Shacknews Impressions and Vault Dweller's Guide Scans

it's supposed to be a helpful guide for the game with lots of flavor. it's not supposed to seem like genuine documentation from the future. common sense and logic has nothing to do with it.

I really like it, I think they captured the feel really well. the illustrations are great.
 
Somehow, it feels a bit wrong when a booklet for a game seems to be around 10 times as interesting and well made as the game it is made for :?

In any case, really awesome booklet :D
 
Barrett said:
But... the Behemoth is really that big...? :shock:
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If they want a big, FUCKING HUGE critter, why does he uses a car door as a shield and a hydrant as a club? Heck, If I was so big, I would just dump cars on people. He looks so big that it may even be possible to carry cars, or maybe even a bus, A BUS!!
 
That was fucking rubbish.

How the fuck are they supposed to know what kind of mutated creatures you going to run into? That you'll have to resort to cannibalism, the organizational structure of the factions you'll run into?
This was obviously printed 200 years before any of this happened.

Gone is the juxtoposition of the wide-eyed innocence of say, FO1's intro against the harshness of the wasteland.
This manual is way too "in the know".
If they're telling you exactly how harsh life is going to be it defeats the whole purpose of contrasting it with the sanitized naivete of the 50s cold-war culture. If they actually told people the truth about how bad it was going to be, they'd fucking panic.
What kind of lame-ass cold-war propoganda tells you the truth?

Who's supposed to be reading this? The character we're ostensibly role-playing? How the fuck does he/she ever get something so accurately prophetic in a vault that's been locked 200 years?

To know all this beforehand means it's intended for the player, not the NPC and thus violates the entire fucking purpose of role-playing.

I thought it was lame.
 
I agree that it is a bit daft to have it being published in 2077 what with the Vault being sealed that long (no one ever enters, no one ever leaves, right Tod?), but the booklet looks alright to me. Some of the illustrations are just rad.
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
How the fuck are they supposed to know what kind of mutated creatures you going to run into? That you'll have to resort to cannibalism, the organizational structure of the factions you'll run into? This was obviously printed 200 years before any of this happened.
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I agree especially in the case of the supermutants. Aren't they created by the FEV, which was developed by a totally different pre-war company West Tek with cooperation from the military. The FEV tests, and most of them pre-war were only on animals, would have been classified as Top Secret. Vault Tek, on the otherhand, was selling their Vaults directly to consumers. And in spite of their more sinister ideas, there is nothing to indicate that they would have any knowledge about the classified experiments which would lead to the creation of supermutants.

If there were going to be projections of mutated animals, it would have been more consistent with the idea of this being from the pre-war retro-future if it had all the 50's cliche atomic monsters (50 foot ants, mole-men, talking killer plants) illustrated instead of what you would really find in the wasteland.
Cimmerian Nights said:
Gone is the juxtoposition of the wide-eyed innocence of say, FO1's intro against the harshness of the wasteland. This manual is way too "in the know".

If they're telling you exactly how harsh life is going to be it defeats the whole purpose of contrasting it with the sanitized naivete of the 50s cold-war culture. If they actually told people the truth about how bad it was going to be, they'd fucking panic. What kind of lame-ass cold-war propoganda tells you the truth?
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Again I agree. It would have been nice if they would blissfully allay your fears by stating that the GECK contains all that you will need to rebuild society. But we all know that authenticity is not the purpose of this guide, hyping FO3 is. Maybe it would make more sense if it was obvious that the guide was intended only for vault-dwellers sent by the Overseer on special reconaissance missions.

I still like the style and that they actually made this.
 
The other answer is that you are a crazy man who is acting crazy.
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well, he fits in, UNLIKE YOUR MOM.

fascinating, how many questions are answered by just READING the goddamn thing, you bethesda-hating thugs!
 
The guide also could have been more disjointed- like with the Fallout 2 manual, where the book had some general advice about wasteland survival from the Vault-Tek guide writers... and then notes next to them from the Vault Dweller.

Or it could've been a bunch of notes on the wastes, some hand written, some typed, juxtaposing what the survival guide BELIEVED the people in the Vault COULD have experienced versus what really was out there.

Or, better yet, it could've been marketed to a Vault where the point WASN'T to keep everyone bottled up indefinitely. That might've made much more sense.

And when it comes to the 'VR helmet explains this' explanation: I don't buy it. It's too much 'magicking it away' and besides, it's entirely accurate. It even LISTS THE BEHEMOTH, fer cryin' out loud.

Now, if it'd had some creatures that were believed to be outside ("Wow, walking talking eight-foot-tall squids? Now I'm sure I don't want to leave!") I'd buy the VR helmet reason. As it is... laaaaame.

Even though the book looks GREAT. I mean, really really good. It's just that the reasoning behind having all that accurate information is skewed toward the "turn off your brain and enjoy it" end of things. Which bothers the crap out of me.

To everyone else: don't you DARE bring up that 'but there was X silly thing in FO2' reasoning. Bad excuse, been beaten to death and refuted in earlier threads. It doesn't excuse lazy design decisions, or silliness.
 
For something that is just meant to be a press junket item, you guys sure do nitpick.

It isn't meant to be cannon, or 100% accurate. Just something cool to hand out to the press people and get some word about the game out.

In that regard, it's just awesome. As awesome as anything put out FO related by BI in the past, IMO.
 
