Oasis

[Sander]

Don't double post.

Also, really, you're grasping at straws for an explanation as to how outfits improve skills.
First of all, this is never offered as an explanation anywhere. The outfits simply increase your skills, as if there's something magical about them.

Okay, I might get tools increasing science, but I don't get why I can't just take those tools and stuff them in my backpack of infinite ammo holding.
But, how does a stupid little necklace increase my speech? How does a piece of armor improve my aim with a gun? How does a hat increase my perception?

The problem is that you have to look and expend effort to come up with an explanation for something that should simply be a logical part of the game world.

Look at it as the outfit of clothes coming equipped with all the tools and knick-nacks the profession tied to it would require if you really need a "how is this making sense" explanation. Stats can be explained in the same abstracts but you won't accept that, I can tell, so I won't really bother. Fallout has never been a simulated reality though and I don't see the desire to inject it here. Though to be fair the actual weight of your gear (per hints/tips and the manual) does affect your ability to sneak in FO3, the exact formula is unknown to me though.

Oh yes, Fallout has some unrealistic bits, so now nothing needs to make sense!!!
No, everything needs to fit together and make sense in the setting as presented. Verisimilitude. Very important, and Fallout 3 misses the mark there.

 

[Mutantza]

Don't double post.

Also, really, you're grasping at straws for an explanation as to how outfits improve skills.
First of all, this is never offered as an explanation anywhere. The outfits simply increase your skills, as if there's something magical about them...

...Oh yes, Fallout has some unrealistic bits, so now nothing needs to make sense!!!
No, everything needs to fit together and make sense in the setting as presented. Verisimilitude. Very important, and Fallout 3 misses the mark there.

I didn't know I was double posting and I'm sorry if I did and you deleted it. I edit posts a few times and it is possible I hit submit twice. I apologize about this but you don't exactly have to spark a commanding attitude. We're all fans of the games here just having a fun conversation aren't we?
However if you didn't delete anything and referring instead to my two different posts I was keeping them separate posts so as maintain a clear sense of coherence. You don't exactly have to be quite so rude about your distaste of tandem postings if that's the case and a “please” or a private message asking that I kindly adhere to the terms and conditions of the web-forum would have been a bit more civilized.

Now as to the actual rebuttal of my statement I still don't understand why so many of you can't understand that Fallout 3 is in fact a video a game. It's not a simulation of reality and never was meant to be. Fallout 1,2, and Tactics are totally ridiculous and full of nonsense plenty of which is just as bad or more so than accepting that armor gives stats and that ammo has no weight static. You can't accept that clothing can hold tools but you'll accept a Rad-Scorpion or Super Mutant? You won't accept any explanation I, or anyone else, could ever give because you don't want to.

And really that's fine in the sense it doesn't prevent me or anyone else from enjoying the new game for what it is, if you don't like Fallout 3 don't. That's really ok. Nobody is forcing you to accept it or play it by any means. I still love the original Fallout games and I think we can all agree that at least the Fallout series being continued is something good right? I mean the resurgence in interest in the old classics must be bringing in all sorts of new fans and who knows, its possible a spin off isometric turn based Fallout game could be in the future? Handheld video game systems such as the PSP/DS excel at bringing those to the public these days.

 

[Sander]

I didn't know I was double posting and I'm sorry if I did and you deleted it. I edit posts a few times and it is possible I hit submit twice. I apologize about this but you don't exactly have to spark a commanding attitude. We're all fans of the games here just having a fun conversation aren't we?
However if you didn't delete anything and referring instead to my two different posts I was keeping them separate posts so as maintain a clear sense of coherence. You don't exactly have to be quite so rude about your distaste of tandem postings if that's the case and a “please” or a private message asking that I kindly adhere to the terms and conditions of the web-forum would have been a bit more civilized.

I don't see how the hell 'Don't double post' is rude, even though the fact that you shouldn't double post is in the rules you should be following, so I'd have every reason to be rude.

