Re-creating Fallout 1?

J

jamesmcm

It Wandered In From the Wastes
I think it would be really cool to re-create Fallout 1 in Fallout 3. Obviously this is a huge job but we could start out by making general purpose mods like Shady Sands, weapon packs etc. and the gameplay changes eventually building up to a re-creation of Fallout 1.

I'll do some work on replacing the leveling/skill system this weekend. A major issue will be removing the leveling of enemies in the game - but Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul did quite a good job of that in Oblivion so it _is_ possible. The problem is though, that you can't just remove caps as then everywhere will be randomly hard, really we want harder areas and easier areas to start with, this isn't a problem with scripted areas so much but is with random encounters.

I think we can do without the time limit on the main quest (I hated it anyway) although it did add a sense of urgency so if you can think of a way of scripting it well and balanced please share.

So what do you think?
 
Mikael Grizzly said:
Fallout 1 is good as it is.

Pray tell, why fix that which ain't broken?
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Because it would make good use of the engine and make the original Fallout more accessible to new players who have forgotten about 2D graphics, etc.

This is about providing a good storyline to FO3 and some good background for new players, not about re-inventing FO1.
 
Someone really ought to "step up" and claim this project.

There's lots of talk around the interwebs by many people talking about how cool it would be to recreate FO1 using the FO3 engine but nobody as yet has actually stepped up and decided to head such a project and take it past the "it would be cool" stage. Unfortunately doing so would require an immense amount of work so I can understand why people are hesitant. I for one would actually do it, but my experience with FO1/2 is more limited than most and I wouldn't make a very good project lead in that respect. I'm also not that proficient a modder. I just have ambition.
 
Misanthrope said:
I for one would actually do it, but my experience with FO1/2 is more limited than most and I wouldn't make a very good project lead in that respect. I'm also not that proficient a modder. I just have ambition.
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Same, I've barely used the TES:CK or G.E.C.K and haven't finished FO1 or 2. Maybe I'll post on the BethSoft forums there are some great modders there.
 
I think that's a horrible idea.

Lots of effort to be spent on what, really? You can't do it justice, and FO1 in a FO3 platform will just be awkward.

FO3 already exposed new players to the previous games.
 
Personally I'd love to be able to visit Fallout 1's military base or cathedral in first-person in the Fallout 3 engine. Fallout 1 has a great story and quests, and it would be pretty entertaining if a fan-remake of Fallout 1 ended up better than the supposed offical Fallout 3.

There are some that reckon "Black Mesa", the fan remake of Half-life 1 in the Half-Life 2 engine, may be a better game than Half-Life 2.

Dabrinko said:
The world would be either insanely large or rediculously small.
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There was already a Fallout 1 remake thread, in which I pointed out that perhaps there could be a way to do travel on the world map using Fallout 3's fast travel system. You'd travel between all towns by fast travel, and when you did there'd be a certain % chance you'd be stopped by one (or several) random encounters on the way. This would teleport you to a special enouncter zone (one of many), which would look like a region out in the desert, or the mountains, or a ruined city, etc. Each of these encounter areas would have some kind of exit area which you could use to escape, or to leave once you finished fighting.

So, using a system like that, the only areas that would need creating would be the actual towns/bases etc, and several encounter zones for random encounters to take place in. There's be no world map, so no problem with it being "too big" or "too small".

Personally, I'd love to do a Fallout 1 remake. I am an aspiring game designer, and I've been doing design documents for some ideas of my own. But I've never used the GECK or had any Fallout 3 or Oblivion modding experience.

I'd be happy to lead as a "team leader" that directs what a team has to do, but I wouldn't be able to actually build anything myself! At least, not yet.

I remember years back I managed to recruit a Half-Life 1 mod team based purely on the strength of a mod storyline I came up with and some map blueprints I drew. Did quite well, until one mod team member had his computer fail, another got cancer, and another turned out to be working on another mod simultaniously and decided to jump ship and just work on that one. (Nice, thanks.) Oh, and then Half-Life 2 was announced, and it was clear our mod story was totally incompatible with the Half-Life 2 story, and the story's consistancy with Half-Life canon was supposed to be one of the mod's main strengths. So... yeah, that was a brilliant success! Lol.
 
Well I suppose if people wanted to help they could start making the towns and npc's, and skinning the weapons etc. from Fallout 1. These changes are modular so even if the mod fails, the work isn't completely wasted. Then we could draw up a design for exactly how to tie it all together.

Unfortunately, I've only done basic scripting and very basic map making in the G.E.C.K and am definitely not an artist. I'll take a look at the G.E.C.K more heavily this weekend though.
 
I'd love a version of FO1 that didn't go black during play. Minimising the game does fix it though albeit temporarily...
 
That is actually a pretty good solution to the size issue. Provided that it works. Should town zones have "invisible borders" to prevent people to wander to far outside of it?

And you could actually make the townsize to be actual size as well.

So rip the fallout 1 talking head dialogues and get on with it already.
 
