Should Fallout 3 be considered canon?

[Walpknut]

Fallout 3's writting is terrible, characterization is bland and one-dimensional, dialogue is just fucking terrible everywhere, with an over reliance on quoting bible passages and poems while not actually bothering to create a cohesive narrative or style that make them work. Is like a 14 year olds' creative writting homework, but it was written by a guy in it's 40s.

 

[Millim]

Yeah, yeah, new society's post apocalypse blah blah blah

Dude, that's what Fallout is meant to be.
That's what makes it so interesting.

 

[CT Phipps]

Judging from this and your Skyrim posts I get the feeling you prefer playing the ultimate hero character rather than someone more realistic.

It depends on the story and setting really. In Star Wars, I don't want moral ambiguity. I really disliked Rogue One shitting on the Rebel Alliance and didn't care for the way they undermined the franchise's themes of hope and adventure. It's why I hated the Yuuzhan Vong and Legacy stories. However, I primarily write stories which are primarily about anti-heroes and moral ambiguous noir because I enjoy those kind of stories.

For video games, it's really hard to write the kind of decent antihero you can get in fiction like my supervillain or cyberpunk books. Geralt and Adam Jensen are two of the best written characters of all time but both are really really noble in their own cynical ways.

In Skyrim, I enjoyed the idea of being the Chosen One because it's building a legend versus filling out a plot. In Fallout, though, the stakes felt so high and the need for a hero so immediate that being a messianic archetype felt really really good. I think my LW was my most goodie two shoes character with the exception of maybe KOTOR's Exile.

Avellone really wrote a good story about being gunslinging Jedi Jesus.

One thing I'm hoping for in some future game (Cyberpunk 2077) is the option to play a gray character who doesn't feel forced or another shade of evil. New Vegas came close with my Mister House assassin and Yes Man! ending Gordon Freeman EXPY.

The War has been over for 200 years by the time Fallout 3 happens. If it was set only a few years after the bombs I might have agreed with you.

I view the calender are largely arbitrary. It's only 200 years after the War because Bethesda wants to write a sequel and that's where Fallout 2 pinned it.

Again the Great War happened 200 years ago and the Pre-War world was not a nice place to live in. Mass starvation, lack of resources, oppression and disease. The Great War was never meant to be the focus of Fallout, it merely was the event that changed everything.

Yes, but it's a fascinating time period and I like filling in the gaps of how we got from Point A to Point Z,

What purpose does getting the Constitution serve? It doesn't help anyone aside from some old historian. The GECK and water chip actually serve to help people, rather than just doing nothing.

You don't think history is important? It's a vital part of recovering what was lost from the Pre-War era. You can't "start over" without remembering what came before.

What's the point in having new Fallout games and a timeline if nothing changes from the Pre-War era? I wouldn't be interested in playing any of them if they were all set in places that hadn't changed at all in 200 years.

I actually agree and my primary criticism of Fallout 4 wasn't the shitty writing but the fact in a game series which I primairly define as an exploration one--there was shit to explore. It was 70% a bunch of swamp and identical farms and 10% radiation sea. Fallout 3 filled its comparatively tiny map with all manner of weird little places to visit.

It's why Nuka World was so awesome to me because it was a colorful place to visit after all the shitty drab settlement areas.

 

[Gay Tony]

Had Fallout 3 taken place 20 years after the bombs fell instead of 200 everything would have made much more sense.

Have no clue why they introduced the 200 year gap for no apparent reason.

 

[CT Phipps]

I get you like the ultimate hero and someone saving everyone, but the thing is, there is no internal conflict, and that's fine for a game like COD or so, but in an RPG where choice matters, internal conflicts just aren't interesting.

I feel for Call of Duty, truly, because I was brought onboard by the Modern Warfare series and that was a game built on moral ambigutiy as well as constant internal conflict.

I think of it as the series of Black Ops 1, 2, WW2 shooters, and MW.

Not Ghosts and Space Battles.

 

[Walpknut]

Because it's a "Kewl numbuh!"

 

[CT Phipps]

Because it's a "Kewl numbuh!"

It's an easy pattern to follow.

They wanted the BOS and Enclave.

And it not to have the stigma of "Prequel."

Even so, they could have done more to establish the background for the game's factions and actions.

I mean something like, "Washington DC was heavily irradiated for the first century after the war. Only Vault 101 and the Super Mutant population existed there. In the past century, it has been settled by numerous other parties and become home to many bands of raiders."

 

[Gay Tony]

The reason prequels often have stigma attached is because there are characters who you know are not going to die and you know pretty much how the plot is going to play out as per the original movies.

