What do you think about the Pip-Boy 3000?

Wumbology said:
why is the Pip-Boy 3000's inventory management bad?
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I, for one, didn't like the fact that I need to open a PDA in order to access my stuff. It breaks my immershun.
 
Wumbology said:
why is the Pip-Boy 3000's inventory management bad?
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I'll start with the first response, and use it as a basis to work off of, which was:
Atomkilla said:
I, for one, didn't like the fact that I need to open a PDA in order to access my stuff. It breaks my immershun.
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Inventory Management is a core gameplay aspect that can alter a player's awareness of the game around them, and it can impact how they react to the game. This is the more central idea of "immersion", no matter how buzz-word the term becomes and how much of its actual meaning becomes lost. If the system is irritating to use, you'll always be reminded that you're playing a game. If you have a digital interface between you and... what you have RIGHT NEXT TO YOU, that'll likewise break your suspension of reality. You want a mechanic that's both ergonomical as well as practical. Efficient, but not out of place. The Pipboy3000 is neither of these things, although it tries to be both.

Let me provide a few examples as to why that is.

In the spiritual successor to Demon's Souls, Dark Souls had many UI and functionality "upgrades", many of which were total improvements, but several of which were outright downgrades. The Warehouse system was one such example of it getting worse from prequel to sequel. In Demon's Souls, the player's inventory had to be moderated because they could only carry so much weight, so they could leave it with Stockpile Thomas, an NPC whose sole role was to hold your stuff for you while you were out adventuring, and he was the most endearing and beloved NPC in the entire game for that reason. The tiny miniquest where you brought him his daughter's hairpin to let him know she had died was just characterization icing on top of an already dear character cake. His stockpile, also, was segregated into a large list of sub categories, so finding what you'd stored away was very easy. Both of these things increased immersion because Thomas was a character taking your stuff and holding onto it since you couldn't hold it all at once, which doesn't alert you to the fact that this is a game, and as a person whose singular duty is to hold onto things, the ergonomical interface to access your stored goods both left players feeling convenienced and the whole process made sense as Thomas WOULD most likely organize your belongings particularly, seeing as that's all he ever does. Since it wasn't irritating to utilize and it never felt out of place, the player's sense of fantasy was maintained.

In Dark Souls, there was no NPC to keep your stuff (if Thomas died, your goods were gone FOREVER, thus increasing your awareness of game reality, not being distracted by actual reality) you just threw them into the ether of Bonfires, and could extract them from this mystical nether just as quickly. However there was no weight restriction, so short of having fewer items to sort through, there was no purpose in storing ANYTHING in the game. So, both being pressed by the questions of "why bother since I don't need to?" and "HOW does that even make sense?" would distract the player, and remind them that they were just playing a silly game. On top of that, the system removed many of those convenient sub-categories that Thomas used to sort your belongings, so when you were sitting at a Bonfire and attempting to reclaim some important consumables or even armor, you had to wait while sifting through dozens upon dozens of other items you WEREN'T looking for, in order to at last locate the one in which you were. It was a change that many players complained about and reacted, quite appropriately, with frustration at how the system had gotten "worse" when everything else had improved. These things didn't break the game and make it unplayable by any means, but they did leave negative impressions on gamers, and that's always a bad thing. The less the game reminds you of its flaws, the less you realize that you're playing the game, and that's important.

