Students of Fallout

[Seymour the spore plant]

Why don't they go all Mega Man 9 and just release the same old graphics and a new story. I think that would be great.

I don't think I'd call that great. There are already Fallout 1/2 mods if one wants only new story or locations, no reason to the same from a sequel.

Now, I think Megaman 9 was the right way to go for the series, but simply because the 8-bit graphics have time and again proven to better suit the gameplay - try the Megaman 7 demake and tell me it doesn't play better and feel less cluttered than the SNES counterpart. The original series had gotten pretty stale, and like Inafume said, its gameplay doesn't fit today's expectations of 20-hours or so of playtime.

How tactical is a game where you can magically kill someone or magically be killed in one hit?

Conversely, how tactical is a game where the right choice of armor renders you all but invincible?

Pen and paper RPGs have always accounted for chance - it's why D&D have 1 and 20 as auto miss/hit (in addition to criticals), and also why one will never get more than 95% to-hit in Fallout. Like Mettle put it, the strategic component is minimizing the potential damage you'll take through good use of cover and APs.

 

[Leon]

I think unpredictability belongs more in a non-tactical game. What if you were playing something like.. Warhammer, and you've got 30 pikemen lined up against 15 approaching mounted units, and they all get a defense bypasser (by some stroke of luck) and kill half your regiment that was pretty much designed to take out those riders? Taking this knowledge then you can apply a strange logic where "more critical% = win" and the game becomes easily exploitable.

That's only if you can modify your ability to cause criticals. See, in what you said here...

people with 1 character pumping +crit drugs so they can get critical def. bypassers.

... I would say that the drugs that increase your ability to cause criticals are the problem. That drug destroys the balance, because you can abuse it without worrying about drawbacks. In Fallout 1 and 2, drugs are a double-edged sword that can save your ass but leave you with a crippling addiction. In Tactics you have little to no incentive to worry about that, especially for multiplayer games.

Basically just saying a defense bypasser should not be possible with burst fire.

Why not? And a shooting target is nothing like a live, armored target. Why couldn't a burst have at least one bullet that manages to be "lucky"? Especially at close range.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

great article....i didn't expect it to have a "happy" ending.

 

[PaladinHeart]

Why don't you try the old good ones instead? Darklands, Arcanum, Torment, stuff like that. And even some more story driven, maybe something you're more used to, like Betrayal at Kondor and the like?

While I very much enjoyed Torment and the Fallout games I could not get into Arcanum (having tried the demo, and then later on the full game). I more recently tried Darklands but I couldn't figure out how the combat system is suppose to work, so a giant snake killed my 2 characters. Is there a guide for this game?

Also need to see if I can find Per's guide to Wasteland. I had a ton of fun playing it about 15+ years ago, but never actually finished it, and now can't seem to get into it again. I guess one of my problems is that I keep trying to get by with just one character (yes, even with a fully hacked level 1 character with all skills, it's not possible...) because I wanted to recruit more of the NPC's in the game.

 

[Fairbanks]

Fan mods. . .yes

Sure, Fallout 3 is exactly what the new gaming community wants, and it makes true fans cringe. However, its the most new Fallout anyone here will get in a while. It might be a half-spawn of what Fallout was, bt that doesn't make it a horrible game. If you don't like Fallout 3, just don't play it. Ignore it. But if someone actually thinks that this game will be at the least entertaining, It doesn't make them an idiot.

Nobody should ignore the flaws in Fallout 3 just because the modders will fix things later, like they did with Oblivion. And i doubt the modders will be able to make Fallout 3 turn based, they have to change a lot of engine stuff to do that, i'm not a modder though so i will wait and see.

The just "ignore Fallout 3 if you don't like it" reasoning is old already, we are fans of Fallout how can we ignore this mess?
Nobody said the game will not be entertaining, you have to agree there are forms of entertainment, Fallout 3 is not the same as Fallout entertainment though.

I'll compare this to something that is even more argued about than this.

The Star Wars EU.

In the EU, several authors have taken the characters and the worlds and the stories people love, and have written books,comics,and fan films. These are argued over night and day. The only person to "canonize" is Lucas. Even when he does that people don't agree and just choose to ignore.

Fallout 3 is much more simple than the Star Wars:EU.

It takes place across the country, with little or no returning characters.

For heavens sake, some people still don't agree with Fallout 2.

 

[Pope Viper]

The end of Wasteland is cool, I highly suggest finishing it up.

 

[PaladinHeart]

Why couldn't a burst have at least one bullet that manages to be "lucky"? Especially at close range.

