Strangest Bit of Fallout Code

D

dude_obj

Vault Senior Citizen
Moderator
This is the strangest code I have seen. It is commented out in define.h

// this will debug messages if there are characters that violation the anti-barter act of 1998
#define check_barterable
if (critter_can_barter(self_obj)) then begin \
debug_msg("BARTER SHIT ERROR: name == "+obj_name(self_obj)); \
end

#define check_barterable_float
if (critter_can_barter(self_obj)) then begin \
float_msg(self_obj, "GET A SCRIPTER, I'M FUCKED UP!!! HELP, MY NAME IS "+obj_name(self_obj)+"!!! PHEW, THANKS!!!", FLOAT_COLOR_NORMAL); \
end

Anti-Barter Act of 1998? I thought this was a joke, but it seems there was such a thing in russia ...

"Barter and other closely related forms of non-monetary exchange present a critical challenge for Russian public policy. As of early 1998, from 50 to 70% of exchange in industry took the form of barter, leaving many firms with too little cash to pay salaries and taxes."
From http://www.csis.org/ruseura/ponars/policymemos/pm_0038.pdf

It kinda looks like because of this anti-barter law in russia, they considered removing barter capability from the game (perhaps in the russian version?), and that code was a check to make sure nobody in the game could barter. Bizarre!
 
Little historical information:
The official Fallout (both RPGs and Tactics) release for Russia is due in 2005. Therefore, Interplay couldn't've considered that back then... Unless they wanted to cut it from ALL the versions. And besides, from what I've heard, it's gonna be the same as the US version... Just pre-patched and in russian.
I would've gladly laughed at how the game would function without a barter function altogether though...
 
What is this Craptics you speak of ? There is no Fallout of that name.


Ontopic: Intersting find. Soinds like some kind of unfinished script, and a scripter having a sense of humor when commenting.............

And Noelmahc, the FO production team couldnt have known when it would be released back when making it, so who knows.
 
What is this Craptics you speak of ? There is no Fallout of that name.
Click to expand...
Whoops, my bad. I just mistook this game with a similar design for something FO-related. :oops:
And Noelmahc, the FO production team couldnt have known when it would be released back when making it, so who knows.
Click to expand...
Well, anything's possible, although I really don't think that Interplay would've gone out of their way to alter the game in relation to something that happened many miles away from the US. I mean, there wasn't even a legal way to buy FO over here for quite a while after its release (which forced quite a lot of us - including me - to indulge in software piracy, but the Devil made us do it! I will buy it WHEN it comes out here, I swear!), so...
 
Noelemahc said:
Little historical information:
The official Fallout (both RPGs and Tactics) release for Russia is due in 2005. Therefore, Interplay couldn't've considered that back then... Unless they wanted to cut it from ALL the versions. And besides, from what I've heard, it's gonna be the same as the US version... Just pre-patched and in russian.
I would've gladly laughed at how the game would function without a barter function altogether though...
Click to expand...

Well every critter has a "can be bartered with" flag. I would think that buying and selling stuff at a store would not be bartering in the definition of that anti-barter act (that's what they want people to do). But buying stuff from the dude on the street in new reno, that's the illegal type of bartering right? So its concievable that they tested turning off bartering for all game characters except the ones in the shops, which wouldn't be doing illegal bartering.

Using this logic, playing the game without barter would be no problem at all. In fact I almost never used the barter function (the barter button in the dialog), I just went to stores (or stole items from characters). The only time I recall using barter was early in FO1 in shady sands when I needed stuff to get ready for vault 15 and such.

If its not what the comment suggests ... checking for violations of anti-barter act of 1998 ... then what else would it be? It sure seems to be exactly that. Maybe one developer was told to find out how to disable bartering in the game. You'd be surprised what companies will do to cover their ass from legal actions or dilemmas. Pretty wild how in FO they removed children in some countries, yet in in GTA you are almost encouraged to run people over, and having sex with hookers in the back lane makes your car rock back and forth and gives you hit points :lol:
 
*shrugs*
I suppose I oughta go and dig up that law (1998 you said?), mayhap it'll shed some light. :D Trick is, law or not, barter is still encoutered around here. To tell you the truth, it's the first time I heard that we DO have such a law at all...
*goes off to dig in them databases*

As for censorship, the largest fuss, as always, was about DooM and Carmageddon (the German and Australian versions of the latter being the most cut-up, if I remember right) :P Lucky us that we get the US releases most of the time.
 
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