Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
Interesting… did the Master/Unity ever make it to the Glow?
What are some of your unpopular opinions?
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Vault Senior Citizen
Tenebris
i eat H2O
no, they didn't fart south
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
I suppose this is an unpopular opinion, but I don't really care about ultra scientific accuracy with Fallout. I hate the classic game's and Fallout Bible's explanation of FEV being a factor for the reason for mutant life in the wasteland. It's very limiting to California and the West in general when you take classic lore as gospel and probably one of the many lazy reasons Bethesda dropped FEV all over the East as well. I'm perfectly fine with the more general audience belief that just radiation induced mutation creates some of the crazier wildlife and Ghouls (which I know is highly contended in the FEV/Radiation debate) while FEV specifically creates abominations like Super Mutants, Floaters, Centaurs, etc.
If there has to be another factor when it comes to explaining away the wasteland fauna/flora, instead of FEV it should've just been the New Plague since that was a national, possibly global epidemic and doesn't require being near the region of Mariposa during the Great War.
If there has to be another factor when it comes to explaining away the wasteland fauna/flora, instead of FEV it should've just been the New Plague since that was a national, possibly global epidemic and doesn't require being near the region of Mariposa during the Great War.
Tenebris
i eat H2O
you should care about science more than SCIENCE! or you will get things like fallout 3 geck or sierra madre vending machine, too much soft science can hurt the setting if it wasn't so much established like that in the first entry, still i don't mind it, i like psychic power, but they should be FEV only
to be fair the lieutenant getting conclusion of airborne fev make sense to his perspective but the whole games says radiation, hell even the enclave don't mention shit about it, so why believing in it?
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PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
I'm fine with these, they don't bother me to be honest.
Jogre
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
IDK if this is an unpopular opinion here or not, but:
I kinda think a lot of the time when people engage in fandom - They start to develop language to try and talk about things - But then eventually that language kinda takes over and becomes a mental prison - People talk within this very constrained mindset without realising things. I kinda cringe a bit at a lot of fandom discussions, because it kinda feels a lot of the time talking to someone whose more interested in a simulated construction of the thing than the thing itself.
I'm gonna list the examples from, how I see it, least controversial to most controversial
Canon: The argument for using this term is that you need an agreed upon consensus on what really happened in a fictional universe in order to inform future installments, which sure that's fine, but unless you've got a single writer who is very good, contradictions are going to happen, intents are going to clash - You see this a lot in media like Star Wars for example - You have lots of different writers and a lot of movies and comics and games and books and all sorts, so you're going to have cases where an earlier writer has a different view of something than a later one.
But a lot of people can't accept that - When they see a contradiction they're like "Well there must be a TRUE answer" - And so you get this weird appeal to authority developed, where there is a definitive source that goes like "The events of this piece of media are true, the events of this piece of media are false, here is the TRUE state of this fictional world" - But the thing is, that's made up, that's arbitrary, right? - None of this is real, none of it actually exists, it's fictional - The idea of there being a true state of a fictional universe is completely contradictory.
I partially get it - When it comes to fictional universes, you want to think of it as a cohesive world, you want to imagine these events bleeding into each other - But it's like, IDK, thinking some of these stories are "Canon" in the sense of they actually happened in these universe, and some are "Non-Canon" in the sense that they didn't happen just feels unecessary
Faction: This is one that I think has origins in Video Games, and has a lot to do with reputation systems, but really starts to bleed in to how people view worldbuilding in general(I'll talk about Worldbuilding later) - "Factions" has just become part of the accepted lingo of how people talk about Video Games, that you need to have groups with defined names and symbols and ideas and their own special outfits.
Here's the thing - How many times do you use the word "Faction" in real life? - Like, maybe you'll have a Political Party where one group is sabotaging the party as a whole to try and take power within the party structure, or maybe you'll have a civil war where groups aren't particularly easy to define, or you might have a segment of the military turn on another segment of the military during a coup - And you know those are what I'd call "Factions" - But that's such a tiny part of talking about the real world - But for some reason when people talk about Video Games, they believe this is like the core thing to write about.
IDK like let me give you an example: Let's say I'm playing Fallout 1 - Is Junktown a "Faction"? Is Killian and Gizmo's conflict a clash of "Factions", is The Hub a Faction, or are the Caravan Companies "Factions" - I'd say no, Junktown is a Town, Killian is a Mayor/Sherriff, and Gizmo is a slumlord with a bunch of goons, the Hub is a city, the Caravan Companies are part of the economy of that city.
