Things you like from Fallout 3

[Gizmojunk]

Firstly I would argue at this stage you are somewhat splitting hairs. You've already conceded that they did achieve tonal consistency with the reto-future design of the original games in the map's most prominent area.

It's not splitting hairs, but I do think that it —might— be part of the reason Bethesda changed the setting, if any of them understood it.

The elevator pitch for Fallout is too complex, and so it has become "the future, but like if the 50's never ended"; this is the wrong portrayal.

Secondly I would argue that most areas did not look like your example in Fallout 3(both pictures of which are the same town, I believe) but also that having some suburbs follow more traditional real life design philosophy is fine,

The reason this is wrong is because these buildings are made of the same materials and designs—they look like the 1950's, but they are 120+ years after them. They wouldn't have built them like that in their prediction of the future; the meaning is two-fold. The houses would have been 'great improvements' upon the old way of building & living in them; plastics, new metals, automated features, waterproof, fireproof... obsessed with convenience and protecting their home from damage.

Places like Arefu and Megaton are literal garbage and I won't defend their design...

Megaton (aside from the silly bomb) is a lot like Junktown in premise; built from salvage.

...because in truth the difference of "50's world of tomorrow" and "50's as they thought the world of tomorrow would be" is basically non-existant...

This is a mistake, these two are the same, but they are not what was being compared. The comparison was "50's world of tomorrow; what they thought the world of tomorrow would be", and a "1950's held over to the year 2077, and stopped by the bombs". This is a key difference that is the problem in FO3. Most of FO3 looks like the world stopped in the mid 50's; there were game reviewers that thought it was actually set in the 1950's.

...and not a distinction Interplay itself believed in.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=laq9ua5VjTs&t=3m46s

The 50's retrofuture serves a purpose of making the Old World a distinct relic, it is 50's because it deliberately evokes a bygone era (and also the "Fear the A Bomb" cultural zeitgeist).

Not 'also', it's the principle. Fear of the Atom was central to the setting; so much so that their fear & expectation bent the very laws of their reality. Fallout's setting is a GURPS campaign setting; nearly a comicbook world where green goo and radiation have caused mutant B-movie monsters, and evil cyborg villains try to take over the world by converting humanity in to giant superhumans.

The Wasteland should be a place with lots of punk-inspired Mad Max style visual design, contrasted against a background of rusting 50's retrofuture.

The wasteland of Fallout [1] is more of Twilight Zone/'There be Dragons' place left by the absolute unknown [and unfathomable] aftermath of the war. Normal life is only in the towns, with the still recovering humanity. *This is why Gecko's Renewal cult, and the chess playing scorpion were so wrong in Fallout 2; both could have fit in the deep wastes, but not in town.

Ghouls were implied to actually (and only) be the first inhabitants of Vault 12 a freak accident of the war, their fate caused by exposure to the outside during the bombs, due to their vault door not sealing properly. As such they would be the only living creatures to personally remember the world as it had been before the war... because they lived it. It meant that every ghoul was from the Necropolis vault. In the recent games they are no longer so special or interesting, having been given the generic origin of being due to radiation exposure, and could appear almost everywhere in the world—cause & effect.

I would say that the Greaser example with the Tunnel Snakes is perhaps a poor one since you would expect pretty rationally that Vaults would preserve pre-war culture well enough and Vault serve the same thematic juxtaposition purpose too so the 50's aesthetic continuing in there is well enough.

Not at all. Pre-war was 2076; that's past our own modern era. 2077 culture wouldn't be sock hops, bomber jackets and Brylcreem—that's 1950's era culture, not the 50's envisioned culture of 2077.

Not this:

My point was that Adamowicz's aesthetic nails the look of the pre-war era and is entirely consistent with that of its portrayal in the originals.

He had some nice concept art. Adamowicz extrapolated down the wrong path; modern day 1950's with pre-war post millennium tech, become post apocalypse. He probably gave them exactly what they asked of him.

I will say on the energy weapon design, you are being deliberately dishonest. Please tell me straight that these don't look anything at all like a gun taken from the cover of a 50's comic-book.

These are examples I'd of chosen myself; though these are from Fallout 2. I picked the plasma cutter.

Compare the Fallout plasma & laser rifles to the FO3 counterparts:
The gun they got right was the alien blaster.