In Fallout, however, this wouldn't be a problem taking place on the other side of the country away from California with new factions even if it did take place over a century ago.


Would have been better than shoehorning those factions in.

 

[CT Phipps]

The reason prequels often have stigma attached is because there are characters who you know are not going to die and you know pretty much how the plot is going to play out as per the original movies.

In Fallout, however, this wouldn't be a problem taking place on the other side of the country away from California with new factions even if it did take place over a century ago.

Would have been better than shoehorning those factions in.

The problem is that the Enclave really really should be in a setting about Washington D.C. as they're the embodiments of everything wrong with the United States and the people that destroyed the world. The Brotherhood of Steel? Not so much.

Remnant of the US military or not.

 

[Walpknut]

It's an easy pattern to follow.

They wanted the BOS and Enclave.

And it not to have the stigma of "Prequel."

Even so, they could have done more to establish the background for the game's factions and actions.

I mean something like, "Washington DC was heavily irradiated for the first century after the war. Only Vault 101 and the Super Mutant population existed there. In the past century, it has been settled by numerous other parties and become home to many bands of raiders."

Except the game constantly brings up communities that have existed for 200 years, also if the place was so irradiated for so long and nobody can grow anything there why would anybody settle there? And if there is no way of producing anything what are Raiders even raiding? It's all stupid.
It doesn't have the stigma of prequel, but it has the stigma of shitty spin off made by people who have no idea how to write, let alone write properly for Fallout that just banks on recognizable iconography to cover it's lack of depth.

 

[DirtyOldShoe]

People that argue about lore and canon are the worst.
If you haven't noticed the developers Bethesda to Black Isle to Obsidian don't really hold to their own lore or canon. Canon and lore can be very subjective. Personally I think the most important thing to check for in mods for FNV is if textures match the degrading world. That is only an ascetic, it isn't lore or canon. Putting a porn picture in Dogg Mitchell's house doesn't break anything, just like putting a skeleton smoking a cigar in the pickup truck in Goodsprings isn't anti-canon.

Some people will say that Vaults are canon, but that doesn't mean that they or you shouldn't try something else. Fallout owns nothing and the developer is the same. There legal document saying they own the word Fallout is a joke. It only comes true if you are trying to make money off of the IP. Otherwise, you are free to do with the IP as you wish. For me it is feeling.

To me a game that has a reason for people to do drugs, not just the player character fits into that Fallout box I have in my head, that doesn't mean that Fallout = drugs, it means that the world has it's own desperation that can be seen and tasted around every corner, where it would seem natural to become an addict.

To me Fallout should feel dirty, disgusting, vile with rape, hard consequences, game breaking choices left to the player. Fallout should feel desperate. If no one seems desperate, it doesn't fit into my Fallout box in my head.

Bethesda owns the ability to make money off the word Fallout and it is obvious that is how they see this IP, as a money making machine. IP does not include the ability to rewrite history from your mind, or to supersede anything that you thought before. If you think Bethesda has control of cannon/lore, then ask yourself, If there is a Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4, where does Fallout NV fit into that numerical equation from a lore/canon perspective.

Who owns oxygen?
We all do.
Who owns the word Fallout?
We all do.
Who owns the moon?
We all do.

But in world of admiralty law, and if you believe in admiralty law then you must subscribe to whatever canon you are told to.

TL : DR
Figure out what fits into your Fallout equation, weight things against your rule-set to establish if it for you feels like Fallout. My Fallout is perfect for me and nothing can change it, there are supposed entries into the franchise that I don't recognize because they do not conform to my understanding.

You can't say is "Fallout X Canon?" Canon to who, Bethedsa? Fans? Me? You?
Bethesda recons their own canon within a title, so it doesn't seem important to them, why should it to you the fan?

 

[CT Phipps]

Except the game constantly brings up communities that have existed for 200 years, also if the place was so irradiated for so long and nobody can grow anything there why would anybody settle there? And if there is no way of producing anything what are Raiders even raiding? It's all stupid.
It doesn't have the stigma of prequel, but it has the stigma of shitty spin off made by people who have no idea how to write, let alone write properly for Fallout that just banks on recognizable iconography to cover it's lack of depth.

1. Actually, Rivet City and Tenpenny Towers are new settlements. We don't actually have any confirmed "long term" settlements other than Anadale and Vault 101.

2. Because the world is screwed and not getting any better. You take what land you can get. Why do people liive in the Sahara? Because they have to.