IDK it's like, when engaging with media I prefer to think in terms of Towns, or Countries, or Cities, or Gangs, or Companies, try and think about what the group you're seeing actually is - the term "Faction" I feel conjures a very specific image of what a group is - And using it as the primary way to talk about conflicting groups in video games kinda destroys nuance.
Lore: I've come to be deeply suspicious of the term "Lore" because to me it's usually used for a Wiki Editor approach to media. The term "Lore" carries connotations of reading through ancient tomes, and of learning - But like, is that what media is? Do you learn about media or do you experience media?
IDK, for me how it feels to play a game, what a show or book or anything is trying to convey, are what's important. The idea that the default way of discussing media treats it as learning a series of disconnected facts is odd.
Worldbuilding: It seems to me that everyone wants to write the Silmarillion, whereas nobody wants to write the Hobbit - Everyone wants this big expansive mythology, nobody wants the small self-contained story one guy wrote for his kids where the details come from whatever he wanted that morning.
But the thing is - With a few notable exceptions(Morrowind, for example) - I think a lot of the things I like started off more Hobbit than Silmarillion.
You play Fallout 1 and there isn't this big expanded universe referencing constant events that happened outside of the scope of the story - You occasionally hear offhanded references to historical events, largely to make it feel more like an alive world - But most of what you learn about is directly relevant to the story you're currently playing.
Vault City didn't exist yet, New Reno didn't exist yet, the Vault Experiments didn't exist yet - They were writing for the game they were making, and sure the writers may have had discussions about other parts of the world or why the vaults are the way they are and those may have influenced later decisions - But things became true about the world as soon as they became relevant for the game that was being made - The world was built from the game, not the game from the world.
And from what I understand, the same is true of Star Wars, which is why you get weirdness like novels with completely different ideas of what the Clone Wars were, or abominations like the Holiday Special. Darth Vader being Luke's father, Leia being his sister, what the events of the Clone Wars were or how Anakin became Darth Vader, these are details that were fleshed out as the story was being developed.
IDK, I guess the wider point I'm getting at here is that, I'm a big believer that what matters is the text is the text itself, not the paratext. The world people actually get to explore and interact with matters a lot more than however many hundreds of pages of made up setting details you have.
I'd much rather play a game or watch a show where the writers are willing to rewrite details to fit better with the story they're currently telling, instead of staying consistent with a timeline and world that we haven't even seen yet.
I kinda think a lot of the time when people engage in fandom - They start to develop language to try and talk about things - But then eventually that language kinda takes over and becomes a mental prison - People talk within this very constrained mindset without realising things. I kinda cringe a bit at a lot of fandom discussions, because it kinda feels a lot of the time talking to someone whose more interested in a simulated construction of the thing than the thing itself.
I'm gonna list the examples from, how I see it, least controversial to most controversial
Canon: The argument for using this term is that you need an agreed upon consensus on what really happened in a fictional universe in order to inform future installments, which sure that's fine, but unless you've got a single writer who is very good, contradictions are going to happen, intents are going to clash - You see this a lot in media like Star Wars for example - You have lots of different writers and a lot of movies and comics and games and books and all sorts, so you're going to have cases where an earlier writer has a different view of something than a later one.
But a lot of people can't accept that - When they see a contradiction they're like "Well there must be a TRUE answer" - And so you get this weird appeal to authority developed, where there is a definitive source that goes like "The events of this piece of media are true, the events of this piece of media are false, here is the TRUE state of this fictional world" - But the thing is, that's made up, that's arbitrary, right? - None of this is real, none of it actually exists, it's fictional - The idea of there being a true state of a fictional universe is completely contradictory.
I partially get it - When it comes to fictional universes, you want to think of it as a cohesive world, you want to imagine these events bleeding into each other - But it's like, IDK, thinking some of these stories are "Canon" in the sense of they actually happened in these universe, and some are "Non-Canon" in the sense that they didn't happen just feels unecessary
Faction: This is one that I think has origins in Video Games, and has a lot to do with reputation systems, but really starts to bleed in to how people view worldbuilding in general(I'll talk about Worldbuilding later) - "Factions" has just become part of the accepted lingo of how people talk about Video Games, that you need to have groups with defined names and symbols and ideas and their own special outfits.
Here's the thing - How many times do you use the word "Faction" in real life? - Like, maybe you'll have a Political Party where one group is sabotaging the party as a whole to try and take power within the party structure, or maybe you'll have a civil war where groups aren't particularly easy to define, or you might have a segment of the military turn on another segment of the military during a coup - And you know those are what I'd call "Factions" - But that's such a tiny part of talking about the real world - But for some reason when people talk about Video Games, they believe this is like the core thing to write about.