In other words: stop complaining and just follow the rules. So next time you need to add coherence, just use the quote function and the edit button.

Now as to the actual rebuttal of my statement I still don't understand why so many of you can't understand that Fallout 3 is in fact a video a game. It's not a simulation of reality and never was meant to be. Fallout 1,2, and Tactics are totally ridiculous and full of nonsense plenty of which is just as bad or more so than accepting that armor gives stats and that ammo has no weight static. You can't accept that clothing can hold tools but you'll accept a Rad-Scorpion or Super Mutant? You won't accept any explanation I, or anyone else, could ever give because you don't want to.

What part of 'verisimilitude' did you not understand?
What, you'd think it was fine if Godzilla started rampaging through Fallout 3 because 'it's a video game whatever'. Are you going to say 'Hey, it's a video game, it doesn't need to make sense.' if Fallout 4 turns into a basketball game?

Clothes augmenting abilities in the way that Fallout 3 does it makes no sense whatsoever given the setting and gameplay background. Hence, it shouldn't be in there.

And really that's fine in the sense it doesn't prevent me or anyone else from enjoying the new game for what it is, if you don't like Fallout 3 don't. That's really ok. Nobody is forcing you to accept it or play it by any means. I still love the original Fallout games and I think we can all agree that at least the Fallout series being continued is something good right? I mean the resurgence in interest in the old classics must be bringing in all sorts of new fans and who knows, its possible a spin off isometric turn based Fallout game could be in the future? Handheld video game systems such as the PSP/DS excel at bringing those to the public these days.

Ah yes, obviously it's a good thing that a series is completely changed so that it doesn't actually resemble what I like anymore.
I'd rather not have a Fallout 3 than this Fallout 3, as this Fallout 3 simply ends the series as we know it, and changes its legacy.

 

[Moving Target]

...I still don't understand why so many of you can't understand that Fallout 3 is in fact a video a game. It's not a simulation of reality and never was meant to be.

We've heard this before.

We know it's not supposed to be a simulator of reality (even though Bethsoft did market Fallout 3 as closer to reality, more "immersive," based on its perspective and the fact that the game is real-time). What we're talking about is CONSISTENCY. Consistency to the previous games, and consistency to the game world. Fallout 3 has neither.

Fallout 1,2, and Tactics are totally ridiculous and full of nonsense plenty of which is just as bad or more so than accepting that armor gives stats and that ammo has no weight static.

Fallout 2 more than 1, Tactics more than 2. But all three- save some of the admitted mistakes (talking Deathclaw/Spore Plants, going a bit nuts with the Monty Python references, etc.)- made more sense IN THE SETTING than Fallout 3.

Armor giving stats I can only see in terms of... y'know... armor rating. Or maybe a minor penalty to Agility if it's really heavy armor. But giving Perception? Or Charisma? Or the ability to somehow be better in Science or Medicine? Seems a little weird. And I'm just talking about the *armor* or *clothing.* Not possible (and unmodeled) gear that comes *with* the armor or clothing. More on this further down.

You can't accept that clothing can hold tools but you'll accept a Rad-Scorpion or Super Mutant? You won't accept any explanation I, or anyone else, could ever give because you don't want to.

Who the hell said that clothing can't hold tools? Can *you* point out the gear in FO3 that has the equipment in it? Are there some explanatory notes or dialogue pointing this out? Is there a difference between the equipment with and without the gear?

More importantly: Why not just have the bonuses tied to the gear instead of the clothing? That's what they did in the first two Fallout games, and that's why your argument fails. You try to say "Fallout did Skill-boosting clothing) when, outside of the Power Armors (which boosted stats, and THAT made sense) the games did not. The equipment gave bonuses, not gear.

I think we can all agree that at least the Fallout series being continued is something good right?

