Bradylama said:
Well that's just the thing. Druggies are aloud to live because Society allows them to. People that take drugs have the benefit of a capitalist society which provides food on demand (and money) and a factor that takes pity on them, and feeds them, should their habits get the better of them.
Not Really, specially in poor countries, society does little to help worse off people, specially if they are recognized as addicts. And besides begging, addicts usually have a big "aversion" to making use of the "pity factor", because they fear being treated.
Bradylama said:
Jet addicts shouldn't even survive a few days in Fallout. Wouldn't that be sufficient enough to not take drugs? The miners have the companies to take care of them, but there's nobody to take care of the druggies in New Reno.
If you start to take drugs in the Wasteland, you will die. That's why the prospect of addiction is such a deterrent to using narcotics in the game world. The need to harbor the addiction, and the horrible effects of withdrawal illustrate how difficult it would be for the jet heads to survive.
Isn't Jet just a fancy, politically correct way of using Crack in a game? I mean, it's a very cheap, very addictive, easily accessible, powerful stimulant. And look at the people who are usually crack addicts: It's usually the poor folks, who forego "basic" needs such as Feeding and clothing to indulge in their vice.
And look at some of the most violent countries today: Sierra Leone (Is that spelled correctly?), Somalia, Haiti a few months ago.... These places live in a kind of society that closely resembles what i imagine the wastelands would be outside of the more organized cities: Generalized violence, Effectivelly no Government... And if you look at the Drug use among those people, You'll be sure to find the addiction rates are much higher than in other parts of the world.
I know most of the chaos in Sierra Leone is due to fighting over diamonds, wich is supported by the big capitalist world outside africa, so this would be an impossibilty in Fallout (unless they were fighting for something with a bigger practical utility, like a military base or something). Somalia is a much better example (specially in the late 80's): The fighting is usually stimulated by tribal warlords fighting over a litteral wasteland, There's no jobs, no industry, almost no farming, most people are starving and living below the line of absolute poverty, and still, the majority of the male population used A stimulant Drug (it's a typical plant, dried and then chewed) that's quite addictive and is said to improve their performance in combat (like jet).
Bradylama said:
Then again, Fallout 2 was much more "evolved" in a sense from the situation in Fallout. But that still doesn't mean that Jetheads should be running around wherever you go.
When the Families lose customers, how are they going to survive? They can't.
I do agree It feels a little overcrowded, but here you can use the same excuse that's been used for every major city: You only see the center of the city, where most of the interesting things take place. The amount of gambling that takes place is a bit too much in my opinion, and anyway, each family had a "niche" to get money from besides gambling, the mordinos had Jet, The wrights were by far the biggest on booze, Salvatore had his shady dealing with the enclave and Bishop had the power-play between NCR and Vault city.
All in all, i gotta agree it's not very post apocalyptic, but that doesn't mean it isn't justfiable in the game world (besides Golden Globes, that was stupid, maybe they should've made a porn Theater), and in my opinion still "felt" better than SanFran or the NCR.
