
Degas said:
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I think the (paraphrased) problem people have is that it is hypocritical to change the game to first person for immersion but then have this giant immersion breaking invisible wall.
Of course this is assuming that it is true that they changed Fallout to first person over top-down isometric specifically for that reason..."immersion", and that the change is a BIG DEAL.
The thing with Fallout is that the game immersed you with its great quests, dialogue, interesting locations (the glow, BOS bunker), so the physical borders were never an issue because trying to immerse people on a purely graphical level was never the purpose. It was the quality of the game that immersed you
So, considering F3, if they DO make a great game (or if they believe that they did), then perhaps they are turning away from the philosophy that you have to feel like you are in the game in terms of graphics and sheer realism (which is dubious, but I will expand on this shortly), and so they believe invisible walls will only be a minor issue when gameplay and exploration are foremost on people's minds.
Maybe Bethesda feels that isometric view was never a core element of F3, that first person would be more interesting in terms of exploring and seeing a world first-hand (which it IS, in principle), and they could still design the game to be true to the past Fallouts but on a more detailed graphical level. Of course, then they would say that they are trying to be as immersive as they can be, but there are obviously limits (including geographical, "you can't go there" ones). I'm not sure its all that straight forward either...
Not to go on too long...but if players do see a boundary (like a fallen building), they may think that the map COULD go on, and will waste time trying to find a way around it, only to be frustrated. An invisible wall is much more direct, and allows the player to go back to enjoying the game instead of searching for a way through in vain. But then, if they just designed a canyon, I would get the message. But maybe it takes too much in terms of resources to design all this, and they want to focus on the game. Many arguments, I am not a game designer, so I am unsure.
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I agree with you on the weapons point. Fallout did go into science fiction-style weapons quite a bit - railguns (normally massive) reduced to the size of an ordinary hunting rifle. But they were cool, and everybody likes the idea of using science-fiction weapons (microwave guns, lasers, the awesome YK42B pulse rifle).
But the thing is, those weapons don't actually EXIST, unlike the nuke, whose effects we are quite familiar with. So it is ridiculous to think we could blow someone up with a nuke being 20 meters away, but it is acceptable to our imagination that in some alternate universe, our science fiction ideas could be realized and actually work.
AskWazzup
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Degas said:
The problem with the Fatman is, that it has many problems:
*Hype - This weapon was implemented in the game firstly as an attention graber, a good gimmick to promote your game with nuclear themed explosions - that's 2 hits with one shot, explosions and "nuclear". Because of this marketing priority, the idea was not given much consideration.
*"Realism"/Good science fiction - The weapons in Fallout ar based on more, or less plausible concepts and theories that are not crossing the beleavability line. While you could of course find some scientific inconsistencies in them, they still fit nicely in good science fiction borders.
The Fatman case, however, brings too many questions and when you consider that it belongs to the nuclear weaponry departament, which is the foundation of Fallout world destruction and is described very nicely in the manual, you should pay extra attention to consistency and beleavability when implementing such weapons in the game.
If we would look at the above mentioned Davy Crockett example, we would see that it used one of the weakest nuclear warheads ever created, that had a yield of ~10 tons, which was "very close to the minimum practical size and yield for a fission warhead". Now, 10 tones, even though weak in comparison to most nuclear weapons, has the same explosive potential as the most powerful conventional weapon - The Moab http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7tG7keSe-0. Of course bending the physics in even the more serious games, is usualy necessary due to various limitations, but in this Fatman case it's blidingly obvious and laughable. Not only that you can launch it from ten meters away and live (which is a potentially life threatening distance even for simple grenades) it also creates a silly mini mushroom cloud, which disolves in a few seconds. It's basicaly a simple rocket launcher juiced up with a nuclear theme, which brings us to another problem.
Trivialisation of nuclear weapons in Fallout - Well, i guess there is not much to explain here, when you see a nuclear explosion at every corner. I guess the atmosphere of a world devasted by an ancient nuclear war where people try to rise out of the ashes of civilization is gone and replaced with FUN nuclear explosions at every corner.
They could of at least tried to come up with some explonations for this weapon. Though i guess it's a hard task considering the current state of the nuclear catapult, but nonetheless, some kind of explanation, or a more in depth description would have at least lessened the damage that's being made by the nuclear catapult to the game.
You may think it's silly to worry too much about this issue, but i doubt that you think, that this is a very good idea.
Bernard Bumner
Still Mildly Glowing
psychosomatic said:
Which sounds extremely patronizing, and slightly incredible.
Map boundaries are are a feature of almost every game in some form or another, and as such are familiar and intuitive to anybody who has played games. Invisible walls are a lazy substitute for design, and especially so with a world of credible hazards and boundaries inherently available within a nuclear-decimated landscape. I think it is a much more parsimonious explanation to suggest that this is simply another poor design choice which demonstrates that Bethesda's initial decision to implement a first-person perspective was as much to do with recycling Oblivion technology and expertise and appealing to a new market, as it was to do with any sanctified philosophy of immersion.
Still, accepting your premise that this is a pragmatic choice made on the basis that their target audience is unable to cope with the minor frustration of having to expend time to discover boundaries, it would suggest that the intellectual bankruptcy of the game is complete. This must, then, be a game for ritalin-munching half-wits who have been cursed with the twin misfortunes of both ADHD and near-terminal idiocy.