*Notice that the blaster and the post-war Brotherhood (experimental) guns are futuristic of 2077, and the pre-war Fallout [1] laser rifle is futuristic of the 50's. While the laser rifle from FO3 looks more like an idea for an industrial laser with a gun handle/stock tacked on. I like the FO3 laser rifle, but it's symptomatic of a larger disconnect with the source material.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

re: 50s life 'persisting' in the Vault - I don't want to get too into the weeds on this, but considering one of the major inspirations for Fallout and especially the Vault are the creepy bunker dwellers from "A Boy and His Dog" who lived in a literal 1:1 simulation of small town Americana, who did indeed have sock hops, and who even felt the need to have marriage ceremonies for artificial insemination, I don't think it's unfitting at all that Vaults would moreso tend to preserve a quasi-50s mindset. And it works from a narrative perspective too - in the same way that the 1950s-styled aesthetics of Fallout served to contrast that lost innocence with the harsh Wasteland, so does having the Vaults emulate innocent Americana (at least to a certain extent) contrast that literal experience with the more grounded and jaded societies of the Wasteland.

Also, those pictures of steel and glass towers you posted do indeed match a lot of the architecture of Fo4 (well, except less gaudy) but bear absolutely no resemblance to the actual skyscrapers and city-scapes of Fo1 which are all towering grim stone art deco structures which bear far more resemblance to 'Metropolis" than they do EPCOTT or the World of Tomorrow. The only difference between Fo1 and Fo3 in terms of architecture is the addition of Federal architecture in addition to art deco (makes sense given this is still DC) and the lack of massive towers (again, makes sense considering Washington's historic prohibition on building taller than the Washington Monument)

 

[Gizmojunk]

Also, those pictures of steel and glass towers you posted do indeed match a lot of the architecture of Fo4 (well, except less gaudy) but bear absolutely no resemblance to the actual skyscrapers and city-scapes of Fo1 which are all towering grim stone art deco structures which bear far more resemblance to 'Metropolis" than they do EPCOTT or the World of Tomorrow.

But what's yer point? Metropolis is a good example.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Chicago

Do they look like this?

**Also remember that Fallout took place out in the middle of nowhere, but FO3 was set in the nation's capital, and this is 181 years later. I would have expected something that almost looked like a 21st century DC inspired by the Warhammer universe, in terms of decorative architecture, and power armored troops; not brownstones and early to mid 20th century office buildings.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

But what's yer point? Metropolis is a good example.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Chicago

Do they look like this?

**Also remember that Fallout took place out in the middle of nowhere, FO3 was set in the nation's capital, and this is 181 years later.

If I have to pick between that image of Interplay's Chicago and Bethesda's DC, I'm going to have to say DC. Fundamentally the only major differences between Metropolis (and here I'm talking about the 20s film, not the DC city) and Bethesda's DC are A) the lack of Federal style in Metropolis (which is to be expected in DC) and B) the incorrect scale (which again is to be expected in DC because of the long held prohibition on building any taller than the Washington monument, and the Tactics depiction of Chicago doesn't really get it right either - it's basically just identical to any modern skyscraper district.

Further, the Chicago image isn't really relevant - that's designed by Micro Forte, not by Black Isle, so it just becomes there interpretation of Fallout's retro-future aesthetic. So far as I'm aware, the only original sources we have to go off of are the depiction of Bakersfield (?) on the cover of Fo1 and in the intro video. And those are stone towers covered in forboding art-deco faces - which is exactly what we see in DC.

I'm not trying to argue that Fo3's depiction of DC was perfect. There should have been a smattering of truly futuristic buildings here and there amid the art deco and federalist buildings*, there should've been more fascistic imagery and war memorials, and it would've made sense for Alexandria to consist of some truly towering constructions on par with those shown in the intro of Fo1 - and of course, it is far, far too intacts. Nevertheless, on the whole I think Adamowicz's architectural sensibility at least when it comes to urban areas is far more subtle and close to the original intention of Black Isle than Fo4's.

*there are several largely glass and steel constructions that look somewhat futuristic amid the ruins, but not going far enough, I'd agree

 

[Gizmojunk]

...the lack of Federal style in Metropolis (which is to be expected in DC)

Agreed.

