Project Van Buren

Hardboiled Wanderer

Hardboiled Wanderer

I'm just here for the guzzoline...
Project Van Buren​

It's been almost 3 years since this thread was founded and a lot of stuff has changes drastically since then. I know that a lot of people still refer to this page regarding my project, so I decided to remove all the content from the original post I made here in 2018, for it contained invalid/outdated information (and yes, even promises I could not keep).

Instead, I'd like to point any visitor to our newly created website. It's fairly empty at this point but there's hope I'll find some time to add more features to it (some dev blog, media page, etc.)

Project Van Buren - Official Website

I'm leaving all the discussion here unchanged. Take it as some sort of a historical relict of what this project once wanted to be and a record of how it shaped along the way. I'd like to warn any potential reader that it mostly contains invalid or outdated information that is no longer relevant to the current iteration of Project Van Buren. The older the post, the more outdated it is (duh). So proceed at your own risk.​
 
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This is cool AF but why Unity3D? Cost? I've heard little good about it. EDIT2: Derp, right, you've got the skills for it. Sorry, must have skimmed over that part.

EDIT: Also, methinks this might be the wrong forum section.

EDIT 3: Um, you won't get in trouble for adapting assets from New Vegas will you? I sincerely hope not.
 
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Pariah Dog said:
This is cool AF but why Unity3D? Cost? I've heard little good about it.
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Well, for the past 2 years it's getting better than ever. Optimalisation, visual improvements, better platform support. But the main reason is that Unity is really the easiest engine to work with, with huge support, I'm not afraid to say that is has the best asset compatibility, and after all - it's free.
 
Hardboiled Wanderer said:
Well, for the past 2 years it's getting better than ever. Optimalisation, visual improvements, better platform support. But the main reason is that Unity is really the easiest engine to work with, with huge support, I'm not afraid to say that is has the best asset compatibility, and after all - it's free.
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Well, that's good. I look forward to seeing what you can make it do. And if nothing else, it can't possibly be worse than Gamebryo :P
 
Pariah Dog said:
EDIT 3: Um, you won't get in trouble for adapting assets from New Vegas will you? I sincerely hope not.
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As far as I know, there is no restriction for using anything as long as it is not commercially profiting, because than it would be case of selling property without ownership.
 
That looks cool, but I think you're right, you'll forget about it by next week. Otherwise if you need help with anything I'm sure you could ask on here. I could try producing an intro cinematic if you wanted? or nah it's all just up in the air really isn't it.
 
Give it another twenty years and we can start pooling everyone's assorted work on the game and we would have roughly... 12% of the game finished. Keep at it guys! I believe! I BELIEVE!

(Goes back to playing Fallout 3 shamelessly).
 
Screenshots are all well in good but I'm far more interested in the game mechanics the game will be designed with.

Have you done all of the pre-production, and planned out the entire development of the project? If not I strongly suggest you do and include milestones to track your progress. If this is your first game development project seek assistance.

Without doing a comprehensive pre-production, and development pipeline with milestones this project will never get finished. Not to crap on the effort, just being very realistic.
 
Einhanderc7 said:
Screenshots are all well in good but I'm far more interested in the game mechanics the game will be designed with.

Have you done all of the pre-production, and planned out the entire development of the project? If not I strongly suggest you do and include milestones to track your progress. If this is your first game development project seek assistance.

Without doing a comprehensive pre-production, and development pipeline with milestones this project will never get finished. Not to crap on the effort, just being very realistic.
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Now thats the good point. As I have mentioned above, a friend of mine, a good designer (who actually works in game industry) is my brain for designing and mainly writting. To answer your question - yes, we have discussed the core mechanics, general design ideas and many other topics, all has been (and still is being) written and catalogized, along with finding and studying the original design documents, deciding what is usable and what is not (Joshua Grahams design is not suitable as they wrote it for instance, as New Vegas changed the canon lore greatly, the same goes for Hoover Dam design). We have had an argument about combat mechanics for example, as I am sort of an old school RPG player who likes turn-based combat and as for in-game developing, I am greatly inspired by Wasteland 2. Not that my colleague is less of an old-school RPG player, he, however, insists on real-time combat. Conclusion was not yet done completly, though our current goal is to implement combined combat system as it was originally planned for Van Buren. That would greatly change the level-design for example, and I can feel it as a huge challenge, but I think we can come up with something that will work.