Either way, it is indicative of devaluation of the Fallout brand, and especially so when considered alongside the other discontinuous designs and disregard for lore and setting.
I am still optimistic that there is a reasonably passable game to be had in Fallout 3, but I am very sure that it will be an extremely pale shadow of the original games. Almost every new story details a further step away from greatness, and indicates that the game is likely to attain only over-hyped mediocrity, at best. What a shame if something so ordinary should bear such an extraordinary name.
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I'd suggest reading the article linked earlier, it does a good job discussing barriers (I think his line in the sand for magic barriers is too fuzzy) and explains you're wrong about invisible walls showing any sort of clear barrier. You want the player to be clear that they can't go past a certain point but invisible walls are neither verisimilar nor provide any sort of visual clue to their presence. If you're going to use walls to box the player in then show them (it doesn't take much time or effort to do so), if you want a less visually obtrusive barrier then find something there but invisible walls are universally seen as a problem.psychosomatic said:
GeneralDekker
First time out of the vault
I just hope they have a decent # of readable items like that did in ES4. Collecting a library and spending hours reading them was the best part for me. I suppose books may be ditched or at least be in short supply compared to maybe Holodiscs? Either way I just need interesting original material to read but they could always use the nuclear war as a reason why much of it didn't survive.
*prays the elementary school has a library*
*prays the elementary school has a library*
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
The problem with the books in Morrowind and Oblivion was that most (all?) of them had jack crap to do with the game and there wasn't an easy way of telling if they did or didn't without reading quite a few. Yes it's cool that they have all of this backstory but why not include a .txt, .doc, or .pdf file with it all instead? I like appropriate amounts of reading material and if it's in the game then it suggests that there is something to be gained from reading it so make sure that's the case.GeneralDekker said:
iridium_ionizer
Mildly Dipped
One way the radioactive doughnut (as well as the lack of total destruction in the capitol) would make sense would be if there actually was a missile shield or Star Wars like system implemented around Washington D.C.. Then it would make sense that some of the nukes got it, but not enough to obliterate all of the landmarks. I'm not saying that this jives with the Fallout backstory or that in reality such a defense system would actually work that well (which isn't all that well really), but fans of realism sometimes have to imagine complex circumstances to make the implausible plausible.TheGM said:
I really dont think the invisible walls will bother you as much as the walls we'll see dividing areas of DC and forcing you to go through the dungeon - ugh- i'm sorry derilict Metro.
i find it funny that they managed to do .. what they do best
.. and implement .. castles and fortresses somehow into this thing: see Megaton, Tennpenny Towers and Rivet City - yes yes post apocalyptic setting, people need protection etc. but just one of them sounds reasonable (Rivet City) while the others are a bit forced imho...
i find it funny that they managed to do .. what they do best
.. and implement .. castles and fortresses somehow into this thing: see Megaton, Tennpenny Towers and Rivet City - yes yes post apocalyptic setting, people need protection etc. but just one of them sounds reasonable (Rivet City) while the others are a bit forced imho...Stop - STOP - Stop, Stop If You've Heard / Seen This Before
Stop - STOP - Stop, Stop If You've Heard / Seen This Before
Why 'bonk' into an invisible 1950's Colgate "Guard-All Shield"?
... and then press yo virtual nose against the sand box side ...
4 shear in yo face LULZ ...
When the player reaches the edge of the playing field, the FP view and graphics could go retro to third person isometric.
4-pixel rendering et al.
FO vets would exit back to 3-D land at the green shaded hexes.
The rest can wander, trial and error, as in the old platform jumping puzzles of yore,
and then stumble on the return exit, ... this "Twilight Zone" ... a FO homage puzzle!
4too
Stop - STOP - Stop, Stop If You've Heard / Seen This Before
BB said:
Why 'bonk' into an invisible 1950's Colgate "Guard-All Shield"?
... and then press yo virtual nose against the sand box side ...
4 shear in yo face LULZ ...
When the player reaches the edge of the playing field, the FP view and graphics could go retro to third person isometric.
4-pixel rendering et al.
FO vets would exit back to 3-D land at the green shaded hexes.
The rest can wander, trial and error, as in the old platform jumping puzzles of yore,
and then stumble on the return exit, ... this "Twilight Zone" ... a FO homage puzzle!
4too
Bernard Bumner
Still Mildly Glowing
Re: Stop - STOP - Stop, Stop If You've Heard / Seen This Bef
Wander off into the isometrically rendered wastelands, into uncertainty, facing only a sunset seen in long shadows and the nuclear-green tint of the light...?
The moment that the naive Vault Dweller finally recognises that, for all of his travails in the 3D world, there was never going to be a true dawn for him; that the promised future was simply a myth, a lie, comfort for children.
4too said:
Wander off into the isometrically rendered wastelands, into uncertainty, facing only a sunset seen in long shadows and the nuclear-green tint of the light...?
The moment that the naive Vault Dweller finally recognises that, for all of his travails in the 3D world, there was never going to be a true dawn for him; that the promised future was simply a myth, a lie, comfort for children.