...the incorrect scale (which again is to be expected in DC because of the long held prohibition on building any taller than the Washington monument, and the Tactics depiction of Chicago doesn't really get it right either - it's basically just identical to any modern skyscraper district.

The scale doesn't matter (being too large, or too small); it is the aesthetic intent. Fallout's intent is that of the future seen from the past, whereas Bethesda's intent is almost the exact opposite; a future obsessed with the past.

Further, the Chicago image isn't really relevant - that's designed by Micro Forte, not by Black Isle,

A meaningless distinction (I have always thought... it's brought up every single time ).

*They had a liaison in Black Isle who would weigh in on their ideas; for inappropriateness, or contradiction.

so it just becomes there interpretation of Fallout's retro-future aesthetic. So far as I'm aware, the only original sources we have to go off of are the depiction of Bakersfield (?) on the cover of Fo1 and in the intro video. And those are stone towers covered in forboding art-deco faces - which is exactly what we see in DC.

...And the loading screens, and a few of the area entrance screens. They show the art-deco, just like Batman's Gotham City.

However —regardless of artistic depictions, the driving concept was to design around what they thought the future would be like... not to make their future look like the 50's. If you look, everything 50's~ish in Fallout 1, is pre-war salvage; some of it ancient; the new [but still pre-war] stuff has a 50's inspired design, but doesn't look like the 50's. There are new cultures emerging in the wreckage of the ruined past. AFAIK, Bethesda doesn't really reflect this anywhere in their games.

*The most important, and most problematic concern is that the setting was a one off GURPS campaign. It cannot (and should not) stand up to close scrutiny either way. It's an unstable foundation that all of the later titles are built upon. I think that it only really worked once. Fallout 2 showed that humanity was recovering, but any farther ahead, and they would have to nuke the world again, or lose the setting.

In my case, Bethesda discarded just about everything of merit that I liked in the Fallout series.

But I do like their landscaping; despite it's inappropriateness on so many levels; not least of which that it depicts a world closer to a few decades after the war, than over a century later.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

The scale doesn't matter (being too large, or too small); it is the aesthetic intent.

Well scale certainly plays a part in aesthetic.

A meaningless distinction (I have always thought... it's brought up every single time ).

*They had a liaison in Black Isle who would weigh in on their ideas; for inappropriateness, or contradiction.

I think when it comes to something as minor as pre-War architectural style, especially when it cuts against the style established by Black Isle in Fo1.

...And the loading screens, and a few of the area entrance screens. They show the art-deco, just like Batman's Gotham City.

True, my bad.

However —regardless of artistic depictions, the driving concept was to design around what they thought the future would be like... not to make their future look like the 50's. And if you look, everything 50's~ish in Fallout 1, is pre-war salvage. There are new cultures emerging in the wreckage of the ruined past. AFAIK, Bethesda doesn't really reflect this anywhere in their games.

*The most important, and most problematic concern is that the setting was a one off GURPS campaign. It cannot (and should not) stand up to close scrutiny either way. It's an unstable foundation that all of the later titles are built upon. I think that it only really worked once. Fallout 2 showed that humanity was recovering, but any farther ahead, and they would have to nuke the world again, or lose the setting.

What, do you think this is my first time out of the Vault? I'm well aware of Bethesda's failure in understanding fallout, the allegorical use of the 50s in the original that Bethesda took far too literally, the carrying over of the pre-War world into the post-War world, etc etc. I'm not a bethestard by any means, and I largely agree with these points (that are over a decade old by now).

But this is a far narrower discussion as to who captures Fo1/2's pre-War architecture better - Adamowicz or the team they had on Fo4. I am making the very narrow argument that, at least in terms of urban architecture, Adamawicz comes far closer to the art-deco Metropolis-style architecture of Fo1 than the Disneyworld architecture of Fo4.

 

[Gizmojunk]

I think when it comes to something as minor as pre-War architectural style, especially when it cuts against the style established by Black Isle in Fo1.

I think you are missing my point. I am not saying that the world should look like chrome grain silos, and Jetson's towers. I am saying that it should look like a 50's inspired future rather than a 50's focused future. I don't have a problem with the art deco.

...Bethesda's failure in understanding fallout.

I stopped believing it was a failure, and started seeing it as a deliberate choice—for marketing reasons; it's still heinous abuse of the setting.

