Kotaku: Fallout 3 is broken

[Ranne]

In less entertaining news, Ctrl+Alt+Del deals a blow of mockery from which the previous Fallout games surely can never recover. The joke seems to be either "Turn-based combat is unrealistic, HAHA" or "Role-playing games use numbers to represent stuff, HAHA", I'm not really sure.

It looks like they are referring to some fictional Fallout PnP game with overcomplicated mechanics.

If anything, the first frame is more reminiscent of Fallout 3's V.A.T.S. than the original combat system of the predecessors. The second frame... Yeah, I don't even know what's the second frame is about.

EDIT:

GURPS?

Yea, but it says "Wasteland life, pre-V.A.T.S.", not "Role-playing gaming, pre-Fallout". Stupid, no matter how you look at it.

 

[Monolith2013]

It's NOT broken on his, mine or many other people's PC. It IS broken on many other other people's PC : ).

I wonder what is so miraculous about "our" PCs that the game is mostly stable and bugfree.

Exactly.

I know what it is though... I pay magic gremlins (in the form of baby's blood) each month for keeping my PC running and bug free.

 

[pkt-zer0]

The joke seems to be either "Turn-based combat is unrealistic, HAHA" or "Role-playing games use numbers to represent stuff, HAHA", I'm not really sure.

The joke is that "Wasteland life post-VATS" actually does work like that, now that VATS is an in-universe device, instead of the abstraction turn-based combat was in the originals.

 

[Seymour the spore plant]

In less entertaining news, Ctrl+Alt+Del

Tim Buckley is such a talentless hack, always copy-pasting art and unfunny jokes in the exact same old layout, and still manages to get bucketloads of money out of his terrible product. He's like the Bethesda of webcomics.

 

[scypior]

I wonder what is so miraculous about "our" PCs that the game is mostly stable and bugfree.

cpu,gpu,mobo,ram,drivers,os,os updates - you name it Pleeeenty of things to take into consideration.

On the other hand: xbox360, ps3 - all are the same (minor differences) and that's why these versions should be less buggy.

 

[Monolith2013]

Of course, i'm not saying that people aren't having issues with the game, i'm just saying that "I" have not and that I think it's a stretch to say that it's broken because you've heard from a lot of people that they've been having issues but fail to provide any % or numbers of those users affected by said issues in comparison to the total amount of users playing. And of course, i'm using a PC not a console, but the reviewer seems to think that the PC version is pretty bad off... I don't see it.

By that argument, I can't call Fallout 2 or Arcanum buggy releases because I don't have exact statistics on how many people encountered bugs. That's ridiculous. You have to have your head stuck extremely far in the sand to even try to claim this game is not broken - and not only on the PC, but even on consoles, which is just ridiculous.

Look, it's no surprise since Oblivion was also a broken release, but I'm not sure what's with some of you defending the polish of what is clearly a broken game.

My head is free and clear of any sand, thanks! But as I said, I wasn't claming that people weren't having issues, but what I did say was that it's hard to blanket label something as "broken" overall without statistics or acknowledging that it could be any number of user generated hardware/software errors/conflicts on the PC. I was not commenting on the console versions as I have no experience with them.

 

[Brother None]

But as I said, I wasn't claming that people weren't having issues, but what I did say was that it's hard to blanket label something as "broken" overall without statistics or acknowledging that it could be any number of user generated hardware/software errors/conflicts on the PC.

No it isn't. A lack of statistical knowledge did not stop people and experts from calling STALKER CS, any Troika release or Fallout 2 broken. Is that fully fair? Does that fully take into account different possible PC conflicts? No. Does that mean I can use "hardware conflict" as an excuse for the mass of bugs in a game like Fallout 2 or Fallout 3? No.

And not just because it is broken on the PC, it has numerous bugs on hardware/software-unspecific consoles as well.

Fact: if you're going to play Fallout 3 on any console, there's a good chance you'll run into bugs. A large amount of people are running into bugs. These are all incidental piece of info, but to anyone who is used to seeing reactions to games (again, like me or the Kotaku guy), it is clear enough that this game is broken.

That doesn't mean it's broken for everyone, and hurray to you guys that are running it without bugs. But it is just mind-boggling that you're trying to use your incidental clear running to defend a game that can clearly be read from feedback to have multiple, unrelated game-stopping crashes, load game corruptions and other smaller bugs.

On the other hand: xbox360, ps3 - all are the same (minor differences) and that's why these versions should be less buggy.

They are less buggy. But the fact that they're buggy at all is pretty ridiculous.

 

[scypior]

As for CAD comic, yeah, it's hilaruous. I cannot recall situation from previous fallouts where an enemy is stopped trying to hit me to allow me perform my action. VATS on the other hand...

 

[Zumbs]

Look, just like I said in the last thread on the topic of crashes, people need to learn to stop using incidental evidence to say a game is not bugged.

