Total Revamp Ideas

Y

Yoshee

First time out of the vault
This thread is brainstorming for what is technically possible (assuming the tools are similar to Oblivion) and what is desirable for a total revamp of Fallout 3, under my particular interests of course.

- The story will not be Fallout related, I will reuse art assets of course, but to avoid conflicts with canon it will be an entirely new world history.

- A new world map, the game is not meant as an addition to Fallout 3 but is rather an alternative universe (it is designed to be played from Level 1/2).

Themes I would like to emphasize in the gameplay:

- The wasteland is vast, barren, and for the most part empty. Distances between primary locations will be significantly increased. Secondary locations (surface features like small shacks) will be used to break up the scenery, but many will be empty or have limited loot. Among the ruins though will be some hidden gems.

- Random special encounters will occur on the overworld and internal locations at various spawn points. Luck rolls will play a major factor. Perception rolls will modify encounters to make them easier.

- Ammo and supplies are scarce, characters carry more loot on average, but will also use more of it against you. As much as possible combat will be tweaked to make it harsh, but also consistent with this scarce supply world.

- Tweak skills to make the full range from 1 to 100 have as much meaning as possible. May slow the rate skills grow to make specialization of higher value.

- Make the player feel happy they are even surviving. Not every player needs to be godlike, so difficulty of becoming super-awesome-godlike will be increased. Survival will be harder the farther from civilization you go, but there will be good reasons for taking the risks (and to keep with the theme, sometimes you will march a game day to the west and end up finding nothing whatsoever... the game map will have red herrings built into it so its not just one giant loot hunt).


Some details on the story:

- Multiple story telling styles will be used, my particular targets:

= Hard Science Fiction: Some stories are there to make you think. Try to capture the classic science fiction short story feel in game form, probably reference some 30's-50's sci-fi literature for those who are familiar with the era. Will try to make some original tales along the same lines.

= Dark Irony/Tragedy: Truly terrible stuff happens (or happened) in the game, some may make your dark side laugh, hopefully a couple of times it will make you sad (much harder to make people cry than laugh in my opinion!).

= Survival Theme: We've all seen movies like Castaway, or books of people stuck on pacific islands... to me at least there is some appeal to people just trying to get by without all the conveniences we are used to. Early in the game (in the initial outline) there will be a path that ends up stranding you in just such a situation (easier to find if you fail some luck rolls). Also this game will be particularly unforgiving, even though it completely gimps your character development and limits your ability to do what you want, there is a chance the game will force you into a bad situation and make the game three times harder to complete than a normal playthrough. This game will not be fair.

= Warstory: I like action oriented stories, and soldiers coming together as a team stories. And of course, the old epic war scenario. It will be present in the game, but with my particular twist... that war itself can be a luxury. In the world of the post-apocalypse a pyrrhic victory might be three times worst than hiding in an unexploded atom bomb crater the rest of your life!

= Political intrigue: There will be factions, and factions within factions, there will be lots of room to maneavure your character around in, and sometimes the best answer may just be to shoot everyone in the face.

The hope is to weave all of these different types of story telling together into one game world, more like reading an anthology than a giant novel (or trilogy). There will be more than one 'main quest' and they will branch and intermingle, and there will be a lot of side quests flitting in around and among those.


Next time I post I'd like to describe more about the environment I would like to create, but I'm curious as to any comments others might have. Also I'm interested in gameplay modding in general, I personally think the game is weighted towards 'nerfed beyond all recognition' and is too noobified to experience the full richness of the wasteland, so if you have mods that you think would fit in with this vision I'd like to hear about them. I'm more of a content modder, so if I can get good mods like the oblivion overhaul or MMM to work on the realism/gameplay for me I'd be willing to adopt them and balance my gameplay around them.

Thanks for all ideas/comments, even the 'you sucks!'.
 
i dont mean to rain on your parade, but if we assume that we will get the same tools as oblivion, i dont see alot of total conversions happening

i mean, look at how many oblivion total conversions have been released so far....
 
i would be happy if we just got the ending revamped allowing for further play, combat system revamped, few dozens of new quests, some weapons/armor tweaks, weather and motorbikes+robot ponys.
 
Its not a total conversion, I'm expecting I'll have to reuse most of the art and gameplay (other than cool mods others release and don't mind me incorporating them).