Even so... it does seem like the Fallout IP was a purchased 'secret sauce' that they have no idea how to recreate; and they smear it on everything they slap the name on in attempt to make it Fallouty.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

I think you are missing my point. I am not saying that the would should look like chrome grain silos, and Jetson's towers. I am saying that it should look like a 50's inspired future rather than a 50's focused future.

Well I think it should be a little bit of both - afterall, based on the various advertisements we see clearly at least some aspect of 50s aestheticism has been retained/reemerged, since these are plainly 50s styled advertisements and not future advertisements as imagined by the 50s.

I'd agree that it should moreso be the future as imagined by the 50s, but there are still going to be some genuinely 50s styled thing. For the most part, they accomplish similar aesthetic effects so long as no trace of that 50s flair is present in the post-War world beyond little bits of salvage and scrap.

But still, this raises the question - what exactly do you think is a good model for the future as imagined by the 50s, because clearly (and sensibly, ofc) you're not backing Fo4's imagining in its entirety, and it sounds like you're backing off Chicago in Tactics.

I stopped believing it was a failure, and started seeing it as a deliberate choice—for marketing reasons; it's still heinous abuse of the setting.

Even so... it does seem like the Fallout IP was a purchased 'secret sauce' that they have no idea how to recreate; and they smear it on everything in attempt to make it Fallouty.

Agreed; the Fallout aesthetic was very subtle and particular, and easy to misinterpret and, as you say, smear on absolutely everything. Partly it has to do with the lack of talent on the part of their writing staff, partly it has to do with their obsession with pre-War ruins that make it look as though the bombs dropped 15 years ago so you have plenty of dungeons to explore, and partly it's sort of inevitable with the transition into 3D and the higher level of detail that required.

Still, I maintain: Adamowicz had a very subtle and particular visual style that while not precisely what Black Isle envisioned, is a pretty close, faithful, and good looking interpretation all things considered. His visual sensibility was probably the best part of that game, and had the least dropoff from the originals - and, like everything else in Fo3 that was already pretty low compared dto the originals, it drove off the cliff with 4.

 

[RangerBoo]

There is two things that I actually liked from Fallout 3.
1. Ghouls being a product of just radiation instead of radiation mixed with FEV. Kinda hated that FEV was the be all end all for mutations in the Wasteland. It's was actually a good idea to have some mutants be products of radiation while others are products of FEV.
2. The Pitt DLC. Probably the only Fallout 3 DLC that stayed somewhat close to the spirit of Fallout which is funny as this DLC is the most hated with Bethesda fans. The Pitt had a lot of potential. I believe if Fallout 3 was about The Pitt and took place around the same time as Fallout 1 then Bethesda would have had a half decent Fallout game on their hands.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Ghouls being a product of just radiation instead of radiation mixed with FEV.

Which game (before FO3) had FEV as part of the cause of Ghouls?
___

I did like the sound and visual appearance of V.A.T.S.

I liked Tranquility Lane; though I thought they missed the opportunity to make the Pint Sized Slasher be a Vault-Boy Mask.

 

[SquidWard]

Which game (before FO3) had FEV as part of the cause of Ghouls?

I always thought it was an argued thing.
The Fallout wikia states
“There is some controversy, even among the makers of Fallout games, about the origins of ghouls. While Tim Cain said explicitly that ghouls are only a result of radiation, consistent with an understanding of the science of radiation as it stood during the 1950s, Chris Taylor said that a mix of both radiation and FEV was involved. While Chris Avellone initially supported the latter view in his Fallout Bible, he was later convinced to support the radiation-only version.”

 

[Gizmojunk]

As I understood it, the Ghouls —ALL ghouls— came from Necropolis; vault 12. They were the result of a fluke accident during the war.

Typhon even mentions that there are only 'old ghouls', because they are all sterile, and are the first, and last generation of their kind.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

2. The Pitt DLC. Probably the only Fallout 3 DLC that stayed somewhat close to the spirit of Fallout which is funny as this DLC is the most hated with Bethesda fans. The Pitt had a lot of potential. I believe if Fallout 3 was about The Pitt and took place around the same time as Fallout 1 then Bethesda would have had a half decent Fallout game on their hands.

I've never hear Bethesda fans say they hate the Pitt?