The Pipboy 3000 suffers strongly from being totally impractical, because it does so many things (and doesn't do them very well), yet it has no purpose in having ANY of those responsibilities. Being used as a GPS and map make a lot of sense, as do task management properties. But medical application of chems or first aid? Backpack management? Why does a wrist-mounted computer stand between the player and these things? It doesn't make sense. In striving to be as ergonomical as possible, and providing enough menus and sub-categories as can be so that it's "simple and easy" to navigate, it does the player a further disservice in BEING this beastly, all-in-one impossible phenomenon. There's TOO MANY different menus, so on top of the fact that they're unlikely, they're unnecessary as well, and that just slaps the player in the face with an apparent flaw, reminding them, "Oh yeah, I'm playing a game." Similarly, being able to "pause" everything when checking your Pipboy does the same thing. In the previously mentioned titles, even accessing the GAME MENU didn't pause the game, so if you were distracted by changing your options while in a dangerous place, you could die due to your carelessness. That ever-present danger didn't allow for the player to think "Well it's just a game, so if I hit Start it'll pause everything". It's a similar reason as to why, despite being such an excellent title, Bioshock was criticized so much for hacking causing ALL action to pause until the player was finished. Fallout Tactics doesn't pause anything while you rummage through your inventory, so in the heat of combat you feel a sense of purpose while trying to find different ammo types of other weapons you want to equip. Distracting you by the gameplay keeps the play immersed in the game, while distracting them with needless and flawed features reminds them it's just a game. Worse if those features aren't even very enjoyable.

I don't like having to pull up my Pipboy 3000 while I'm playing. There's no enjoyment in perusing it. There's too much to sift and sort through, so I don't even notice that the buttons are on "the wrong side" of the thing; I'm already distracted by how bad it is. Others have said it before, but I support the idea that backpacks were slot-based not at all unlike Diablo II so to both address bulk in what you carry as well as weight. If the game had that, in a separate menu, I wouldn't always be consulting my Pipboy, I'd be holding the ACTUAL items as I move them around in my backpack. The idea that some phantasmical grids are only allowing me to place this large piece of armor in a certain arrangement might not even tip me off to the everpresent "Oh right, not real, game" notion, if it was pulled off right. But always pulling up the Pipboy to do EVERYTHING just reminds me of that, constantly. It's not ergonomical at all for EVERYTHING to be collapsed into one place, and it doesn't provide "easy access", either. The Pipboy 3000, for these reasons, isn't broken and unusable, but its failing can't be ignored. They're bad.
 
Wumbology said:
why is the Pip-Boy 3000's inventory management bad?
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No inventory sorter of any kind. Bethesda make games where loot scavenging is a BIG part of the game and after all this time items are still listed only in alphabetical order. Completely idiotic.
 
I always thought it convenient that the 3000 had a Geiger Counter. There were many different versions of the Vault Dweller's Survival Guide which shows that Vault-Tec wasn't sure what way the world would end. If the 3000 has a Geiger Counter, then why not other things like showing if you have any sort of disease. In FONV we saw that the Pip-Boy doesn't tell you when you get poisoned. Even then, how does it know how irradiated you are just by having it sit on your arm. You need to wave a Geiger Counter over your whatever you're testing to make it work.
 
Say Apple! said:
If the 3000 has a Geiger Counter, then why not other things like showing if you have any sort of disease.
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For a start, complexity. A geiger counter is fairly simple, while medical diagnosis, specially of unknown diseases (the ones most relevant to the topic "we don't know how the world will be") is not, not in reality, and I'm almost sure not in Fallout. The value seen on Vault City's medical installations leads me to think that.
 
Well the 3000 also has the ability to magically know what the currency of the Wasteland is when you're in 101. It also knows the value of stuff somehow, it also knows the name of mutated creatures in the Wasteland.
 
I think the Pip-Boy 3000 is alright the way it is... I've always played Fallout 3 on the console though, so I don't know how it is for the PC. I'm assuming there's better inventory management options through the use of mods and such. But I do question how it knew some of the names of creatures that you haven't encountered yet. For example, you don't see Deathclaws in the Vault. So how does it know to call the hand a Deathclaw hand? Oh well, maybe I'm over thinking it...
 
Wumbology said:
So did the 2000.
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Actually it doesn't. In Fallout 2 you don't have a Pip-Boy when you go through the Temple of Trials. It doesn't handle inventory management or targeting systems like the 3000 does. The 2000 also doesn't show you where people are without the motion sensor. It also shows that the 2000 shows the names of all creatures as when you meet Wanamingos in random encounters the Chosen One thinks they're aliens.
 
3000 isn't that bad. actually it's convenient but I hate it because with 3000, I can't wear left gauntlet.
 