IDK like let me give you an example: Let's say I'm playing Fallout 1 - Is Junktown a "Faction"? Is Killian and Gizmo's conflict a clash of "Factions", is The Hub a Faction, or are the Caravan Companies "Factions" - I'd say no, Junktown is a Town, Killian is a Mayor/Sherriff, and Gizmo is a slumlord with a bunch of goons, the Hub is a city, the Caravan Companies are part of the economy of that city.
IDK it's like, when engaging with media I prefer to think in terms of Towns, or Countries, or Cities, or Gangs, or Companies, try and think about what the group you're seeing actually is - the term "Faction" I feel conjures a very specific image of what a group is - And using it as the primary way to talk about conflicting groups in video games kinda destroys nuance.
Lore: I've come to be deeply suspicious of the term "Lore" because to me it's usually used for a Wiki Editor approach to media. The term "Lore" carries connotations of reading through ancient tomes, and of learning - But like, is that what media is? Do you learn about media or do you experience media?
IDK, for me how it feels to play a game, what a show or book or anything is trying to convey, are what's important. The idea that the default way of discussing media treats it as learning a series of disconnected facts is odd.
Worldbuilding: It seems to me that everyone wants to write the Silmarillion, whereas nobody wants to write the Hobbit - Everyone wants this big expansive mythology, nobody wants the small self-contained story one guy wrote for his kids where the details come from whatever he wanted that morning.
But the thing is - With a few notable exceptions(Morrowind, for example) - I think a lot of the things I like started off more Hobbit than Silmarillion.
You play Fallout 1 and there isn't this big expanded universe referencing constant events that happened outside of the scope of the story - You occasionally hear offhanded references to historical events, largely to make it feel more like an alive world - But most of what you learn about is directly relevant to the story you're currently playing.
Vault City didn't exist yet, New Reno didn't exist yet, the Vault Experiments didn't exist yet - They were writing for the game they were making, and sure the writers may have had discussions about other parts of the world or why the vaults are the way they are and those may have influenced later decisions - But things became true about the world as soon as they became relevant for the game that was being made - The world was built from the game, not the game from the world.
And from what I understand, the same is true of Star Wars, which is why you get weirdness like novels with completely different ideas of what the Clone Wars were, or abominations like the Holiday Special. Darth Vader being Luke's father, Leia being his sister, what the events of the Clone Wars were or how Anakin became Darth Vader, these are details that were fleshed out as the story was being developed.
IDK, I guess the wider point I'm getting at here is that, I'm a big believer that what matters is the text is the text itself, not the paratext. The world people actually get to explore and interact with matters a lot more than however many hundreds of pages of made up setting details you have.
I'd much rather play a game or watch a show where the writers are willing to rewrite details to fit better with the story they're currently telling, instead of staying consistent with a timeline and world that we haven't even seen yet.
Gizmojunk
Antediluvian as Feck
Sam and Frodo are captured in Mordor by Galactus, who covets the ring for his own. The hobbits are dead, but Galactus looses the ring to Plastic-Man, and the Green Arrow. Nothing wrong with this right? The absence of canon means anything goes; this was the problem of Fallout 2. It was bad enough with its clueless devs. Canon needs defended, or the fantasy turns into hot porridge in the hands.
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Jogre
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
What's wrong with what your describing isn't that it's non-canon, what's wrong with it is that it sucks. It would suck if Tolkien wrote it just as much as it would suck if someone who took over from him wrote it.
I'd say broadly the same with Fallout - Bethesda fans tie themselves in circles trying to say that the old lore and new lore about Jet don't contradict the old stuff. But here's the thing - Even if the two were completely reconcilable, it would still suck, because Jet existing pre-war makes the story boring - It was a lot more interesting before when it was this drug the Mordino Family created to do a hostile takeover of Northern California.
I don't care much for the Canon of Jet, I care that Jet is less interesting now.
By the same metric - I think the idea of Vaults being Social Experiments was a Retcon. You play Fallout 1 and you don't get this sense, like at all - the Vaults are just Vaults - And it retroactively changes the story for them to be so - But future installments have ran with it because it's an interesting concept you can take in a lot of different directions.
I'd say the same about Star Wars broadly - There are parts of the expanded universe that I like, and there are parts I don't like. I don't especially care which parts are canon or which parts are not - When engaging with the media, I'll focus on what I think works and what I think doesn't.