Also, I'd say that the main quest of Point Lookout does feel like a genuine Fallout premise, mainly in premise though, the execution left much to be desired.

And while I do prefer the concept of ghouls as a product of radiation, I really liked in the isometric games how there was an element of mystery to it, and ghouls were seemingly this one freak occurrence that happened in this small corner of the world, whereas in the 3D games it just became this incredibly common occurrence. Though Van Buren would've complicated the freak incident narrative since the Reservation ghouls were supposed to be native to Los Alamos.

 

[Gizmojunk]

 

[SquidWard]

As I understood it, the Ghouls —ALL ghouls— came from Necropolis; vault 12. They were the result of a fluke accident during the war.

Typhon even mentions that there are only 'old ghouls', because they are all sterile, and are the first, and last generation of their kind.

Man, this stuff wasn't really planned out to be honest or at least I don't think it was. But yeah, I agree all ghouls seemed to be from Necropolis only. There were similar mutants though, like Harold and that one guy near the Followers of the Apocalypse. But ghouls seemed to be unique to that location. Of course, that changed.

Spoiler: Hell, from what I've read of the plans with Van Buren that changed.

They at least get a working reproducing ghoul, and there's a whole city of them so it seems like they weren't going to only be from Necropolis

In short, I don't think they wanted to decisively make ghouls unique to Necropolis. Though, it seems that was the initial idea. That GIF isn't showing me that they are unique to Necropolis though. Just saying that ghouls are no longer made and cannot reproduce which Bethesda even followed until Fallout 4 with magical ghoul drugs.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Bethesda made them all Olympic sprinters too. I (as in my own opinion of the game back then) interpreted the vault door malfunction at Necropolis (which might have really been a malfunction before it became cool to make the vaults into experiments) as having an almost HEAVY METAL~esque quality to it; where their collective terror and cultural assumptions about the effects of nuclear war manifested their change into the shambling green monsters; the walking dead. They are also effectively Fallout's version of anti-elves; they remember the previous age, they are effectively immortal, but are ugly, and not at all agile.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I get your view Gizmojunk but I still don't mind more populations of Ghouls across the wasteland.
What I do dislike is that Ghouls are now stereotypical zombies and how quickly humans can be turned into Ghouls.

I am not denying the facts you bring up from Fallout 1 and 2. Just wish it was easier to reconcile with there being more Ghouls in the wasteland.

 

[Gizmojunk]

I dislike the defined cause & effect that has been in introduced into the setting because it diminishes those things left mysterious. While new content is not bad, there is such a thing as bad content; mainly by newcomers who have... well one can't really say they have the wrong idea, not without hard facts on developer intent & opinion (and even those vary wildly from dev to dev), but I will say by those who probably have an incomplete, disinterested, or even just cursory sense of the presented setting.


I have a problem with the new notion of a timeline divergence limiting their technology. I would say that their technology is not limited*, but that whatever they make is always done with a pop-50's future aesthetic. The preference for using tubes (for instance) could just be for radiation hardening; not that they don't have other options.
______________

* But not par with Warhammer 40k of course.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

I did love Fo3's design of Mirelurks, and it made sense: the things that it akes the most sense to lift out of 50s pulp are, afterall, the mutants, and Fo3's guys look like guys in bad rubber suits - but of course, we know they're not guys in bad rubber suits, they look and move very much like a strange creature and just have this uncanny valley quality about them. Then in Fo4, they become utterly uninteresting gigantic crabs.

Same goes for Mirelurk Kings and Mirelurk Hunters - in Fo3, Mirelurk Kings being Snapping Turtles that ere effectively just the creature from the black lagoon worked, them being the weird ugly Deep One piranhas they are now was totally needless. And I really liked that Mirelurk Hunters in Fo3 were hermit crabs, and while I'm not opposed to giant Lobsterlurks (there was even concept art) in Fo4 they were, again, literally just giant lobsters.

Bethesda overwrote literally the only good mutants they invented, outside of Trogs.

 

[Gizmojunk]

I did love Fo3's design of Mirelurks

So did I, come to think of it.

I also liked the —idea— that the Mirelurk king was the Black Lagoon creature; a classic B-movie monster. But in practice it seemed oddly out of place somehow. I guess it's because it wasn't crab-like.