As for writting and design, we would like to stick to the original design documents where it is possible. Also, in several cases we have found a good ways of improving and adding some of our design - like new major faction to the south of our world map. It is inspired by Raul Tejada and some of the memories he have revealed in New Vegas about this areas. (long-bullshit shorter: Faction of Mexicans around Phoenix, not gonna spoil the details). Other than that, well-known factions we love Fallout for are back - much younger and smaller Caesars Legion, the BoS at its worse time during the open war with the more and more arrogant NCR, "peacefull half-jews with .45s" (as we call them :D) in New Canaan and about dozen of tribes (and my plan is to even increase the number) spread all over 4 states border area, plus the tribes elsewhere. Los Alamos ghouls, Denver scavs, Legionares in their capital Farmington (now Aztecinium)... lot of stuff.
 
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Hardboiled Wanderer said:
Hi there mutants,

I know what you may think after reading the thread title - another wanna-be Van Buren remake that will die in next two months. And maybe you are right. I dont see it possible to do anything worth playing all alone on my own. Heck, I know what it takes to make such a massive RPG. So, why do I even bother doing any of this, you may ask. Well, there are several reasons for it, like learning new things, improving skills in Unity, you name it..., but the first and foremost - Love for Interplay's Fallouts.
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Which sadden me is that most of those remake sounded good. I wish all those people worked together on the same project, instead of starting so many of them...
 
Looks pretty cool. I hope the Legion has better gear in it. I always figured they used the football gear just out of a cost issue when throwing themselves against the dam. I mean, 76 tribes and none of them can work metal or leather?

Age Of Decadence has good roman armour sprites for inspiration. I imagine if it's too early Caesar's Legion will look more tribal besides for some of his core members.
 
Looks good, hopefully this will be the first van buran fan project to be completed someday but my hopes are extremely low.
 
LuciusCorneliusSulla said:
Looks pretty cool. I hope the Legion has better gear in it. I always figured they used the football gear just out of a cost issue when throwing themselves against the dam. I mean, 76 tribes and none of them can work metal or leather?

Age Of Decadence has good roman armour sprites for inspiration. I imagine if it's too early Caesar's Legion will look more tribal besides for some of his core members.
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Well, I have always imagined Legion's gear to be inspired by Mad Max 2 (like most of the armors anyway), as the football shoulder pads are commonly worn there as a protection. In our concept, as you mentioned, the Legion is far more tribal-like as we know it in New Vegas. It has been only 6 years since it was formed, and due to its rather smaller size and lack of soldiers, it is not even so fundamental about erasing tribes it conquers. For instance, the Blackfoot tribe still exists as a tribe, even though it's actually a part of the Legion, same goes for the Hangdogs. Legion let them be as long as they serve them, Blackfoot as slavers, Hangdogs as Denver dogs breeders, or Twisted Hair as scouts.

(though I have recently discovered major design coflicts in the New Vegas lore about Twisted Hair, so it is not sure they will be in our game due to huge, almost 30 years gap between canon and Van Buren lore. Problem is, it ruins another amazing concept - Hecate, who is supposed to be the only survivor of the Twisted Hair masacre. However, in New Vegas, final conquering of this tribe has been done shortly before 2281... I really could use some help on how to get them in our timeline, for I am out of ideas :D ) .