Not like this, no. I have a strong suspicion that Bethsoft's developers will move further away from using even the few nods they used in this one. Oh sure, the heavily modified SPECIAL will be there, the supermutants and ghouls will probably be in (the better to populate the dungeo...errrr... subway tunnels; and because they've just *got* to re-use their orc and zombie models for some reason) but... *shrug*... this is truly the end of an era. The franchise will continue, but it's not even close to the same game, and quite frankly, as a Fallout game, it's worse than an insult. And there will be more of them.

I mean the resurgence in interest in the old classics must be bringing in all sorts of new fans and who knows, its possible a spin off isometric turn based Fallout game could be in the future? Handheld video game systems such as the PSP/DS excel at bringing those to the public these days.

Not likely, the way Bethsoft's handling the franchise so far. A better hope is for a 'spiritual successor,' much like Fallout was to Wasteland. Though it's probably going to take another market collapse, similar to the one in the early 80s, before big changes will take place.

I mean, I want to believe that the indie producers will save us, but really, it's a matter of distribution. Since the big producers have a larger chunk of the 'pie,' it's less likely that a small (or mid-) range company will get in something edgewise. And as a side note: When was the last time you heard of a mid-range cost for video game development? It's been a while.

 

[Mutantza]

To Sanders

As I've already said (and you have proven) you won't accept any explanation and you just want to complain. However sometimes through frustration and disappointment that's what people need most though I understand. Fallout 3 wasn't what you wanted and I don't know what would have made you happy (Van Buren?). However some of the way you speak about Fallout 3 it's like you didn't have experience with the developers or read production notes and the game took you totally by Ninja like surprise.

I even tried to meet you at a middle ground you refused. You have too much passion and self investment I think in the subject at hand to really be taken seriously sometimes. Fallout is great and it's great it's continuing. Change is necessary but it's not necessary that you personally accept it. If you want Fallout to have ended at 1,2, or even Tactics (I suspect you might not consider that a real Fallout game either though?) that's your right as a fan.

Any fictional subject matter is created for the fan's enjoyment and the satisfaction of the creator. You have every right to feel that the series you enjoyed is over if that is what you want. Because after all the series only actually exists in the minds of individual fans. It's not real. It's not really debatable in a factual sense. But you also don't have the authority to decide it's better for everyone else.


Enjoy the classics man. They'll always be there for you.


*Actually as I re-read your post wasn't there a Godzilla special encounter in one of the games where you find his foot print and smashed super mutant or something? Perhaps Tactics. But what you describe could easily be an "easter egg" encounter so yes I'd accept it as Fallout all the same.



To Moving Target


It's not really an argument I was making, or I should say I didn't intend it be really. It was just a way of accepting a video game for what it is. Fallout's setting is so plastic and variable it doesn't really have many set specifics besides story elements. Anything dealing with mechanics can be thrown left and right and it will still feel like Fallout to me personally as long as those strong thematic elements are present. And for me I felt Fallout 3 had enough of them to bring me back into the wasteland more than Fallout 2 did actually. So perhaps that's where we differ correct?

Fallout 3 is at least consistent in a sense to itself however in that you also know exactly what is going on with the background math (except that sneak to weight ratio I can't figure out). lockpicks/Tools in the previous games were gauged by the specific lock and it wasn't even hinted at what. Mostly though it's accepted somewhere between 20%-40% last I checked right? But I'm not saying one system is better than the other though, just different.

Being "the end of era" is a dramatic statement though you admit right? I mean Fallout was dead for how many years? If you so desire it's easy to assume it still is. This classics haven't been taken away or denied or somehow edited by a Bethsada strike team.

 

[k9wazere]

As an aside, didn't I read somewhere that FO4 and future titles would be sub-contracted out to other dev studios?

Or did I dream that?

 

[Sander]

To Sanders

As I've already said (and you have proven) you won't accept any explanation and you just want to complain. However sometimes through frustration and disappointment that's what people need most though I understand. Fallout 3 wasn't what you wanted and I don't know what would have made you happy (Van Buren?). However some of the way you speak about Fallout 3 it's like you didn't have experience with the developers or read production notes and the game took you totally by Ninja like surprise.