But I keep hearing plot complaints and I think the only way you can fix it is to create a whole new map. It is hard to build up a cool story when you have people camping out in Megaton for most of the game and visiting your expansion of the map just as a looting trip.

The release plan is episodic, so the first release will not have the entire game but should establish all the gameplay mods I want it to incorporate, and from there hopefully I can get into the habit of just publishing further story/map.

The alternative to me is to go off and write a post-apocalypse novel or something, to me its as much of an art project than a game, so I'm hoping to keep my nose down and pound out some good stuff.

What I'm curious about is what other people want in it to make it something they will download and play. I'm assuming others will be making a wealth of mods to the main game so I'd rather not duplicate their work, at the same time I agree that a motorcycle mod would definitely be a valuable addition to my game (especially since I emphasize wide open waste, and I could make acquiring the motorcycle itself a major side quest in the game which has a huge impact on what you can do).

Anyway, I don't mind you mentioning the challenges and lack of likelihood, and I don't want to get people's hopes up too far I guess, but assume that I'm going to throw a boatload of hours onto the project, and that it is going to be an entirely new map or some additional zones on the western side of the map (if I break down and decide to extend the original Fallout 3 universe, obviously it will water down the gameplay experience I think improves the story). If it fails, oh well, you can still use the thread to emphasize aspects you would like in new plot additions to Fallout 3 and maybe someone else will remember it when they make a mod.
 
With the release of the tools, figure I would give another update.

Moving ahead with the idea to make an entirely new world map (or at least filling in some of the void to the east of the DC map).

I'm debating a few major storylines at the moment, wouldn't mind some opinions, since I obviously will be hard pressed to make just one:

1. Alternate Fallout history, occuring between Fallout 1 and 2, except set on the East Coast. DC is a primary location, but I'm stretching the world map significantly, and may even include some nearby major cities. There are two sub-variations I could go with:
a. Maintain Fallout 2, 3 and BOS as 'pseudo-canon' in that they have not happened yet, but they could fit with the results of my game.
b. Ignore subsequent events, that is Fallout 2, 3, and BOS, but maintain larger world canon that was revealed in later titles that happens during/prior to Fallout 1.


2. Go West, leave the DC wasteland as is, but create a new region out west you can explore, within the Fallout 3 canon, but with gameplay rebalanced to my own interests, and storyline that ignores the events in the Capital. There will be a jumpoff point somewhere in the initial tutorial to instantly go to character creation and start off in a Vault within this new territory, the capital wasteland can be reached by traveling east if you really want to play both games together.


3. Completely new world map and storyline, reinvent the backstory of the vaults, mutants, and so on, but reuse the assets. Advantage here is I'm not limited by the Fallout canon, and might make a slightly more original story, but it might be confusing having all this fallout stuff laying around and having to come up with entirely new history of it. For instance, if I make the Enclave good guys, and the BOS the villain, just because that is how I want to use the art.


I am interested in which would get the most playtime from others, not necessarilly the easiest. I am not interested in making you a VATS mod, or a house mod, or a weapons mod, I think it will be pretty unique to create a large content mod and I'm sure others will work on your wishlist items.

In either of the three scenarios, the gameplay is going to be completely rebalanced in a harder direction, and the changes will not be intended to be compatible with the main wasteland in Fallout 3... so if my gun/character/equipment mods make some places impossible in Fallout 3, oh well.

I'm about to start story and location design, I do intend to release a small document about quest types to give up more of the gameplay I intend to create, but I'm not sure whether I want to reveal story content since it might spoil the experience. If people are curious though I can probably create a spoiler section.
 
Well, I thought it'd be cool to make a Fallout 1.5 with the Fallout 3 engine.

Something that takes place shortly after Fallout 1 but before Fallout 2.


Make it take place in the midwest amidst the rolling plains. Would likely make for a fantastic wasteland setting if you model it off of the dustbowl era; few if any crops, so the ground is dry cracked and barren.

Have 3 separate plotlines. 1 for a human, 1 for a Ghoul, and 1 for a Supermutant. The Supermutant is a deserter from The Master's Army. Since there's virtually no communication, he doesn't initially know that the Master is dead. He would start out with some basic equipment including some kind of hood/scarf to hide his face and body. Without something to hide his appearance, most people will shoot at him on sight. With it, they are initially very weary (he's huge, afterall).

