thefalloutfan
Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
I liked this review better, it's a bit balanced in his points.
Polish Click! review
- Thread starter Brother None
- Start date
Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
betamonkey said:
I wasn't talking about endings, I was talking about the plot. Hell, I specifically said I wasn't talking about the endings.
betamonkey
First time out of the vault
Brother None said:
And when does the plot change? In Fallout 1 you get the water chip. It doesn't matter if you are a jerk in the process or a saint. Once that is done you have to deal with the vats and the Master. If you plan to finish the game there isn't much choice in the matter. I guess being able to do A then B or B then A is something special? Maybe, but not really.
It's not like I'm ripping on those games, some of my favorite of all time. And I'm certainly not defending Fallout 3 by any means. But in the name of fairness it's really hard to hold Bethshita to some standard higher than the vaunted Black Isle.
betamonkey said:
It doesn't. It just isn't linear. I don't have to do anything to end Fallout 1 except shut down the Vats and the Cathedral. I don't even have to get the water chip, though I can if I like it. It's node-based: there are 2 or 3 sets of requirements you have to fulfil, but there is no set plot that leads to you fulfilling those requirements. How you reach the spots you have to be at is your business.
Whereas in Fallout 3 (main plot spoilers):
[spoiler:468374faf5]You have to follow your father via Megaton (and probably via Three Dog) to find the virtual reality vault he's held in, then you have to help him and take him back to Rivet City, then you have to help him finish Project Purity, then he'll get killed in a scripted event and you're captured by the Enclave every time, then you have to escape, then you have to do this weird mega robot thing (dunno if this is optional or not) and end with restarting/poisoning Project Purity[/spoiler:468374faf5]
See the difference? That's not node-based, it's a straight line with you not having any options in how you get from point A to B. Fallout 2 didn't care if you went to Vault 13 before dealing with the Enclave, Fallout 1 didn't care if you actually ever looked at the water chip or in what order/way you deal with the mutant threat. Fallout 3 has at least 7 points set in a linear fashion that construct the main plot.
betamonkey
First time out of the vault
I see what you are saying, I guess I just don't consider being able to skip the entire game as a 'feature'. Yeah, I know that you can finish FO3 in 80 minutes, but you can finish FO1/2 in 8. I wouldn't call that necessarily good game design by any means. But depending on what you find good, you may think it's awesome.
How do you grasp a story in 8 minutes? And why would you play an RPG with the express purpose of skipping it?
And opinions on the quality of the story of FO3 do not interest me. It's impossible to convey that in a few lines of text. I could say there is this crappy book about two halflings that climb into the middle of a fricking volcano and throw a ring in the lava and it kills the most powerful and ancient evil ever... oh and they walk around a lot and there is a troll. Doesn't quite do it justice, does it?
How do you grasp a story in 8 minutes? And why would you play an RPG with the express purpose of skipping it?
And opinions on the quality of the story of FO3 do not interest me. It's impossible to convey that in a few lines of text. I could say there is this crappy book about two halflings that climb into the middle of a fricking volcano and throw a ring in the lava and it kills the most powerful and ancient evil ever... oh and they walk around a lot and there is a troll. Doesn't quite do it justice, does it?
But who had ever beaten the game in such a short time without knowing exactly where to go and therefore what story elements were involved? It was great because it made the game and its story into a puzzle that you could solve by gathering the pieces and putting them together in any order and way you choose. You could even omit some.betamonkey said:
betamonkey said:
Being able to skip the game isn't a feature. Being able to chose freely how you approach the plot is. The fact that you can skip almost all of the game is a consequence of that, and one that doesn't impact any but the most experienced players.
Fallout 1 will tell a different story to anyone who plays it, exactly because none of the plot outside of the 3 nodes is really obligatory. Sure, lots of people will run into the same points because relatively the game is not that big, but the beauty of it is Fallout 1/2 does not tell you a story, you tell yourself the story in playing. That's why the reviewer highlights this as a strong point; it really is one of the most important elements.
And from what I've seen Bethesda did recreate a lot of it when it comes to how much you can influence towns and individuals, and in how side-quests are structured. They may lack a bit in long-term consequences but that's a separate matter.