Having browsed the BSF hardware issues forums it is pretty obvious that a lot of people are having issues. But given the sales, I'm unsure if it is a significant minority.

It looks like they are referring to some fictional Fallout PnP game with overcomplicated mechanics.

MERP?

 

[Brother None]

Having browsed the BSF hardware issues forums it is pretty obvious that a lot of people are having issues. But given the sales, I'm unsure if it is a significant minority.

Like I said, you never can tell (not all people with issues post on the BSF hardware forum; that's in fact a minority of the people having problems already), but there is a point where you simply have to admit "this game is having too many issues and should have been delayed or have been given a 0-day patch". Nobody denies that this was the case for Fallout 2 or STALKER: CS, and I'm unsure what excuses you can make to state this wasn't the case for Fallout 3, especially since it actually manages to be broken even on consoles.

MERP?

I think MERP, depending on the version and implementation, is simpler than GURPS.

At least the version I played was, but I don't remember what edition that was.

 

[Per]

the exact same old layout

But he's cut down to two panels now! You can't apply the CAD rule any more!

I think MERP, depending on the version and implementation, is simpler than GURPS.

MERP is pretty complicated, though. And it's a simplified version of Rolemaster.

 

[Gentlemen]

But as I said, I wasn't claming that people weren't having issues, but what I did say was that it's hard to blanket label something as "broken" overall without statistics or acknowledging that it could be any number of user generated hardware/software errors/conflicts on the PC.

No it isn't. A lack of statistical knowledge did not stop people and experts from calling STALKER CS, any Troika release or Fallout 2 broken. Is that fully fair? Does that fully take into account different possible PC conflicts? No. Does that mean I can use "hardware conflict" as an excuse for the mass of bugs in a game like Fallout 2 or Fallout 3? No.

And not just because it is broken on the PC, it has numerous bugs on hardware/software-unspecific consoles as well.

Fact: if you're going to play Fallout 3 on any console, there's a good chance you'll run into bugs. A large amount of people are running into bugs. These are all incidental piece of info, but to anyone who is used to seeing reactions to games (again, like me or the Kotaku guy), it is clear enough that this game is broken.

That doesn't mean it's broken for everyone, and hurray to you guys that are running it without bugs. But it is just mind-boggling that you're trying to use your incidental clear running to defend a game that can clearly be read from feedback to have multiple, unrelated game-stopping crashes, load game corruptions and other smaller bugs.

On the other hand: xbox360, ps3 - all are the same (minor differences) and that's why these versions should be less buggy.

They are less buggy. But the fact that they're buggy at all is pretty ridiculous.

Man, my Luck must be 10 in real life because my Xbox 360 I got when they first came out still works, Fallout 3 has not had a single bug for me yet, and I found my long lost manual to Fallout. Hot damn.

 

[Beelzebud]

The fact that is locks up and crashes on CONSOLES should tell any thinking person that the game definitely has major problems. The excuse for PC's of "many different configurations" doesn't apply to the console world, and yet the game seems more buggy on the consoles than I have experienced on my PC. Think about that for a moment.

Many people on the PC are having problems. Many people (like me) are not. But yet you go and look at the problems people are experiencing on their closed platform console machines, and it's apparent that pretty much everyone who is trying to play it on their console is having problems.

While I don't have crash problems, I have found many fairly big bugs in the game, and all of these are happening on EVERY system. The slaver quests being bugged to hell, NPC's in Megaton that like to commit suicide, save game corruptions, etc. etc. etc. All of that shit could have been fixed if they had spent more time on QA.

Just stop making excuses for Bethesda. You know who you are. Had they taken 10 million dollars out of their advertising budget, and invested it in their developers, this game wouldn't be a buggy mess.

 

[Paul_cz]

Look, I'm getting a bit tired of this broken record act: Fallout 3 was broken on release and desperately needs patches on all platforms it has been released on. I don't know if you're actually trying to imply that somehow this is the fault of people's PCs, but if you are: you're wrong.

And I really don't get this stubborn denial of a simple fact. Feedback simply shows it having major technical issues on all 3 platforms. To deny that would be like denying Fable II and Far Cry 2 have game-stopping bugs just because you didn't run into them, or like claiming STALKER CS is fine just because it ran fine for you. Is that seriously what you want to claim?

NO! The game IS broken, but then again you can never test it on every PC that exists. But of course thats no excuse and the number of PCs and even consoles that run the game broken is too high anyway.

I am just glad my PC is able to run it without problems.BTW I finished FarCry 2 today, 30 hours 6 minutes into it, loved it, and again, did NOT encounter a single bug.But there are bugs, lot of them...I guess I was lucky again : ).

My system is based on XPSP3, with all updates, nLited, newest bios, drivers...18 background processes, only the necesarry ones.Every game runs like a charm, be it Stalker 1 (did not try CS), Fallout 3, FC2, Left4Dead, Dead Space..