The Human would be a Vault dweller leaving a vault. It's a standard theme for Fallout. The nature of the vault he is from could be just about anything. This time though it should NOT be a control vault.

The Ghoul will have similar issue as the Supermutant, however will find a little more acceptance. Haven't thought of a backstory for the Ghoul yet.


Each of the 3 would have different starting locations and different starting equipment. There should be stat modifiers for each of the three. Ghouls should be naturally smarter and more perceptive with less endurance, a max charisma of 3, slightly less strength, but total immunity to radiation and poison. Supermutant would also be immune to radiation but have an intelligence penalty and big charisma penalty. They would have higher strength and endurance though. Supermutant shouldn't be able to use 1 handed weapons (sausage fingers). There should be strength requirements for big guns and their damage would be increased. Perception should once again factor into accuracy at range.

The three plotlines should intertwine and end at the same result with different choices for endgame.
 
My idea of total conversion is a bit ambitious.
I 'ld make another post apocalyptic world, where the story takes place on an island (i hate it when i get the world borders turn back message). This alternate world somehow got advanced to the point of having robots, computers and energy weapons in the mid 50s. There was a malfunction with a mainframe that controlled several nuclear warheads, which launched them into ussr. Ussr retaliated and the world came to an end. You wake up from a cryogenic chamber in an underground base some years later, to find a strange world outside...
 
I have considered multiple starting points and allowing play as a mutant, ghoul, etc. I don't see why it would not be possible, I'm sort of waiting for someone else to do that mod and would likely just ask them if I could use it and adapt it.

My plotlines would not be separate though, they would share a large amount of sync although the different starts will have various advantages and chance of certain encounters will be more likely. That it mostly because I'm focusing on telling a world story, rather than a planned A, B, C path like Fallout 3 seems to have... I'm trying to flesh out the dialog trees so they are less player-centric and contain real concerns of the individuals. So you will find some places where people will shoot you rather than waste their time on you, or blab incessantly about meaningless local issues, but won't know anything about your larger quest...

Either route I go it will be unlikely I can make a natural border on every edge, particularly since the episodes will only release portions of the world map at a time. In my opinion it is better to design the best possible content within the borders, and have the annoying 'turn back' message, then put unnatural constraints on the design.


Right now I'm putting a slight edge of Fallout 1.5 as the leading option, please vote or explain your dream game (in terms of main story approaches).
 
Yoshee said:
I have considered multiple starting points and allowing play as a mutant, ghoul, etc. I don't see why it would not be possible, I'm sort of waiting for someone else to do that mod and would likely just ask them if I could use it and adapt it.

My plotlines would not be separate though, they would share a large amount of sync although the different starts will have various advantages and chance of certain encounters will be more likely. That it mostly because I'm focusing on telling a world story, rather than a planned A, B, C path like Fallout 3 seems to have... I'm trying to flesh out the dialog trees so they are less player-centric and contain real concerns of the individuals. So you will find some places where people will shoot you rather than waste their time on you, or blab incessantly about meaningless local issues, but won't know anything about your larger quest...

Either route I go it will be unlikely I can make a natural border on every edge, particularly since the episodes will only release portions of the world map at a time. In my opinion it is better to design the best possible content within the borders, and have the annoying 'turn back' message, then put unnatural constraints on the design.


Right now I'm putting a slight edge of Fallout 1.5 as the leading option, please vote or explain your dream game (in terms of main story approaches).
Click to expand...


Well, I hadn't completely fleshed out a plotline, mostly just the setting.

Brotherhood of Steel wouldn't be in it at all. They might be mentioned by one or two people but wouldn't be in it. I don't really like how Fallout 3 made the BoS more important and turned it into "BoS = Good, Enclave = Evil". Enclave wouldn't be in this plot either.

Actually I'm thinking the main plotline would involve an organized army of Raiders. This army is led by a guy who wants to form a new empire. There should be two fundamentally different paths: help him conquer the wasteland, or defeat his faction entirely. On the help him front, the ending variations should include one where you are betrayed by him, one where you help him and lead as an advisor, and a third where you kill him and usurp his power. On the other side, there would be the possibility of uniting various communities against him under your leadership, uniting them under someone else's leadership (perhaps with different leaders of different communities being options), or by defeating him by yourself and letting his band dissolve into chaos.