I'm just saying that specifically for the main quest Bethesda chose a markedly different approach than the originals. A linear, BioWare-esque approach. You can love this or you can hate this, but what I don't get from the reviewer is that he talks about free gameplay but does not mention that the main plot is linear.
betamonkey said:
I don't know of any way I could convey the Fallout 3 mainplot that would make it sound good.
betamonkey
First time out of the vault
Except you aren't approaching the plot. You are completely skipping it because you already know it.Brother None said:
In what way? The first time someone plays it they will find the water chip then kill the master and kick over the vats. Their little choices in Junktown and the like will get them a pretty picture and some words. I see how that is no different than what we have with this title. Your little choices in Megaton will get you a pretty picture and some words. In the end you are going to *FO3 plot here*.
Uh what stories did you tell yourself the first time you played Fallout? I absorbed the story presented, as I suspect so did everyone else. People will do the same with this game, good or bad.
Longterm consequences don't mean much when the IP holders decide what is canon. You could get the worst endings possible in FO1 and find that it was totally different in FO2. Personally I capped Tandi's ass myself every time, but she was always there 80 years later.
Well, thats just because you are convinced you hate it. I could make the FO1 plot sound stupid too. But I'll spare you the details.
But in the end I completely understand that in one game you could skip the plot and in another you need to hit a few 'nodes' to advance it. I just don't feel that this adds anything positive to the game except the potential for a speedrun hosted on youtube.
Ausir said:
Which is exactly my point. The player isn't going to think 'omg i can't skip all this stuff why!!!!' when playing the game, so holding that as some horrible game design over Bethesda's head isn't really justified. Most people don't play a game to skip it all and most of them will never need to see the difference. If anything, I would say this is a flaw in Fallout 1/2's design, not in Fallout 3's. You'll notice none of their (meaning BIS/Troika/etc.) other titles do this.
betamonkey said:
How will they find the water chip? How will they know the location of the Master? Did they just stumble into Necropolis? Hear about it from an NPC? Read about the vault on a holodisc? I don't know. And it doesn't matter, as long as you fulfil these 3 nodes.
Fallout 1/2 both had simple, McGuffin-based plots that were non-linear and in the background. Fallout 3 takes your hand and guides you through a set, linear plot. There's nothing linear about the plot in Fallout 1/2. I don't know how to make this point any more clear. Not linear is not linear, linear is linear.
And again, my original point is simply that it is weird that the reviewer does not mention the linear plot when talking about Fallout 3 recreating Fallout 1/2's "tell your own story" idea. You seem to be attaching all sort of value judgements and superiority notions to it, but I was simply commenting on the review's consistency.
betamonkey said:
The first time? I ran into a BoS encounter, managed to pick-pocket a minigun (yeah seriously) ran to the Cathedral with it and ended up with a single safe with no ammo left in a hostile cathedral. I then reloaded.
But I wager that's not the point: I have no idea how you first finished Fallout, other than that you likely found the water chip and then blew up the vats and the cathedral in some order or another. I have no way of knowing what plot you had connecting the start to the water chip to the vats/cathedral, but I can already tell you what will connect a lot of plot points in Fallout 3 (don't know all the details, but still)
betamonkey said:
I meant ingame. Admittedly Fallout 1/2 occasionally fell short on those as well, but especially Fallout 2 had some big choices you could take that you could not come back on - such as being branded a slaver. Beyond killing people, Fallout 3 does not seem to have any of those.
betamonkey said:
Thanks for telling me what I think, except that I used to be one of those "Fallout 3 is a good game but a bad Fallout" people. Even the preview I penned says so. No longer, the video streams convinced me I'm wrong, and it's just bad.
What's that, I can actually be convinced of something by simply taking what I see at face value? Shock and awe.
And you'd be deliberately skipping it, because you know it. If all you want to do is blow up the vats and give the Master a nuclear bitchslap, you have the ability.betamonkey said:
A story is not the ending, and a journey is not the destination.
It's presented based on what you do. You choose what happens and in what order. It's quite different than being fed a story the same way each time.
The way you play the game doesn't have to be the way the canon says it was. What Fallout 2 made canon doesn't dictate how you were supposed to play Fallout. I don't suppose you played an evil bastard in Fallout, only to find out that in Fallout 2 the Vault Dweller was supposed to be an okay guy and suddenly all the fun you had being a dick and ruining lives is negated because, gosh darn it, that's not how it happened!
The benefit is that you have the freedom to approach the game and the story in any way you please.
Are you really arguing that it's a flaw that you're not forced to play the game a certain way?
betamonkey
First time out of the vault
Leon said:
Yes. I actually think it is a flaw that someone can skip the entire game by accident, albeit however remote that possibility is. Devs don't spend years creating a game world so someone can come along and just run through it in a couple of hours, beat it and say 'well that sucks!'.