I have nothing against that "one bullet" being lucky. The problem comes in when the "entire burst" is lucky, doing thousands of damage, more than even a rocket could possibly do if it were to get the same defense bypasser.

The end of Wasteland is cool, I highly suggest finishing it up.

Maybe if I can still play with just one character if I use a guide to go straight to the recruitable NPC's in the game. :ninja:

 

[Pope Viper]

Wouldn't a burst essentially hit the same spot?

 

[JESUS]

I'll compare this to something that is even more argued about than this.

The Star Wars EU.

For heavens sake, some people still don't agree with Fallout 2.

Please don't do that, it will remind me of the whole midchlorians thing, and as much as i'd tried i cannot ignore them.

And Fallout 2 had it's problems alright, New Reno and all that stuff, but see people didn't ignore it either, they criticize it for their mistakes but it remained true to Fallout imo.

Edit: And if i were to compare Fallout 3 to any movie it would be Highlander 2.

 

[fedaykin]

I more recently tried Darklands but I couldn't figure out how the combat system is suppose to work, so a giant snake killed my 2 characters. Is there a guide for this game?

Yes, there's a manual. You need to study it pretty thoroughly, though, to understand how everything works. Darklands isn't very user-friendly either. Too much to expect from a 1992 game, I guess.

 

[Fade]

Hey, I love games and all, and consider myself a hardcore gamer, but...aren't we taking this a LITTLE too far? Games are supposed to be fun, amirite? Not about how smart you can prove yourself to be. They are supposed to ENTERTAIN you, and if it's a simple type of game that does that, then what's the problem?

The problem is that those games are becoming the only ones made. Different Genres should be just that different. I have no problem with people liking Oblivion. I do have a problem with people saying I have to like Oblivion or that it's the way all games should be made.

If a game is suppose to ENTERTAIN me and I like games where I have to play smart or I die.... then do you think I'm going to enjoy games like Oblivion or Bioshock?

 

[TychoXI]

They really thing that if a game has character stats to manage, inventory, loot and experience points the game must be a rpg.
The game is only a rpg( in my book at least), if the dialogue is good, the main quest is well done, the choices are there to make a difference and so on.
The skills, combat and all that are the things you expect them to have, there must be some rpgs out there that don't have those things (i have not played any that didn't though),and are still primarily rpgs; Oblivion is a action game with rpg elements, and Fallout 3 is following it, because the focus of the developers seens to be in combat, you know as Far Cry 2 is.

many classic RPGs do not have dialog options or choices to make, we are talkin' about japanese RPGs, of those I only played Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 3 (perhaps it was FF2 how can I remember?). Let me tell you they were TOTALLY RPGs.

The main problem with FO3 is lack of turn-based combat... thats a defining factor for RPGs... of course I would've loved to have 3rd person isometric view with pristine updated 3D graphics, true dialogue trees... Attributes affecting your options... heck even the red X and dotted line in the traveling map... but mostly i do not believe they made it an action game, its still an RPG: you have pseudodecent dialogue trees affected by yer skills/perks, quests, VATS managed to hack some turn based semblance pretty well, SPECIAL is there alive and well AND I also believe they managed to make it Fallouty enough: the aforementioned SPECIAL, open endedness, choices and consequences, many paths for quest-solving, the general atmosphere...

Of course it won't be until I play it that I'll know for sure its a real RPG or Fallouty enough.

 

[Leon]

I have nothing against that "one bullet" being lucky. The problem comes in when the "entire burst" is lucky, doing thousands of damage, more than even a rocket could possibly do if it were to get the same defense bypasser.

It's possible (though not necessarily probable) that the majority or whole of the burst could be worthy of a critical. A burst could be something that could catch you off-guard, or knock you off-balance with the first few shots, leading to the rest of the projectiles that connect having an easy time getting through. Armor is only as good as your ability to use it to brace against and deflect blows, and if you're unable to do so due to being caught unawares or by being knocked about, well... I think it's obvious.

The comparison to the rocket is a good point. It is odd that a large, explosive projectile could do less damage than a slurry of bullets. Though, not that I disagree with its oddity, when you're at the point where you're getting a critical from either, I don't see the difference in how much damage you actually take - you're easily looking at death either way.

 

[Sorrow]

Alternatively, you could put all your skill points into your gunpower, perks into making your character the toughest thing to ever walk the Fallout world, and a super mutant could get a defense bypasser and do over 1000 damage.

One thing I've always disliked about the original Fallouts and Fallout Tactics are the magical "defense bypassers" like all the bullets somehow magically go around your armor, character's natural defenses, etc.. and do full damage. I'd love to be able to edit the game and take that out.. especially for Fallout Tactics. How tactical is a game where you can magically kill someone or magically be killed in one hit?