The endings should be largely ironic. Siding with this raider would obviously involve many acts of evil. However if you side with him, the ending should go on to say that civilization began to flourish again under his rule. If you usurp power, it should be similar under your own rule. If you unite the waste against him, the alliance should dissolve shortly after in bickering feuds, resulting ultimately in more bloodshed and chaos for years to come.
 
By no BOS do you mean you would prefer non-Fallout canon, or Fallout 1.5 canon since BOS would not exist on the east coast at that time?
 
Another option I should put on the table is that this can occur before Fallout 1, I was considering an option where it is very soon after the war.

This actually drastically alters how I would structure things though... say I aimed for about 20 years after war (2097):

(contains spoilers of Fallout 1/2)

[spoiler:778fa58686]
1. This is about five years before the Master is created.

2. Vaults are really just starting to open for the most part, this is the time period where Vault City, Hub, Boneyard are created.

3. About 55 years prior to Fallout 1.

4. Settlements of vault dwellers will just be starting, whereas, survivors of the war may have managed to scrap out an existence. The amount and size of towns would be smaller.

5. There would be a lot more salvage available, and a lot more dead things, as opposed to wandering mutant beasts.

[/spoiler:778fa58686]

So I guess it is an option, but the world would need to change dramatically to reflect the timeframe. Radiation hazards would be more important, and civilization would be a bit more raw, but their would be fewer places of major development and a lot more loneliness (which could be a good thing). The biggest issue is I would have a hard time populating enemies into the world, since it would be hard to justify where they came from.
 
Yoshee said:
By no BOS do you mean you would prefer non-Fallout canon, or Fallout 1.5 canon since BOS would not exist on the east coast at that time?
Click to expand...

By no BoS I mean, they were just a minor faction on the west coast in Fallout 1, and barely existed anymore in Fallout 2. So they would have absolutely no place whatsoever in the Midwest shortly after the events of Fallout 1.

Keep in mind that the east coast BoS of Fallout 3 that left the west coast WITHIN Elder Lyons' lifetime. Fallout 2 takes place 80 years after Fallout 1 and Fallout 3 takes place 30 years after that. Given Elder Lyons' age, it would be accurate to say he and his group left the west coast likely sometime around the events of Fallout 2.

Since this would take place BEFORE Fallout 2, the Brotherhood of Steel would not exist in the midwest.


All new factions should be invented for this installment.

Supermutants should appear here or there, but they should be few and far between. Any such supermutants would be deserters, and not part of the Masters army. Perhaps there might be a very small community of them somewhere on the map. If so, they would probably set up a highly fortified area and be extremely distrustful of outsiders. They would not necessarily be instantly hostile. If the PC is a Supermutant, he would have to first prove he is not an agent of The Master before the community would trust him.

Ghouls would be about as common as in Fallout 1/2 or maybe less so. They won't have their own city though. Instead they would be found on the outskirts of other communities, treated like leppers.


I liked the idea of the Reavers in Fallout: Tactics. The concept is pretty cool. I think it'd be good if some faction like them were created. Perhaps a vault. A vault filled with cyborgs. Would have to give it a 50s flavor though, so no terminators and no cyberpunk. Oh, and they would be very long-lived due to the machinery, but their organic material fails eventually, so they raid places to kidnap people to use to harvest organs and stuff. That'd give a great opportunity for multiple ways to solve problems with them. You could become one, you could find some cloning tech for them that would allow them to stop harvesting existing humans, or you could set it up so you give them extra info on the defense of various settlements so they can harvest more people more easily.

Slavery should be fairly rampant, but there shouldn't be a central hub for slavers, nor need there be a guild. Slavers should be found in virtually every settlement. Perhaps 1 or 2 settlements would ban slavery or something. There would also be an anti-slavery movement in the wastes run by run-away slaves.


Meh, this is all pipe dremaing anyway. Total conversions are never finished.
 
It seems like a Fallout 1.5 is the winner.

I'm going to go with an East Coast setting, with all pre-war/war lore, and Fallout 1 events intact, however everything that occurs in Fallout 2 and after is fair game. Since this is on the East Coast and given the distances involved, the collision potential between Fallout 2 or BOS canon should be limited, but Fallout 3 will probably have massive conflicts.