It's akin to skipping to the last chapter of a book. Which of course is totally possible, but would you advocate that's a good way for someone to read it?
betamonkey said:
Games aren't books. Or films. Inherent limitations of narrative in books and films is that they are linear, and they can be nothing but linear.
The designers of Fallout understood part of the beauty of games is that they do not have to be linear. This is part of Fallout's pen and paper heritage: the idea that a cRPG should not present a linear plot but instead give the player the freedom to make truly significant choices and have real consequences to them and in doing so shape his own story.
I wouldn't say either approach is superior by definition, it depends on what you're trying to do. Fallout 1/2 was trying to do the pen and paper emulating thing, and succeeded at it better than most. Fallout 3 still has some of this in side-quests, but has a BioWarian main quest.
You could call it a matter of preference. though it's an odd thing to drop out when making a sequel. But I do not understand the attitude that games should not be expanding in areas that they can uniquely expand in where books and films can not.
betamonkey said:
From the sounds of it you can do just that in FO3.
No ones trying to argue that you should be able to skip through the game. It's just a question of how you progress the story.
No one was saying linear plot progression was a bad thing either, if that's your preference more power to you. BN Merely compared the originals to beths sequel, showing the difference.
EnglishMuffin
Still Mildly Glowing
Well there are really two separate types of rpg's, the Jrpg's and the western ones. Any rpg with linearity in it would fall into the Jrpg category. You are simply following the story that they wrote for you. Your only possible choices come from some side quests that don't really affect the main story(however Chrono Trigger allowed some plot variables). RPG's shouldn't tell you the story, they should let you create it.
The only thing that you didn't really have control over in the fallout games is where you started and where you ended. You even had a choice on how to end the game in fallout 1. You could kill the master or simply talk him out of his plan and you could either do the military base first or the master. It was the ultimate in choice even if the outcome was the same.
I see linearity in RPG's as a serious downfall. The witcher had a pretty good concept of choice and consequence going for it but was smothered by the linear plot.
In closing, some people like JRPG's and some don't. Also the Witcher wasn't quite witchy enough for my tastes. Could have been much witchier.
The only thing that you didn't really have control over in the fallout games is where you started and where you ended. You even had a choice on how to end the game in fallout 1. You could kill the master or simply talk him out of his plan and you could either do the military base first or the master. It was the ultimate in choice even if the outcome was the same.
I see linearity in RPG's as a serious downfall. The witcher had a pretty good concept of choice and consequence going for it but was smothered by the linear plot.
In closing, some people like JRPG's and some don't. Also the Witcher wasn't quite witchy enough for my tastes. Could have been much witchier.
The difference is that you don't "accidentally" skip to the end of a book and read it. Besides that, yes there is the remote possibility that someone could play Fallout for the first time and just so happen to wander into the Mariposa base and blow up the vats, then high-tail it to the cathedral and smash some atoms. That kind of terrible risk is just something the developers chose to take. The fools.betamonkey said:
Dispensing with the sarcasm, I find it amusing that you find this possibility with unfavorable odds to ruin a system. I'm not arguing that the system is perfect, nor that the astronomically unlikely chance a person could skip all but the most important (and game ending) elements isn't a flaw. What I am arguing is that, despite this possible (though not necessarily plausible) flaw, this system is better than having your hand held the entire way. But that is my preference.
You're free to prefer any system you like.
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Is that in Fallout 3 (don't remember that in Fallout 2) or are you just making an example?Seymour the spore plant said:
Fast travel is arguably find in ARPGs since the focus of the game is on action but when the game claims to have a different focus (Oblivion, Fallout 3) that you start running into problems. The three day forgiveness is for any actions you committed which means that after three days, the only thing they care about (negatively) is your karma with the likely exception of quest negative actions (blowing up Megaton type stuff). That's an unforgivable system in any game.Gentlemen said:
Leon said:
[spoiler:c5425cde1b]It's in Fallout 3.
In Van Buren, Bob (the branch) had become ill, affecting Harold, who found a cure at Twin Mothers and afterwards ended up in the Nursery, a pre-war seed/genetic information preservation center. He just lives there in isolation and tranquility when you'd find him - though he'd be instrumental to the plot as always[/spoiler:c5425cde1b]
Nope, it's in Beth's Fallout 3. Harold's role in Van Buren was different:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Harold#Back_home
[spoiler:db0ae58891]And he was the key to saving humanity from the New Plague.[/spoiler:db0ae58891].