What, you think I'm surprised by this? I'm not surprised by any of this. It's not like I didn't see this coming from miles away. And even if I did, it isn't exactly relevant.

Also, I like how you just ignore any attempt at a logical argument and instead go 'you're not listening, who cares'.
Here's a hint: when people confront with logical arguments running away and saying 'you're not listening' isn't going to work.

Third, I'm somewhat offended by your attempt at psycho-analysing why I respond like this: I respond like this because Fallout 3 is nothing like the previous 2 games, and I was a fan of those previous 2 games. I'm not just trying to complain, and as I've said over and over again on these boards there are parts of Fallout 3 that are good (most notably some of the quests).
But that doesn't mean that it is a good Fallout game, which is what I am most concerned about considering the fact that I'm a Fallout fan.
Your attempt to write off logical arguments with the broad wave of 'you're just trying to complain' is amusing, though. Amusing, and completely irrelevant.

I even tried to meet you at a middle ground you refused. You have too much passion and self investment I think in the subject at hand to really be taken seriously sometimes. Fallout is great and it's great it's continuing. Change is necessary but it's not necessary that you personally accept it.

Change is necessary? Why is change necessary?
Why does the Fallout series have to have a 3rd episode, and why does it have to be entirely different from the previous games?

If you want Fallout to have ended at 1,2, or even Tactics (I suspect you might not consider that a real Fallout game either though?) that's your right as a fan.

Any fictional subject matter is created for the fan's enjoyment and the satisfaction of the creator. You have every right to feel that the series you enjoyed is over if that is what you want. Because after all the series only actually exists in the minds of individual fans. It's not real. It's not really debatable in a factual sense. But you also don't have the authority to decide it's better for everyone else.

No shit. I'm not deciding what anyone should like or why they should like it. What I am doing is using logical arguments to demonstrate how certain things do or do not fit the Fallout design. Fallout 3 by and large does not fit the Fallout design.

Also, there's no s after my name.

Enjoy the classics man. They'll always be there for you.


*Actually as I re-read your post wasn't there a Godzilla special encounter in one of the games where you find his foot print and smashed super mutant or something? Perhaps Tactics. But what you describe could easily be an "easter egg" encounter so yes I'd accept it as Fallout all the same.

Thank you for completely ignoring the point.

Being "the end of era" is a dramatic statement though you admit right? I mean Fallout was dead for how many years? If you so desire it's easy to assume it still is. This classics haven't been taken away or denied or somehow edited by a Bethsada strike team.

In a sense they have.
Because, again, the Fallout series as we know it ended with this title: this title changes the entire main series. It means that the previous games will have no real successor unless someone mad enough buys the license off of Bethesda and decides to completely depart from the Smash hit that is Fallout 3.

This is completely different from the situation before Fallout 3 came out. When there was at least some chance that there would someday be a halfway decent Fallout 3 that was true to its predecessors. Which is something Fallout 3 isn't.

 

[Moving Target]

Fallout's setting is so plastic and variable it doesn't really have many set specifics besides story elements. Anything dealing with mechanics can be thrown left and right and it will still feel like Fallout to me personally as long as those strong thematic elements are present.

Emphasis mine.

This has nothing to do with what's happened with Fallout. Ideas about "What Fallout means to me," when taken by the developers of the current game, helped bring about the results that they did.

Those sorts of arguments are pointless. Fallout is not just the setting (which is honestly very generic,) and it's not just the mechanics (which had been done before, though it had been many years since it had been in a major video game release at that point). What matters is this: Bethesda has dropped the core of the game. Setting elements are fuck-all without the core of pen and paper emulation. This is gone. What's left is more like a LARP simulation.

