Problems with a Prequel

S

SimpleMinded

Vault Fossil
Okay, I wasn't sure if this belonged in Fallout 3 or general fallout but since we know Fallout 3 WON'T be a prequel... I felt this was most fitting. Anyways, back to my thoughts.

I began work on a text based fallout game (mostly to help teach myself some programming, so it wouldn't be anything for anyone else to laugh at :)), and I decided to make it a prequel. It would begin with a character in the vault that later became Vault City. Your character lived there since an early age with no mother or father and while there, met Dr. Richard Morceau who became a fatherly figure. When the vault opened and he was banished for murder you went out in search of him. The entire game would have you being just short of catching up and reuniting with him until you finally meet up with him at the Military Base where you discover his new form as The Master.

The end could vary with you either killing him in horror or joining the mutant legions and becoming Leautenant seen in Fallout. While it sounds much like the second major quest in the first Fallout it made me see a problem. If you choose to kill the Master, how can the game be a prequel? After all, the actual Fallout could never happen then as the Master was destroyed.

Thus I hit my main objective in posting, how can game prequels exist? It almost seems like the time machine problem where if you go back in time and change the past you eliminate your reason for going back... etc. I understand you can have it possible if you make the only ending being the existing condition in Fallout, but is there a way to devise multiple endings to exist under such conditions? If not, how can multiple endings be incorporated into a prequel?

Speaking on this with my dad (not a Fallout fan but a good listener all the same) he suggested making multiple beginnings rather than endings. Would this be the best way to make up for the lack of multiple endings?

And lastly for no apparent reason at all, was Dr. Richard Morceau's name based off of that whole "something Island of Dr. Morceau" thing? I don't really remember what it was, only that it was. :)..

Anyways, any views on prequels are welcome. PEACE.
 
Richard Gray was The Master, not "Morceau". So theoretically you can have the "first" Master being "Morceau", whom you can kill. To preserve continuity, let's say that if he didn't, he'd... well... choke up on the cherry bone or something.

It'll be much better if you tell us what you understand to be a prequel, and what's the point of making it. Because if you're interested in taking the same place you've grown to love and just rewinding it a few decades, then obviously you can't have an epic, multi-ending RPG and preserve continuity. If you just want to see the whole world set in time closer to the War, then move the place of action to another location and be done with it.
 
maybe you can just make a different alternate ending (i.e. either join the master or escape from the military base with your life).
 
Actually, Richard Moreau WAS Richard Grey, he changed his name after leaving Vault 8(Vault City).

As well as that, why not let the player THINK he killed the Master, but in actuality, the Master lived on, alebit weakened and near-death, he could survive and still emerge as the leader of the mutant army later on...
 
How would you do multiple beginnings - Would they be with different characters, or the same character but with different scenarios for leaving the vault?
 
Aye, thanks for the input guys. I like where your going with that Sander, with your character "killing" Grey. That could explain The Masters need to consume other people and his odd appearance in Fallout. Perhaps it came from a rough fight with another character. He then consumed who ran across him to help keep him alive.

And Montez, different beginnings would most likely be different characters. It would require some story reworking from the base but depending on your characters skills he would start in a different location. I.e. A character with 2+ combat skills tagged would start in a militant location on some sort of quest, while a character with high science/doctor etc... would start in the vault. While it would take some work devising the story that would link the characters together it probably wouldn't be impossible.

As for my definition of what I'd see a prequel, I view a prequel as if playing Fallout AFTER Fallout 2. Same area, same towns, only what they were before. Basically it would give a greater understanding of the world we've spent so many hours in as we would see how the peoples' and towns' began.

But alas, it seems my key problem was focusing on having a brutal battle at the end between yourself and the Master :). Reading Prez post and Sanders I think I'll hit the drawing board once more and look at how the ending might be.
 
I think the trap a lot of people fall into when they think of a "prequel" is that it has to be tied into the story of Fallout. Why does that have to be? Did Vault 13 have any significance before Fallout1? How about any of the other characters? Maybe there was something important that happened that created Vault City that was never discussed in the Fallouts. Or some other vault had a conflict that was lost to the sands of time but resulted in some people who later became known in Fallout to become prominent.

There are plenty potential stories that happened before Fallout1 which would be interesting to explore. Few of them have to involve Vault 13 or the Master or even Richard Gray.
 
lilfyffedawg said:
Aye, thanks for the input guys. I like where your going with that Sander, with your character "killing" Grey. That could explain The Masters need to consume other people and his odd appearance in Fallout. Perhaps it came from a rough fight with another character. He then consumed who ran across him to help keep him alive.
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This is in contradiction with Fallout 1. Richard Grey started consuming people (as well as animals) as soon as he emerged from the vats in Mariposa facility. It had nothing to do with fighting anyone or being kept alive.
 
lol, as I said, its a private use only Ratty :). I haven't studied the background of the story well enough to make anything for public use. It's just a test drive for myself and my friend to expand our programming abilities (which are quite lacking).

As for the person who said Tycho backstory... what would that be? And who's tycho? Is Tycho the Follower of the Apocalypse? What's

And thanks JJ86, I'm gonna keep that in mind. I've never seen to many prequel pc games and thus made an assumption that it had to involve the story locales and characters. I think I'll probably be best to move away from the characters as it would give me more freedom in my locales and their histories.
 
Tycho is the NPC you meet in the bar in Junktown. He gives you a little detail about his past, which kind of implies he was a Desert Ranger (from Wasteland). I was kind of responding to JJ86's post, where he says there were a lot potential stories from before Fallout 1 - Tycho was the first character that popped into my head. Just a possibility for telling a pre-Fallout story that ties into Fallout but doesn't involve the Master or Vault 13.
 
o shoot... that's an interesting idea. That would give me the oppurtunity to use creativity in making new areas, as well as giving me leniency with the story.

I'll have to load up fallout 1 again and meet tycho (Hrmm, I forgot all about that character for some reason). Thanks
 
A prequel to Fallout woulden't work as the only thing it could be about is trying to stop the war, which would ruin the story of Fallout. Cities would be overpopulated, cars would be driving everywhere, it would make no sense and ultimately be really boring, because there'd be nothing to do.
 
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People, Tycho's Wasteland Rangers background was an easter egg to Interplay's early 'Wasteland'. No one in the sane mind would capitalize on an easter egg as a main story.
 
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