Maybe because BI's RPGs could stand on the strength of their RPG foundation and didn't need to pander with shiny trinkets. And I don't think it's any better than the FO1 or 2 manuals.
 
I would rather buy the survival guide than the actual game. I would rather read the guide than play the game.

There is something wrong here.
 
To know all this beforehand means it's intended for the player, not the NPC and thus violates the entire fucking purpose of role-playing.
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It is intended for the player I.E. YOU. It's a marketing item. It doesn't exist ingame.

Bethesda has marketed this game like no other. Their setup at PAX was pretty spectacular in terms of DESIGN and it's clear they put a great deal of money into making it look like Fallout in terms of art. The game on the other hand is a different story...

I waited in line watching over people's shoulders as they played the game. It's important to note that it was a hacked version (same with EVERY SINGLE VIDEO they're put on the internet). In the full game, there are guards at the Vault exit you have to sneak past/persuade/bribe/kill, you don't have ridiculous amounts of health, you can't find nuclear catapult grenade launchers laying around, basically everything you've seen in every video was faked.

Anyways, everyone ahead of me went on mad killing sprees while I waited patiently noting things I wanted to try out (one guy was in the back reciting Fallout's entire ingame history but I didn't dare ask him if he was an NMA member for fear of being booted off the exhibit). When I got to play the game, Hines meandered over to narrate for me. He tried to "guide" me along the demo... to which I completely ignored him. When I leveled up after leaving the vault, I increased my speech to the max and choose Ladykiller which made his eyebrows raise.

I entered a random house and spoke to Silver, this Jethead who owed Moriarty some caps. With Ladykiller, a couple of new choices popped up and she opened up to me about her addiction. I used my heightened speech to extort her of some caps and decided to check out Moriarty but not before sneaking in her kitchen and stealing random objects like toasters and cutting boards.

Fo3 apparently has a robust invention system as pretty much everything could be picked up. In the 10 minutes I was allotted, I basically wandered around the outskirts of Megaton and entered the town to talk to people; something that NO ONE ELSE DID IN THE ENTIRE BOOTH.

The game's writing is better than what was shown. Some of the characters are downright awful, but other characters are actually pretty funny and well written. I talked to this one old guy who basically went on and on and on about how awesome AMERICA was and we had a long conversation regarding consumerism or something that ended with him fumbling in his speech reminding me of a scene in the original where you talked to a rat and "killed" him by bringing up a paradox in his knowledge.

Outside of the improved dialog, I also noticed that Fallout's world was pretty interesting. The videos don't do it justice, but unlike Oblivion there's actual LEVEL DESIGN. In Oblivion it was basically rolling hills + massive forest everywhere you went but Fo3 has mazes of destroyed buildings, old ruins, and enemies that actually rove around (I battled some mad brahmin which is probably the Fo3 equivalent of the DISEASED creatures from Morrowind). Every building that has an entrance can be entered and the blown out buildings actually have some variety (despite repeat albeit not-really-noticeable damage models). The items and events in the game are randomized and in two playthroughs I noticed varying item placements, mumbling crazies, and merchants.

Other than that... it plays out pretty much like Oblivion. You walk around and do quests. There seems to be more attention to detail, something Oblivion was lacking, and the characters actually having personalities is great but yeah... it's like a total conversion mod for Oblivion.

I'm not going to beat a dead horse by going "NOT FALLOUT URGHFHGHFGH" but I will say that it is a fine game on its own merit. The animations are goofy and the AI varies between decent and downright retarded, but overall it's a decent game and that's all I can ask for these days (well, that's all I expect to receive as I ask for an english release of Mother 3 daily).

horst said:
that is brilliant! id love to know what company did this. looks like some promotional work you might find in the "page" or some other media-related magazine. excellent!
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It was designed by Bethesda's art department...?


To everyone else: don't you DARE bring up that 'but there was X silly thing in FO2' reasoning. Bad excuse, been beaten to death and refuted in earlier threads. It doesn't excuse lazy design decisions, or silliness.
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What? But Bethesda is "staying faithful!" (p.s. sarcasm)
 
As for why does it actually tell the dangers instead of the 50's optimism...

Come on guys.. you should know this!

Because acourding to what we know so far... vault 101 took as many precations to keep the vault dwellers inside indefinately, because that was it's experiment.. so indoctrination of fear is EXACTLY inline with that goal.
 
So why the need to accurately and in great detail lay out what's required for survival in a place where No Man Enters, No Man Leaves?
If it's meant to mimic cold-war era propoganda, why tell the truth. Telling the truth defeats the entire purpose of propoganda.
IT's intellectually lazy to do an in-character piece like this, but violate the context that it belongs in. These guys lack creativity IMO, case in point them buying someone else's IP and shoe-horning it into their dumbed down bubble-gum RPG-lite.
Besides, they're showing you exactly (exactly, right down to the tale of the tape for the Behemoth, Nostrodamus couldn't write this fucking thing) what will happen to you? If they want to inspire fear in the context of cold-war era America they should present an overblown fear-mongering state of affairs (see Reefer Madness). The sun never did bore holes through my fucking eyesockets in Fallout, did they yours?
 
Eh, not impressed to be honest. I personally think the writing stinks. Badly. Some of the pictures are nice, I'll admit. Nowhere near the quality of the FO1/2 manuals to be sure.
 
It's an extra free item given to some people who visited...wow I'd be thankful they even gave me something if I was there.
 
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