Wumbology said:
Say Apple! said:
Well the 3000 also has the ability to magically know what the currency of the Wasteland is when you're in 101. It also knows the value of stuff somehow, it also knows the name of mutated creatures in the Wasteland.
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So did the 2000. That's not a fault, that's game mechanic.
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Oh did it really? Pray tell, where did the Pipboy 2000 display the value of items, in caps/coins numbers? Where did the Pipboy 2000 tell me what I should EXPECT to get for a Combat Shotgun versus how much I was being offered for it at the Gun Runners? Where did the Pipboy 2000 relegate as a notation for your caps/coins amidst its interface, because it knew you were going to amass many of them?

The Pipboy 2000 was appropriately a limited apparatus for the player's use. Hell, most beginner players went the whole game without EVER using it, because they weren't even aware of it. It had a map that showed an incredibly rudimentary layout of your immediate surroundings, and only large obstructions/walls, nothing more. It assisted you with task management, and it had a large topographical map of a specific region bound to each specific Pipboy 2000, and they required manual updating- either by data added from third parties, or by mapping it out by the user themself -they didn't magically know a thing. Lastly, it had a clock. That was it. The Pipboy 2000 didn't interact with your items whatsoever, and your caps/coins were an ITEM (a pile of them) in your inventory, not some number you could always check kept at a constant tally in some arbitrarily convenient corner of your Pipboy. It didn't know how much radiation poisoning you had undergone. It didn't know, despite being a pre-war device, what post-war currency was, nor did it catalog it. The original Pipboy 2000 was NOTHING like the fan fiction monstrosity that Bethesda conjured up.

What you got right was that there were game mechanics in the Pipboy 2000 that weren't part of its actual use. The clock was just a clock, and setting an alarm didn't magically lull you to sleep until it woke you up. That was a game mechanic. But that's not what you were arguing, either.
 
Why do you care? Well, anyways... I simply love the physical design. The 2000 is composed of some, what, 6 screens for various inventory/maps/character/speech management... it simply doesn't make sense how the Vault Dweller or Chosen One carry all those around.
Now, the 3000 was excellent in terms of pure, physical concept: a wrist-mounted computer, with all the info you need. It is dominated more by the physical and 3D need for a plausible device, whereas the 2000 was more so for the game mechanic.

The 2000 is a conglomerate of bulky screens to detail all the info the 3000 does with a single CRT monitor. Now, besides the ergonomics and actual design of these various screens (SnapSlav has detailed how the 3000 falls flat), Bethesda's model is simply put, a more real-world device that makes more sense.

If I were to design the 3000's inventory system, I would have made a system more like the 2000's, where items are placed into two slots to be interacted with, as opposed to interacting with items through the UI. Time would pass normally when it is open, (or maybe slowed down slightly

improve the UI, keep the physical design. Just my two cents.
 
The 2000 doesn't carry anything of that, Wumbology. Neither inventory, nor characters, nor speech management are managed by the Pipboy 2000, and woulnd't make sense at all if it does; you don't talk through your pipboy with people, it would be really alienating if you do that. I don't get why the 3000 comes with a radio even. I mean, it's thought to aid in the revival of society, not to be something that will last after it's rebuilt. If it's for survival, it should at least be a transceptor, not only a receptor of radio. If it's before society's built again, then one shouldn't expect radio stations to work, so the Pipboy having a radio receptor makes even less sense.
 
Anyone here ever played S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?
If you did, you probably know about PDA present in game.

I don't see a reason why Bethesda didn't make Pipboy 3000 akin to that device plus an inventory.

It would me more logical, practical, and from an artistic point of view, would offer various opportunities for design, and on top of it all, would be more advanced than 2000 - it's a 3000 after all.

I personally don't mind the fact that Pippboy went from 2000 to 3000 - I mind the fact that 3000 could've been a lot better, and that it brought on something as horrible as Pimpboy 3000.
 
Akratus said:
http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/38844

The Pip-Boy 3000? It never happened. . . .

*Jedi Mind Trick Gesture*
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I would use that mod if it weren't so buggy, it always cocks up animations for me, like equipping weapons and putting the thing away pulling a rifle out causes it to be on the other side of the screen for a few seconds before fixing itself, and when you put it away, my characters arm spins around then shoves it in his pocket.