For example - I kinda don't like Wookie Life Debts - I don't mind the Life Debt concept, but I don't like it applied to Wookies. From the Original Trilogy you get the sense of Han and Chewie just being bros who had a lot of adventures once, and they met because Han saved Chewie from slavery. The idea that Chewbacca owes a life debt to Han just kinda cheapens their relationship a bit. I would not mind one bit reading a story that retcons that out of existence.
By contrast - I quite like The Builders from KOTOR. I like the idea of this vast mysterious Empire that viewed itself as the sole lords of nature, that had this cosmological worldview that's completely different from the Jedi. I like them being the inventors of Hyperspace Tavel.
So I don't really think of that in terms of "I like this because it fits with canon, I don't like this because it doesn't" - Rather I think in terms of what I think works and what I think doesn't.
Gizmojunk
Antediluvian as Feck
Sucking is beside the point; the example is meant to be an absurd extreme. It is that it ignores canon, just like anything else some reckless writer might think is cool to add into to the lore.
Canon keeps out Brave Sir Robin, and strongly implies what should and should not exist in the setting.
The first thing that the first artist did on Fallout was make [healthy] trees; and they didn't use them because it's a dead world, and they didn't belong in it.
Tenebris
i eat H2O
and they didn't respond well to it, fallout 1 ending was more interesting when the overseer cared about the vault and the player
i think vault 13 experiments about isolation make sense, too much isolation and paranoia will start, factions will formed and people will doubt about the goal of their home or be paranoid about the outer world, the overseer worked well because the wasteland is different earth than before, that have mutants raiders and super mutants that want to get tight suits cave dwellers with number 13, but implying he did it because of vault tek was lame same for vault 12, what is wrong with i being normal but the door jammed?
Gizmojunk
Antediluvian as Feck
Unlike Fallout 2 (or any later titles) Fallout had a style to it that made it almost like a setting for Heavy Metal Magazine; Fallout was indeed a one-shot world, originally. Vault 12's exposure to the war need not be repeatable at all, just a fluke of the weird way that the people's psychology bends their reality... resulting in ALL ghouls originating at Vault 12. They were Fallout's own anti-elfin race of stiff jointed ugly immortals; the only ones who lived in the world pre-war, and still remember the way it was. ~That's one of the very few things that the Amazon show got right IMO, with Walt Goggin's ghoul remembering his early life.
The idea that it could mundanely happen again (IE. Megaton) is nonsense to me.
The idea that it could mundanely happen again (IE. Megaton) is nonsense to me.
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Norzan
Half-way Through My Half-life
People criticize the lore retcons in the Bethesda Fallouts because they break continuity AND are completely stupid.
Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
This really doesn’t seem to be the right thread for thisbtw. thanks usa for saving lives. the world will never forget.
80 years ago, the A-bomb saved countless lives — but now we must defend against nukes
Next time, it could be an instrument in the hands of an irrational regime, or rival nation bent on the destruction of American power.nypost.com
Tenebris
i eat H2O
the usa saved countless lives by annexing canada
Sn1p3r187
Carolinian Shaolin Monk
Here's one. People dressing like they have no fashion sense 200 years after a nuclear war is dumb. Like if industry has been reestablished in a lot of places. Make clothes that scream 2280's and not 2070's
Mr Fish
Slippy sloppy, The
I mean the bums are Ye-maxxing.
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
I get what you mean, especially when it comes to people still wearing dirty Old World suits and fedoras. At the same time, heavy industry has only really "returned" in the core region of California, and that's after the games take place. Fallout 2 is probably the closest we get to seeing a stabilized "modern" post-war city, and they clearly show signs of industrialization with uniforms and high society/government fashion.
Fallout New Vegas might be post-Fallout 2, but it's in an area of the world that isn't really tamed. Aside from the Strip, the NCR presence in the Mojave is basically all military with mercenaries and prospectors rightfully wearing whatever protects them best or what they can find outside of the comfort of the bigger cities. And Mojave natives probably care more about a good pair of jeans over modern fashion.
Tenebris
i eat H2O
Sn1p3r187
Carolinian Shaolin Monk
Yep
Jogre
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Building on my last post about mental constraints - Specifically in regards to Video Games - One thing I thought about but didn't include because it didn't fit with any particular word:
A lot of RPGs, particularly post New Vegas, seem to be obsessed with this "Pick from one of multiple groups vying for power, and whichever one you pick determines the ending of the game" style of gameplay - And that worked for New Vegas, but if done poorly it often feels misplaced.