And for me I felt Fallout 3 had enough of them to bring me back into the wasteland more than Fallout 2 did actually. So perhaps that's where we differ correct?

Incorrect. We differ on actually seeing Fallout 3's inconsistencies as a problem. "Being in the wasteland" or whatever isn't a part of this conversation.

Fallout 3 is at least consistent in a sense to itself however in that you also know exactly what is going on with the background math (except that sneak to weight ratio I can't figure out).

Uh, no.... Look up the old thread about the economy in Fallout 3 (or the lack of it.) Or read comments about Little Lamplight. Or check out how there are pretty much two towns with more than, say, a half dozen inhabitants, and no apparent farming or brahmin raising (sure there are a few traders with the beasts, but where are the brahmin pens?) It doesn't add up.

Math has NOTHING to do with consistency. Nor does it have anything to do with how moronic weightless ammo is.

lockpicks/Tools in the previous games were gauged by the specific lock and it wasn't even hinted at what. Mostly though it's accepted somewhere between 20%-40% last I checked right? But I'm not saying one system is better than the other though, just different.

*sigh*... AGAIN: It was the TOOLS that made the difference, not the clothes. There were no magic clothes, only tools that helped in certain situations.

The older system is clearly better, in that, at the very least, it actually *makes sense.*

Being "the end of era" is a dramatic statement though you admit right? I mean Fallout was dead for how many years? If you so desire it's easy to assume it still is. This classics haven't been taken away or denied or somehow edited by a Bethsada strike team.

The end of an era is a perfect statement to what's happening now. It was assumed that the era ended with the creation of FOBOS, but good ol' Herve came through again, managing somehow to take a massive dump all over the canon, then fob a battered franchise off to a high-paying media conglomerate (ZeniMax.)

Fallout itself? Never dead. Just like the Troika games are still around, very popular, and a sure way to get some sort of conversation started in cyberspace. I had no desire one way or another when it came to a Fallout sequel; I didn't even know it was in production until August 2007, when I saw the demo clip at my friend's house. I was really stoked for the game.

Then I started reading up on Bethsoft's terrible mishandling of the Star Trek fan base, their botched game with that franchise, about how poorly they treated their fanbase from the previous TES games, and I realized... this might be trouble. As time went on, I learned that every fear I had about the game came true. Bethsoft even managed to surprise me with a few I wouldn't have considered. So don't come to me and say, "Hey, better than nothing!" No. Nothing would have been better than this. Period.

 

[Harold2]

I liked the quest. If you check out the Van Buren quest involving Harold, you'll find that he gets his "fertility" increased by a similar cult of tree worshipers. Personally, I feel bad for criticizing Bethesda for doing what Black Isle. would have done anyways. Anyway, I think the location works. What disappointed the livid F**k out of me was how little the ending affected anything. I saved before I did anything to the heart just to see how it would affect the scenery. I was very excited to see what would happen when I accelerated the growth. Well, what happened? His heart started beating faster. That's about it. Harold decided that a torturous existence wasn't so bad. The worst part was that it was impossible to get religious zealots to attack you, even when you killed their god. Just like how the children of the atom don't even care when you diffuse the bomb. Despite telling you that they do before. Is it really so hard to provoke people? I mean, people got mad when they crucified Jesus. And he has a lot of worshipers who aren't so nutty as to worship a tree.

 

[13BEAST]

Yup, if anything, Marcus would make more sense.

Marcus is an articulate, intelligent, fertile Super Mutant. He wouldn't fit in with Bethesda's "read the back cover and make a game based on that" philosophy in this game.

 

[Ausir]

Marcus is an articulate, intelligent, fertile Super Mutant.

Marcus was not fertile. And Fawkes is also articulate and intelligent.

I liked the quest. If you check out the Van Buren quest involving Harold, you'll find that he gets his "fertility" increased by a similar cult of tree worshipers.