 

[alec]

It is as inexcusably bugged as Fallout 2 or any Troika release was.

I know this is incidental evidence once again, but I've played completely unpatched versions of FO, FO2 and Arcanum and finished all games without one problem whatsoever.

Maybe I'm just lucky.

I do find, however, that it is completely wrong of game developers to publish games with bugs and have amateurs solve them. If companies did that with cars and micro wave ovens and cellphones, they'd go bankrupt immediately.

 

[100LBSofDogmeat]

Weird problems and bad comics

I've never had a crash, glitch, or problem playing Fallout 3... nor have I had any problem playing the original Fallouts. Hell, I can even easily install Fallout 2 from it's original disc on 64-Bit Windows and Linux (in emulation). Though yes, most games are released with a slew of bugs and weird things. That shit happens. The bigger games get and the tighter the schedules, the more bugs they'll produce.

As for that Ctrl+Alt+Del comic, it's crap. Aren't those the douche bags that are trying, desperately, to be like the PAX guys who are still unfunny as hell. Those Fallout PAX comics were wretched. If only I saw them at PAX I could have busted a knee-cap or two.

 

[Monolith2013]

But as I said, I wasn't claming that people weren't having issues, but what I did say was that it's hard to blanket label something as "broken" overall without statistics or acknowledging that it could be any number of user generated hardware/software errors/conflicts on the PC.

No it isn't. A lack of statistical knowledge did not stop people and experts from calling STALKER CS, any Troika release or Fallout 2 broken. Is that fully fair? Does that fully take into account different possible PC conflicts? No. Does that mean I can use "hardware conflict" as an excuse for the mass of bugs in a game like Fallout 2 or Fallout 3? No.

And not just because it is broken on the PC, it has numerous bugs on hardware/software-unspecific consoles as well.

Fact: if you're going to play Fallout 3 on any console, there's a good chance you'll run into bugs. A large amount of people are running into bugs. These are all incidental piece of info, but to anyone who is used to seeing reactions to games (again, like me or the Kotaku guy), it is clear enough that this game is broken.

That doesn't mean it's broken for everyone, and hurray to you guys that are running it without bugs. But it is just mind-boggling that you're trying to use your incidental clear running to defend a game that can clearly be read from feedback to have multiple, unrelated game-stopping crashes, load game corruptions and other smaller bugs.

On the other hand: xbox360, ps3 - all are the same (minor differences) and that's why these versions should be less buggy.

They are less buggy. But the fact that they're buggy at all is pretty ridiculous.

I'm not defending developers rushing titles out the door... And i'm not saying that FO3 shouldn't have been delayed either.

With that being said... who are these "experts" saying FO3 is broken for the majority? Enlighten me please. And I said "broken" not "buggy". Having an occaisional crash upon exit or a slight issue with the sound or something like that dosn't mean a game is "broken".

Also, when people have problems they tend to post them right? So, there will be a lot of posts and queries, etc from those experience issues... But when people don't have problems, they tend "not" to post... So it can lead people to believe that the majority of users are experience issues when in fact it's actually the minority posting complaints.

I'm not saying that's the case either... I don't know and that's just it, neither do any of you. People can sit here and spout their own opinion, but it's just that... An opinion, not fact. And it's not a fact that FO3 is broken, it's an opinion. That's all i'm trying to get at... I'm not defending Bethesda or any other company, most (if not all) are guilty of releasing unfinished products, but to call something "broken" for the majority ... Show me the facts to back it up please.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

The joke seems to be either "Turn-based combat is unrealistic, HAHA" or "Role-playing games use numbers to represent stuff, HAHA", I'm not really sure.

The joke is that "Wasteland life post-VATS" actually does work like that, now that VATS is an in-universe device, instead of the abstraction turn-based combat was in the originals.

- I'm gonna turn you into pieces! *Super Mutants runs against the Vault Dweller 101, rocket launcher in hand*
*time suddently stops. The Vault Dweller 101 somehow manages to see his chances to hit the Super Mutant's bodyparts with some kind of magical vision that display his chances in %. He then somehow mentally selects choices with the power of his mind then goes on and shoots his enemy while being hit by a rocket launcher at the same time. When time goes back to normal, the mutant is dead and the Vault Dweller, somehow unharmed.*

 

[Per]

Also, when people have problems they tend to post them right? So, there will be a lot of posts and queries, etc from those experience issues... But when people don't have problems, they tend "not" to post... So it can lead people to believe that the majority of users are experience issues when in fact it's actually the minority posting complaints.

I'm assuming they compare to how things go with other games.

People can sit here and spout their own opinion, but it's just that... An opinion, not fact.

When a games crashes on consoles, it's just an opinion?

 

[Beelzebud]

Although to be fair, modern consoles are basically junk, and I've seen my nephew's 360 crash a few times on numerous other games.

Those things get as hot as a furnace and just burn out.