Least of which will be the design and history of the Capital area.

Some initial things that are falling out of my head:
1. The Brotherhood will not exist in this time, however, you will see their power armor, since it is technically pre-war tech... there will be a faction (or factions) using such tech, so don't be surprised or confused that they are not the BOS when you see them!

2. Given that there are two Enclave stories already, I want to avoid them as a primary villain. They may have a cameo at best in the game.

3. I'm not recreating Fallout 3, my version of the capital will still be a scaled version of DC, but I'll be taking significant liberties with it. Since I'm moving the setting in time, you will not be able to access the original content from my game.

4. Creation of new character art will be very limited, I can do pretty nifty architecture in 3d editors, but I can never get humans/animals to look right. I'll be lucky if I can make a decent enough statue of liberty if I manage to get to New York! This may impact my ability to create new faction art, I do plan to create many new factions, but they'll probably differentiate based on equipment and 'playing style' more than anything.

5. Since I'll be working while the expansions are released, anything added to the backhistory during them may not make it into my game.

6. My current thoughts definitely conflict with FO 3, but I'll try to retain some elements, such as a couple notable locations like Megaton or Tenpenny Tower.

7. Vault lore as revealed in FO 3 may be tweaked, the issue is there are a number of vaults all in relatively close proximity for the scale I want to aim for, so rather than doing prior history version of the existing vaults, I will probably just explore other vault histories/experiments.

8. I guess in general, don't expect anything I make to be consistent with FO 3, I will not have the time to retcon such a massive game and still create entirely new content that I really want to. At the same time, I don't want to avoid the DC area especially given all the art is based on it, so there will be conflicts.
 
Doesn't have to be the DC area.

Personally I'd recommend something further south, like Georgia.

I wouldn't recommend further north unless you want to try to tackle the Commonwealth or whatever faction it was that had androids.

Personally I'd highly recommend Midwest. It has great potential for that dusty barren wasteland feel.
 
Nullifidian said:
Doesn't have to be the DC area.
Click to expand...

Doesn't have to be a USA area there are no there places in world? kinda boring always usa why cant it be Japan for example or Europe and no stupid vaults...
 
I just lost an epic length post on this, grumble.

Submit your ideas, try to include the following:
- North, south, east, west borders... these define a rect on mapquest/google maps that you would like to suggest.
- Assume I'm using art contained entirely within FO3, no new art. There will be new art, but very sparingly used, and yes this rules out many foreign mods.
- Fallout 1.5 lore is set upon, so be consistent with that.
- Mention major cities located within the region you defined.
- Mention general notes about the geography and advantages of the region in terms of world map or story design.
- Remember this will be scaled, so think of a map 4 times the size of FO3 (but a lot more empty), and whether your region would adequately fit such a scale. So no, all of the US would be atrocious because you would take five steps and go from New york to Boston.

I'm sad you couldn't see the massive post I had before, but I'm way too busy to replicate it.

I'm deciding on a setting sometime this week, ideas now or never folks!
 
Yoshee said:
I just lost an epic length post on this, grumble.

Submit your ideas, try to include the following:
- North, south, east, west borders... these define a rect on mapquest/google maps that you would like to suggest.



- Assume I'm using art contained entirely within FO3, no new art. There will be new art, but very sparingly used, and yes this rules out many foreign mods.
- Fallout 1.5 lore is set upon, so be consistent with that.
- Mention major cities located within the region you defined.
- Mention general notes about the geography and advantages of the region in terms of world map or story design.
- Remember this will be scaled, so think of a map 4 times the size of FO3 (but a lot more empty), and whether your region would adequately fit such a scale. So no, all of the US would be atrocious because you would take five steps and go from New york to Boston.

I'm sad you couldn't see the massive post I had before, but I'm way too busy to replicate it.

I'm deciding on a setting sometime this week, ideas now or never folks!
Click to expand...

Map locations...

I recommend somewhere in Kansas.

I'd say a 50 by 50 mile square (or maybe 60 by 60) with Leavenworth at the northeast corner and Topeka at the southwest corner. That'd give you a military base and a couple major cities to work with. There's a decent sized lake in there. The terrain is largely flat.