I was thinking that towns could have actual real borders rather than invisible ones. Such as a fence, rocks, a cliff, etc. Would be taking liberties with the original Fallout 1 design perhaps, but as far as you know there was a fence/gate etc several metres beyond the edge of the map that you couldn't see. ;)

Alternatively, there would be an invisible border, quite a distance from the town (so you don't accidentally hit it while going from building to building etc), and rather than stopping you, hitting that invisible border could perhaps trigger bringing up the fast travel screen. So rather than just having a specific entry/exit grid at the "entrance" of an area, there could be one huge exit grid all the way around.

The bigger problem might be that random encounters while fast travelling could be impossible.

Aah, no, think I might have thought of a way to do it. Rather than the encounter happening while travelling (which is impossible since Fallout 3's fast travel teleports you from A to B), instead it would be ARRIVING at a destination that would do it. Whenever you attempted to enter a town, the level would have some kind of script that make a 33% chance of loading map "Junktown", 66% chance of loading one of a long list of random encounters locations instead. When you've finished the encounter, you get to try again, and once again have a chance of being sent to another encounter.

I'm going to have to make a big proper forum thread, perhaps THREADS, here and on fallout 3 nexus, and try to recruit people. :)
 
What about one random encounter per fast travel. Very practical. Also, as the map is measured in "units" there could be a random encounter check for every X units fast traveled with probability increasing every check(or static, if impossible).
 
I think it'd be much better to focus on playing to the FO3 engine's strengths and trying to avoid its weaknesses.

Duplicating point-for-point FO1's gameplay into the FO3 engine will only lead to hackish, unintuitive gameplay. You might as well stick to the template FO3 has provided rather than trying to impliment engine features from FO1... they're just too different. I mean, of course it'd be possible to limit the game to several various town worlds with no playable space inbetween but that pretty much removes most of what the FO3 engine has to offer.
 
As suggested, just revamp the world map traveling with the same type of random encounters.

That would be much better than walking in boring, dull wasteland like Fallout 3.

Also, by skipping on all the wasted space in between , they can put more work in each of Fallout 1's areas.
 
Misanthrope said:
I think it'd be much better to focus on playing to the FO3 engine's strengths and trying to avoid its weaknesses.

Duplicating point-for-point FO1's gameplay into the FO3 engine will only lead to hackish, unintuitive gameplay. You might as well stick to the template FO3 has provided rather than trying to impliment engine features from FO1... they're just too different. I mean, of course it'd be possible to limit the game to several various town worlds with no playable space inbetween but that pretty much removes most of what the FO3 engine has to offer.
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You do have a good point. And personally, I enjoyed walking between places in Fallout 3. Especially since I had the option of fast travelling back to an earlier location, rather than having to walk back the route I came. I wouldn't mind it if a remake of Fallout 1 actually had a large wasteland to walk through. Of course, the scale would be a bit off, towns and bases and vaults would be a little too close together. But then, they are a little too close together in Fallout 3. It goes with the territory of making a world you can walk across in reasonable time. You just have to pretend that the distance you travel in the wasteland is representative of having actually travlled ten times further. ;)

But since I am from the UK, I have little knowledge as to what it should be like to walk through the parts of America visited in Fallout 1. I'd have no idea what to put in the wasteland between towns, as all I have to go on is the locations seen in Fallout 1, and the wasteland seen in Fallout 3.

I suppose I could invent a wasteland based on Fallout 3 stuff, but I imagine most people from the US would be rather irritated with the totally made-up geography. :)

Of course, I could just concentrate on doings towns and vaults etc, and let someone else worry about the wasteland inbetween, hehe.
 
Oh come on... The distance in Fallout 3 is as big as Boneyard in Fallout 1. Three steps and you're in the midwest...
 
Oh come on, you exaggerate. Sure, the distances between close locations in Fallout 3 is absurdly small, but it takes ages to walk the distance between Megaton and GNR radio.

Also, bear in mind that Fallout 3's engine allows for a much larger wasteland than the one they actually used. ;) Indeed I think the actual outdoor map is twice the size of the area the game allows you to wander around in. Modders are already taking advantage by turning off that boundary and putting new locations outside the normal playing area.

Of course, we wouldn't want to create too large a gap betwee locations. In Fallout 1 it might take "3 days" to walk to another location, but that only takes one minute for the player to do. 15 minutes of walking in Fallout-3-land would do the same job. The mod would have a disclaimer that the wasteland is not to scale. ;)

Also, while outside in the wasteland, could accelerate the passage of the clock even more than normal, so days and nights pass very quickly.

I'd prefer to do a Fallout 1 style world map though, using Fallout 3's fast travel map, simply cause I have no idea about US geography. (And that geography would have to be enormously squashed.) But if residents of the US fancy making a squashed version of half of America, they are welcome to try!
 
That's just the thing, according to the random encounters, it's a waste. Tumbleweeds and wasted roads, maybe some cliffs. Very, very dull to travel through.

And if the map should be seamless, then something must be between the settlements and similar to Fallout 3, the empty space must be filled with something.
 
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