All the tribes will be finally culturally erased and unified in the years following, but for now, they are left alone. That's why I imagine that since most of the Legion soldiers are still former tribal warriors, there would be no strict uniforming, and they will wear litterally everything they can create or find, combined with some Legion marks and colors of course.
Uniforming the Legion soldiers with football gear surely has its own lore, most probably connected to capturing some bigger city with pre-war football history. It could be Flagstaff after all, which is (in our world) know for Flagstaff Eagles, and (in a game timeline) will be captured in 2255.

Speaking of Blackfoot, I have updated an OP post a little :D
 
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While I am glad to see a project like this and it is nice that you want to try to incorporate the lore of FNV into it, I really think that if you want to recreate Van Buren why not make it as it really was intended?
Make it completely like the design documents that were released.

FNV was the best of a bad situation, incorporating some of the elements of FNV or recombining them into something new. But I think people would have no problem with seeing a Van Buren in which for example the Hanged Man was a really bad asshole compared to his portrayal in Honest Hearts.

Likewise have the Twisted Hairs killed off before the game starts, explaining where Hecate came from and what her motivations are.

Consider it a different sequel to Fallout 2 with FNV being an alternative timeline.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
While I am glad to see a project like this and it is nice that you want to try to incorporate the lore of FNV into it, I really think that if you want to recreate Van Buren why not make it as it really was intended?
Make it completely like the design documents that were released.

FNV was the best of a bad situation, incorporating some of the elements of FNV or recombining them into something new. But I think people would have no problem with seeing a Van Buren in which for example the Hanged Man was a really bad asshole compared to his portrayal in Honest Hearts.

Likewise have the Twisted Hairs killed off before the game starts, explaining where Hecate came from and what her motivations are.

Consider it a different sequel to Fallout 2 with FNV being an alternative timeline.
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I have to admit that you've made a good point, and as a matter of fact, this variant is still on the table. During the "pre-production" debates, I was the one who actually wanted to do all this as you described - stick to the original. Problem was that my friend strongly disagreed on working completely with someone elses designs and not to create anything new. He actually considered this project as a part of his resume for potential work in the game industry (which he eventually entered not a year ago and he is pretty good there, quickly building his designer career). So that is why I had to reconsider whole project and make some compromises, not to my liking of course.

However, for the last 3-4 months I have been working solely and I kinda feel like I have a right to do it my way, so that is why I said above that your idea is actually still on the table as I am still considering it as well. I am, however, mostly busy by prototyping and programing the core gameplay mechanics right now, which is actually not my expertise and costs me much more effort then it would cost some really experienced coder (Level-design is what I (think I) am good at). That being said, the conclusion on what design to use is not on the schedule at this time, so there is plenty of time to think about it.

Anyway, thank you for your words, it kinda gave me a bit of a confidence that the "original designing way" is not my personal preference only and it may be to someone elses liking too.
 
Don't forget Word of God has it that the trunk of the Highwayman is supposed to turn up in Van Buren, in reference to the bug in 2. It's not in the design documents as far as I remember, but definitely the most egregious oversight in New Vegas that needs to see the light of day somewhere.
 
Beardy Unixer said:
Don't forget Word of God has it that the trunk of the Highwayman is supposed to turn up in Van Buren, in reference to the bug in 2. It's not in the design documents as far as I remember, but definitely the most egregious oversight in New Vegas that needs to see the light of day somewhere.
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Wasnt there a reference in NV as well? I should definitely write some note down on this one tho.
 
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Beardy Unixer said:
Don't forget Word of God has it that the trunk of the Highwayman is supposed to turn up in Van Buren, in reference to the bug in 2. It's not in the design documents as far as I remember, but definitely the most egregious oversight in New Vegas that needs to see the light of day somewhere.
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New Vegas does have the Highwayman trunk :wiggle:. It's a nod to Van Buren too.
Josh Sawyer said:
Okay, whose idea was the wrecked Highwayman? Mine. I wanted to have a Highwayman trunk full of microfusion cells and the Tanker FOB in Van Buren.
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