No, by a sentient computer, actually, who also brought up a Vault full of children and indoctrinated them to become a bunch of tribal treehuggers. The tribals themselves wouldn't have enough scientific knowledge to do any of that.

And his appearance in VB was connected both to his own backstory and to the main plot of the game, he didn't travel across the continent for no apparent reason and to play no role in the actual plot.

 

[13BEAST]

Marcus was not fertile. And Fawkes is also articulate and intelligent.

Fawkes spoke like a retard.

Marcus was fertile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui3ZCSrdwJU

 

[Eyenixon]

Fawkes did not speak "like a retard", his vocabulary was extensive (at least in comparison to the other NPCs) and his reasoning above average, he was more intelligent than the typical wastelander.

However, his voice acting was abysmal and as such he sounded like an idiot, it's just an unfortunate result of the voice acting.
Also, Marcus is joking.

 

[Ausir]

Marcus was fertile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui3ZCSrdwJU

Chris Avellone wrote that dialogue and he himself says that Marcus was joking. Sure, it might just be a retcon to cover the plot holes but it comes from the guy who made the hole himself. Canonically, the super mutants are still sterile. We've been over this dozens of times now.

Fawkes spoke like a retard.

Not more than human NPCs in FO3.

 

[13BEAST]

Fawkes did not speak "like a retard", his vocabulary was extensive (at least in comparison to the other NPCs) and his reasoning above average, he was more intelligent than the typical wastelander.

However, his voice acting was abysmal and as such he sounded like an idiot, it's just an unfortunate result of the voice acting.

His voice drives me nuts...the voice acting is why I said he talks like a retard, not the actual dialog.

Chris Avellone wrote that dialogue and he himself says that Marcus was joking. Sure, it might just be a retcon to cover the plot holes but it comes from the guy who made the hole himself. Canonically, the super mutants are still sterile. We've been over this dozens of times now.
Not more than human NPCs in FO3.

That's what I get for not actually reading the Fallout Bible and taking the games at face value.

And yeah, I can't really argue with the fact that the other NPCs were just as mentally deficient as Fawkes.

 

[cratchety ol joe]

So, before I'd even played FO3 I'd heard of Oasis... and its 'contents'

I got there in game just the other day.

Here is a rough transcript of what followed;

FACE ----------------- PALM

dialogue; was shitty
NPC's; shitty ~(elves?)
quest; shitty not only a dungeon crawl.. but actually in a cave fighting lurks
reward; WHAT THE HELL!?

In FO2 I remember Harold being one of the chars with a seemingly endless set of dialogue options, and he was fun to talk with. This new Harold was dull, the voice work shoddy and the whole plot of the thing bored me.

 

[Rad Blaggard]

I think its noble Harold is fertilizing the wasteland with his living essence, only productive thing I've ever seen the little crap-sack actually do. That and Dogmeat has a place to relieve himself... I'm just saying.

 

[Trithne]

Thank you for your... insightful post. Harold was easily one of the best NPCs Fallout ever had, and I was glad to see how he would've played a fairly prominent role in Van Buren, and relegating him to a tree is kinda missing the point of both the tree in his head and how post-apocalyptic wastelands work.

 

[13BEAST]

Thank you for your... insightful post. Harold was easily one of the best NPCs Fallout ever had, and I was glad to see how he would've played a fairly prominent role in Van Buren, and relegating him to a tree is kinda missing the point of both the tree in his head and how post-apocalyptic wastelands work.

Apparently Bob is magical...just like everything else you fucking wear in the game.

This whole game just smacks with contentment for Interplay, BIS and their fans. It's as if Bethesda wanted to bastardize as much as they could in the post-apocolyptic retro-50s future.

I'm damned sick of people calling it Steam-punk, too... If I didn't get banned from Bethesda's forum, I'd still be cursing people out for their stupidity.

 

[Trithne]

People are calling it steampunk now? Do they... know what steampunk is? I don't see zeppelins and steam-powered spiderwalkers in FO3. Yet.