Sometimes having one antagonist, and having all players, no matter how divergent the paths they took to get there, face off against the same boss works. Hell sometimes having alternate reasons the player can be trying to achieve the same goal can be more interesting than having total choice to choose who you're fighting for (Do you want to overthrow the villain to save the land, or because you want their power for yourself).
Like in Fallout 2, your initial objective is the G.E.C.K, then your objective is to stop the Enclave - These are clear objectives that give you something to work towards, but in each case them being singular and definitive means that you can have a lot more player freedom around those objectives and where to go, then you would in a "Join one of 4 groups and help them control the world" scenario where content tends to be a lot more regimented around who you join.
A related thing - I'm not actually convinced Open World is the way to go for RPGs, and games that don't have much to show for their Open Worlds would be better off if they did something else. Plus like, when you're playing a Tabletop, typically you don't simulate every single section of a walk, typically it's a matter of - You take a job, you go to where the job is, the DM designs the maps specifically to be fun for what you're currently doing, and then you're done - This works for a reason - Having direct goals, and having areas be designed around what's fun for what you're specifically doing often works better than having an entire world that you wander around in and incidentally end up in areas.
Pillars of Eternity, KOTOR and Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong are all games that I think are stronger by having linear narratives, single antagonists and relatively closed worlds.
Retrofuturism shouldn't mean the culture is the same. Hell, Sci Fi from that era typically shows people in identical jumpsuits rather than anything resembling the clothes of the era (Which I guess the Vaults do)
I kinda like the fashion of the sprites of the first 2 Fallout Games for ordinary people - Poorer people wear rags, more well-off people wear suits or shirts or sometimes dresses - It doesn't feel tied to any particular era, it feels like they're wearing very practical clothes if anything (Big exception is the New Reno families who do not fit this theme) - Plus the spiked metal armour, people decked out in leather, has a Mad Max feel.
I think that's really what the Fallout aesthetic should be for the post-war era - Partially Mad Max, partially practical clothing - With a few more ironed out clothes not tied to any particular era for more well-off people.
A lot of RPGs, particularly post New Vegas, seem to be obsessed with this "Pick from one of multiple groups vying for power, and whichever one you pick determines the ending of the game" style of gameplay - And that worked for New Vegas, but if done poorly it often feels misplaced.
Sometimes having one antagonist, and having all players, no matter how divergent the paths they took to get there, face off against the same boss works. Hell sometimes having alternate reasons the player can be trying to achieve the same goal can be more interesting than having total choice to choose who you're fighting for (Do you want to overthrow the villain to save the land, or because you want their power for yourself).
Like in Fallout 2, your initial objective is the G.E.C.K, then your objective is to stop the Enclave - These are clear objectives that give you something to work towards, but in each case them being singular and definitive means that you can have a lot more player freedom around those objectives and where to go, then you would in a "Join one of 4 groups and help them control the world" scenario where content tends to be a lot more regimented around who you join.
A related thing - I'm not actually convinced Open World is the way to go for RPGs, and games that don't have much to show for their Open Worlds would be better off if they did something else. Plus like, when you're playing a Tabletop, typically you don't simulate every single section of a walk, typically it's a matter of - You take a job, you go to where the job is, the DM designs the maps specifically to be fun for what you're currently doing, and then you're done - This works for a reason - Having direct goals, and having areas be designed around what's fun for what you're specifically doing often works better than having an entire world that you wander around in and incidentally end up in areas.
Pillars of Eternity, KOTOR and Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong are all games that I think are stronger by having linear narratives, single antagonists and relatively closed worlds.
I'll do you one better: How about people start dressing like they're in the 2070s and not the 1950s. The 3D games having everyone wear old timey suits is stupid. I've seen a few people saying "I think New Vegas goes too hard on the Western Theme" but y'know what, having everyone be cowboys honestly feels like a better take on the setting than having everyone dress like they never left the 50s.
Retrofuturism shouldn't mean the culture is the same. Hell, Sci Fi from that era typically shows people in identical jumpsuits rather than anything resembling the clothes of the era (Which I guess the Vaults do)
I kinda like the fashion of the sprites of the first 2 Fallout Games for ordinary people - Poorer people wear rags, more well-off people wear suits or shirts or sometimes dresses - It doesn't feel tied to any particular era, it feels like they're wearing very practical clothes if anything (Big exception is the New Reno families who do not fit this theme) - Plus the spiked metal armour, people decked out in leather, has a Mad Max feel.
I think that's really what the Fallout aesthetic should be for the post-war era - Partially Mad Max, partially practical clothing - With a few more ironed out clothes not tied to any particular era for more well-off people.