Leavenworth has a ton of potential. A TON.

Leavenworth not only has a big state prison, it also houses the DOD's only Maximum Security prison (which is seperate from Leavenworth prison).

It wouldn't be totally unreasonable to have a plotline where the prisoners took over during the war and now their descendants hold Leavenworth as a massive fortress. With 2 prisons close to each other, you could have dual riots or something where both prisons were overthrown in the chaos. Each has spawned its own Raider group who now work together with a tentative alliance. Being raiders, trust isn't so easy to come by. The USDB, being military based houses better trained raiders with more equipment. The Prison on the otherhand has greater numbers.

These two locations could be the primary sources of conflict in Fallout 1.5.

Fort Leavenworth itself should be a bombed out radioactive shell; hit by a precision nuke. Underground however there should be major facilities housing military tech. No one can get in though due to the massive radiation. Perhaps there could even be deathclaws or something in there. Maybe a mechanized security force. Maybe even a crazy group of ghouls armed to the teeth and full of high tech weapons and armor.

On the opposite corner of the map you'd have Topeka Kansas. The center would look a little like the DC ruins do in some areas. Topeka has about 100K people currently. Since the bombs drop in 2077, you can take some liberties with the size, growing it or shrinking it however you want. It should be filled with squatters, scavengers, and generally hostile folk.


Outside Shawnee in the southeast corner, there is currently a big golf course it looks like. Perhaps nearby could be the location of a Vault housing rich folks. For a bit of humor, you could place the vault entrance underneath the 18th hole of the golf course. You could keep the golf course with the excuse that the grass is actually artificial turf.

I wouldn't recommend having more than 2 Vaults. Fallout 3 was somewhat ridiculous with the number of Vaults; though it IS the DC area so I suppose that could explain the vault density.

Anyway, those are some ideas.
 
Good idea.

More data on scale considerations, I'm working my basic unit of scale around the basic concept of the game, lonely wasteland where places take a while to get to.

So calculation is part time and some estimation factors:
= game day length:
- 10 - 30 minutes per day, adjusting the day/night cycle to match.
- Estimate 30 days per month.
- I'm aiming to rebalance things so sleeping is actually important, so assume a third of every day is spent resting for hp.
- So, 200-600 minutes of game time per month.
- My estimate of a player's day is basically 8 hours sleep, 12 hours 'stuff', 4 hours miscellaneous daily routines.

= travel distance per day (before vehicles):
- assume a walking speed of 2 miles per hour
- 12 hours 'walking' per day, ignore encounters.
- 24 miles per game day, round er up to 25.
- So if a game character says, go 4 days west, it should be roughly 100 miles away.


So right now, my estimates are to focus on one month of game time per episode, and a ten episode release arc. I want to emphasize that travel is not instant, so... lets say each episode is a 3 day journey square on each side. This means any point to any other point is 4 days march max.

My approximate scale then would be about 75x75 square mile per episode. Obviously it needs to be tweaked for gameplay considerations, so anywhere from 50x50 to 100x100 is up in the air, mostly tied to the length of the game day.

One thing I guess i need info on again is how long the game day should be, if an NPC tells you go two days west to a setllement, and you start walking, do you want to get there in 20 minutes, or an hour (10 vs 30)? After walking an hour in real time would you have rather crossed the distance between:

50 miles, the distance between say Topeka and Kansas City.
150 miles, the distance between columbus and Pittsburgh.

I like the idea of a Kansas scenario though, it would be about one or two chapters in my plan (about 20 gameplay hours, with the ultimate intent to deliver 100 hours). It could make a good starting location, but I think the final world map is going to be around the dimensions of 150x200 miles up to 300x400.

The first is roughly DC to New York, the second Washington to Boston, or my Midwest scenario (centered around Michigan basically).
 
Note, can tweak the assumption of 'three day journey per border' down to two (50x50) or one day (25x25). However, I kinda want to boost the scale away from being walked across in one day, since a common complaint is that you can walk from one end of Fallout 3 to the other in a relatively trivial amount of time.

I'm going to give those users what they asked for, expanses of vast wasteland and the fact that not having the next city over the next hill means you have to actually think before you set out into the wastes. So the problem with 25x25 is that everything is within a day of everywhere else, so I need either a really long day or a very dense gameworld.
 
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