3. Well The Pitt explained the Raiders were working for Ashur's insane scheme so at least that was explained.

 

[Walpknut]

1. A lot of them make mention of "pre war" and make allusions to have been there for a long time.
2. People in the Sahara are nomads, it has a really low population density, and the urban locations there actually dug for water and survive off that, they don't just sit on their asses drinking piss water or they would have died long ago.
3. DLC explains that the raiders are just doing stuff for poorly defined schemes. Such good writting.

 

[Gay Tony]

Yeah, I honestly think the atmosphere that people praise about Fallout 3 is the most overrated element of the game. I mean it's an impressive atmosphere for a normal post apocalyptic game. But it doesn't work for Fallout 3 because of the time it takes place in. The atmosphere is essentially so immersion breaking for me that it makes it really difficult for me to try and enjoy the game.

While 4 improved on the aspect on where the food comes from one of the biggest issues I had with Fallout 4 is you're going into the settlement and there are 2 people, a cat and a potato. "Oh please, rid these raiders for us they're kicking our asses!!".

So I get to the place marked on my map and 40+ raiders are sitting in this giant warehouse with raiders getting drunk, arguing and having everything available from food, to gear, to weapons, to chems and alcohol. Nearby there is one settlement with two people, a cat, and a potato.

HOW???

Every raider base has more stuff, more people, more alcohol than entire fucking towns almost on the same level of Diamond City or Good Neighbor. Who the hell are they raiding? How can they maintain this when there's nothing but potatoes and cats around? It's certainly isn't from any of these settlements I can tell you that.


And why are there soooo many of them?

 

[Walpknut]

"You discovered the Chimichanga Falls settlement, you can't use the workshop unless you ally yourself with this community"
*turns around*
The Community = 2 people sleeping on drity mattreses on a blasted apart house.

 

[CT Phipps]

While 4 improved on the aspect on where the food comes from one of the biggest issues I had with Fallout 4 is you're going into the settlement and there are 2 people, a cat and a potato. "Oh please, rid these raiders for us they're kicking our asses!!".

So I get to the place marked on my map and 40+ raiders are sitting in this giant warehouse with raiders getting drunk, arguing and having everything available from food, to gear, to weapons, to chems and alcohol. Nearby there is one settlement with two people, a cat, and a potato.

HOW???

Every raider base has more stuff, more people, more alcohol than entire fucking towns almost on the same level of Diamond City or Good Neighbor. Who the hell are they raiding? How can they maintain this when there's nothing but potatoes and cats around? It's certainly isn't from any of these settlements I can tell you that.

And why are there soooo many of them?

I remind you in the Seven Samurai, there's 47 Raiders attacking one village. But yes, game worlds are never literal. All of those little farms are getting shaken down by Raiders over a long period of time and they do that not because they're hungry but because it WORKS.



It's easy to take than grow.

I say this, FYI, thinking Fallout 4 had some of the shittiest "Communities" ever made and that even the Witcher 3 which had 110 identical farming communities, felt more real. God, I want something like New Reno again.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

You don't think history is important? It's a vital part of recovering what was lost from the Pre-War era. You can't "start over" without remembering what came before.

I never said history wasn't important, it is. But I would think, given how shit everything is in Fallout 3, people would have much bigger priorities than looking for old Pre-War documents. Besides how applicable is the U.S Constitution by the time Fallout 3 rolls around?

I also find the Pre-War world interesting, I just don't think it should be focus on as much as it is sometimes.

 

[joevonzombie]

The problem is that the Enclave really really should be in a setting about Washington D.C. as they're the embodiments of everything wrong with the United States and the people that destroyed the world. The Brotherhood of Steel? Not so much.

Remnant of the US military or not.

The enclave being in DC would have been much better had the game been set 20-50 years after the bombs fell not after Fallout 2 where the faction had been obliterated.

 

[Walpknut]

Fallout went from "The New California Republic meddles into the affairs of close communities to try and coax them into joining by means of paid raider parties, funding of crime bosses and facilitating the distribution of drugs in certain communities to ensure cheap mining operations" to "Guhhhh recover the declaration of independence so you can beat the slavuhrsh who have taken over the Lincoln Memorial!!!!"

 

[R.Graves]

Canon isn't really set in stone at all, it's whatever the current owners say it is. If some other company came along and bought the rights to the series they could theoretically say everything except for the first two Fallout's are non-canon.

As it is now Fallout 3 is canon in Bethesda's eyes and they own the series. Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel was declared non-canon by them as well.


Again, nothing is really set in stone when it comes to these things and someone could always pick up the rights and switch things up, pick and choose what is canon and what is not, hell they could even declare their story is part of a different "timeline" or "had things gone differently"....

here's a concept most here at nma practice. it's called fanon discontinuity.