There should be a chance of hitting a weak spot on an armour, for example a visor or a joint where the armour is thinner and has lesser protection value. Except that it should depend on armour, not just on critical hit tables.
For example in Fallout a guy in power armour could get a critical hit in the arm bypasing the armour with "no armour there" despite wearing full armour, and a guy in combat/metal/leather armour would get protection on limbs despite not having armour there.

I think unpredictability belongs more in a non-tactical game. What if you were playing something like.. Warhammer, and you've got 30 pikemen lined up against 15 approaching mounted units, and they all get a defense bypasser (by some stroke of luck) and kill half your regiment that was pretty much designed to take out those riders?

Hmm...
You mean the 15 mounted units rolling more than armour value on D6?

 

[taag]

Even then, only a handful of those games were any good. Why waste resources on FP/3D (at least then) when you needed them to make a decent game engine, AI, scripting, etc... Today, 3D (FP, TP, or any other view) practically seems like a development standard and really does not get in the way of the development of parts of a game system anymore.

The problem with 3D is that it is expensive and exclusive to work with. Allow me to explain this further.
Before 3D everybody could make a decent game and publish it to mainstream. No one thought of pissing on your grave because you didn't include the latest shader 3 or some other technical mumbojumbo. And that worked great for talented people who brought us 2D games of 80s and 90s. Your team was smaller and their talents could really shine through. I'm still awed at some of the old-school stuff programmers did back then.

Then came the 3D... And guess what - it's expensive, not everybody knows how to work with it and your team suddenly counts something like 200 people ( http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/15/metal-gear-solid-4-has-over-200-developers/ ). So came the end of small & talented teams (now popularized as indie developers) with big companies dominating the market and turning it into virtual Hollywood. There is no purpose in turning games into movies but nobody listens.

 

[JESUS]

many classic RPGs do not have dialog options or choices to make, we are talkin' about japanese RPGs, of those I only played Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 3 (perhaps it was FF2 how can I remember?). Let me tell you they were TOTALLY RPGs.

Yeah i played jRPGs too when i had my supernes, chrono thrigger, secret of mana,etc.; but they are more like adventure games with rpg elements to me, lots of dialogues and no real choices.
Hell could you be a evil bastard in any jRPGs from those times? from the ones i played no, just the hero that will save the world (and usually you begin those games as a nobody in a village),so not even the Bioware Black and White choice we had.
The westerns RPGs were more serious, the dialogues in JRPGs were always so sentimental with some midi music playing while the characters did their bad conversation.

 

[Fade]

The comparison to the rocket is a good point. It is odd that a large, explosive projectile could do less damage than a slurry of bullets. Though, not that I disagree with its oddity, when you're at the point where you're getting a critical from either, I don't see the difference in how much damage you actually take - you're easily looking at death either way.

Perhaps not. One of the reasons hitman use .22s is that they bounce around inside the skull. So rocket has alot of explosive power, but if it cann't get inside in the armour then it's just going to give you deep bruises and toss you several feet. A bullet has a chance of entering a small gap in the armour and bouncing around. Which could cause a massive amount of damage if the bullet cann't exit out the other side.

 

[doomestic]

JRPGs in my own opinion is a misnomer. They are a genre of their own which I call RAGs (Role Assuming Games). You don't ever actually play your role, you just go into an already assumed role for you and go along a very scripted story.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying RAGs though. I loved Final Fantasy 6 and 7. But take them for what they are, an interactive movie with some gameplay elements.

 

[Fade]

JRPGs in my own opinion is a misnomer. They are a genre of their own which I call RAGs (Role Assuming Games). You don't ever actually play your role, you just go into an already assumed role for you and go along a very scripted story.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying RAGs though. I loved Final Fantasy 6 and 7. But take them for what they are, an interactive movie with some gameplay elements.

Why not just call them Adventure games with RPG bits. They alot closer to the Adventure games that came out in the 80s & 90s than any western RPG.

Sad part is the stories in JRPGs at that time, as over the top as they were, are still better than what we are getting in western RPGs now.

 

[Forhekset]

I had pretty much the same experience when I loaned Fallout to a friend. The friend in question's favorite games are Halo, GRAW, KOTOR, Oblivion, and so forth. He got stuck in the rat caves and complained about running out of ammo (wtf?) and the turn-based combat. In his words, turn-based combat takes you out of the action - he prefer real-time combat so that he "feels like a part of the action". After dying 3 or 4 times trying to get out of the rat caves, he gave up.

I don't think he ever played Fallout again after that. Fortunately, the article has a happier ending.