And the wrist mounted version has a shitty texture.
 
AlphaPromethean said:
Just out of curiosity SnapSlav, how exactly would you have designed the Pip-Boy 3000 and the Inventory system?
[[EDIT:]Whoops,sorry Wumbology,I got you and SnapSlav's names mixed up.]
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Oh, I see, you were asking ME. Well that question comes with a loaded answer, so you won't get some kind of direct "this solves everything!" response. You'll just get a tiny peak into my psychotic little mind for a brief moment.

I've said before, on multiple occasions, that various other RPGs have enamored me so much in their executions of various mechanics, themes, and whatnot that I would have longed for a FO3 and FONV that didn't resemble the finished products we received AT ALL. Like I Am Alive and Demon's Souls it would possess a stamina system which would integrate the real time game with its stat-based character system. Like I Am Alive and Diablo II, it would have an inventory consisting of a grid with a weight limit, so that both bulk and weight would restrict your ability to hoard, and like classic Fallout, you would only be able to walk without running if you were mildly encumbered, but you would be rendered immobile if you hoarded TOO excessively. Like Lineage II, your character equipment would be divided into multiple bodily sections, so that your armor would allow for more customization, giving the wasteland musch needed variety. Like many good RPGs, it would be third person ONLY, because no amount of "immersion" provided by first person perspective could help if you limit the game to an FPS with RPG elements.

The Pipboy 3000 would have no connection to your character screen or inventory screen, just as the Pipboy 2000 had no connections to them to begin with. Aesthetically I couldn't care less what it LOOKED like. I didn't mind the wrist-mounted computer idea when I first read about it, and I swallowed Bethesda's explanation that it was the 3000 series, so that's why it was different from the hand-held device we were familiar with. But impossible to remove without severing the arm? Uh, no. That was an unnecessary cop-out answer shoved into the game to give you a reason that you wouldn't get rid of it. Not, oh I dunno, a simple, logical reason like, "This thing is TOO convenient, so I DON'T WANT TO GET RID OF IT!!!" Thematically relevant is the major change I would give to the Pipboy 3000, and that would include removing 80% of its features, because thematically they'd have no reason to exist. It would keep its map, it would keep its task management. That would be all you really need it for. Things like a built-in geiger counter would have to be upgrades, not something naturally included into the device. If it was going to have an interface telling the player that they had broken limbs, that would ONLY have a viewing function, as would all of the Pipboy 3000's functions. It wouldn't be the interface through which you applied medication, that would be handled in the inventory. If wouldn't be the interface through which you kept track of your caps, that would be handled in the inventory.

And of course, it wouldn't pause a damn thing. If you were lockpicking, or hacking, or perusing your inventory or your Pipboy, the game would remain unpaused, because life doesn't just stop to let you fumble with something (a welcomed change in Bioshock 2 from its predecessor). The game and its features would be realistic without abandoning enjoyable gameplay, and the Pipboy 3000, as a result, would be a very different device. If the Pipboy 3000 was "reduced" to the state I'd like to see it in, guess what, you'd STILL find yourself checking on it frequently, because reminding yourself why you're going somewhere and checking a map to see where you are would be things you'd want to frequently keep yourself updated on. It just wouldn't be some ridiculous, magical device that did everything for no logical reason. It would be your reliable Pipboy.
 
Oppen said:
The 2000 doesn't carry anything of that, Wumbology. Neither inventory, nor characters, nor speech management are managed by the Pipboy 2000, and woulnd't make sense at all if it does; you don't talk through your pipboy with people, it would be really alienating if you do that. I don't get why the 3000 comes with a radio even. I mean, it's thought to aid in the revival of society, not to be something that will last after it's rebuilt. If it's for survival, it should at least be a transceptor, not only a receptor of radio. If it's before society's built again, then one shouldn't expect radio stations to work, so the Pipboy having a radio receptor makes even less sense.
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So then what are those inventory, speech, and character screens?
 
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