What was the point of Fallout 4's story?
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Huzzah, though not as good as I would have hoped.
Klarix
First time out of the vault
The Bethesda Forum is the worst.
I posted a topic on there being critical of Fallout 4, claiming that it just has these gigantic "voids" in the map where story should be, but isn't.
I was met with 20+ people, and 3 particularly fanatic people within those 20 people, telling me how stupid and ignorant I was that I couldn't appreciate Bethesda's environmental storytelling themepark.
One of them went onto a multi-post tirade shitposting me and other "Beth haters" for being critical of the Brotherhood of Steel, and eventually that poster just kept spamming the same argument that "The Brotherhood dindu nuffin wrong" over and over against any possible criticism of the faction. It's like some people can't accept that a game by Bethesda, and a faction within that game that they've projected themselves and their emotions onto, is fallible, and not perfect in every way at all time.
...Christ, this is reminding me of what Roddenberry tried to do with TNG(Seasons 1+2) all over again. Trying to turn an imperfect and flawed story, game, universe, etc., into a hyper idealized utopian form, and failing miserably.
I posted a topic on there being critical of Fallout 4, claiming that it just has these gigantic "voids" in the map where story should be, but isn't.
I was met with 20+ people, and 3 particularly fanatic people within those 20 people, telling me how stupid and ignorant I was that I couldn't appreciate Bethesda's environmental storytelling themepark.
One of them went onto a multi-post tirade shitposting me and other "Beth haters" for being critical of the Brotherhood of Steel, and eventually that poster just kept spamming the same argument that "The Brotherhood dindu nuffin wrong" over and over against any possible criticism of the faction. It's like some people can't accept that a game by Bethesda, and a faction within that game that they've projected themselves and their emotions onto, is fallible, and not perfect in every way at all time.
...Christ, this is reminding me of what Roddenberry tried to do with TNG(Seasons 1+2) all over again. Trying to turn an imperfect and flawed story, game, universe, etc., into a hyper idealized utopian form, and failing miserably.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Wow... yeah they're a different kind of fan.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
Speaking of the Brotherhood. They're a pretty good indicator of the modern gamer's mindset. Especially when you're ordered to eliminate the Railroad. A bunch of people felt guilty over doing it but acted like they were following orders as if there was no other choice, Call of Duty style.
It's a very ironic thing to see - people actually playing their character into a "I was just following orders" role and making up justifications and defending their actions. Joining a selfish, xenophobic group, saying that they were trying to save the Commonwealth from synths, justifying their massacre of the people who helped them reach the Institute (and their son). Mindlessly following instructions. And you see it everywhere - in Reddit threads, Facebook comments, and Bethesda forum pages for the game, everyone quoting the Brotherhood as if they're a CoD-like "good" faction. "Ad Victoriam", over and over again. Sure, it's all a joke, but it does speaks a lot to psychology.
"Dang, I have to kill the Railroad! But those guys helped me... Oh well, I've to do it to continue the story, I'll do it. I feel bad about it, but I'll do it anyway, because it's the right thing. For the Brotherhood!"
It felt outright meta to me hearing it in the commentary of YouTubers playing the game on their main playthrough. Especially in a game where you can stick with other factions for a different ending. Reminded me of Spec Ops: The Line, except this time the game blatantly tells you that you can pick another path, yet the player goes with it anyways. That makes the irony all the more sweeter.
In short, everyone feeling like the hero sticking with the Brotherhood of Steel tells us a lot about modern gaming attitudes. A lot.
It's a very ironic thing to see - people actually playing their character into a "I was just following orders" role and making up justifications and defending their actions. Joining a selfish, xenophobic group, saying that they were trying to save the Commonwealth from synths, justifying their massacre of the people who helped them reach the Institute (and their son). Mindlessly following instructions. And you see it everywhere - in Reddit threads, Facebook comments, and Bethesda forum pages for the game, everyone quoting the Brotherhood as if they're a CoD-like "good" faction. "Ad Victoriam", over and over again. Sure, it's all a joke, but it does speaks a lot to psychology.
"Dang, I have to kill the Railroad! But those guys helped me... Oh well, I've to do it to continue the story, I'll do it. I feel bad about it, but I'll do it anyway, because it's the right thing. For the Brotherhood!"
It felt outright meta to me hearing it in the commentary of YouTubers playing the game on their main playthrough. Especially in a game where you can stick with other factions for a different ending. Reminded me of Spec Ops: The Line, except this time the game blatantly tells you that you can pick another path, yet the player goes with it anyways. That makes the irony all the more sweeter.
In short, everyone feeling like the hero sticking with the Brotherhood of Steel tells us a lot about modern gaming attitudes. A lot.
Spacemunkey
Vault Senior Citizen
The RR is just as bad, there are kids on the Prydwen, way more people than the RR's basement, and all for a group who takes something unique(AI) and wipes it away, in essence killing what made them unique. AI was too complicated for this game to begin with though, and the lack of being able to explore the issue in depth really bugs me.
Klarix
First time out of the vault
I've been seeing a lot more concentrated hate towards the Railroad than the Brotherhood or Institute though.
Admittedly I say this as someone who views the Railroad as the best faction, but on every popular Youtube video you can just these this wall of text of Institute apologists and "Ad Victorium" this way and that.
And most people don't seem to understand the meaning of the name "Railroad" either, which I feel is a bit distressing-----especially in the context of rescuing escaped Synths.
Reminds me of Silus, the Legion scout captured and help at Camp McCarran in the Mojave.
Every time you criticized him or the Legion or Caesar's, he'd immediately deflect any point you made and reposition himself as the hero of his own story, and of the Legions. It's only after the player continues to break down his blind loyalty to the Legion with logic that you see him start to question his orders, and begin processing information like an actual human being, (or synth!).
And you're totally right about players feeling like they NEED to follow orders, and that they're nothing stopping them from ditching the Brotherhood for a more preferable faction. Hell, there's nothing stopping them from playing Settlement Developing Simulator 2287 instead.
Admittedly I say this as someone who views the Railroad as the best faction, but on every popular Youtube video you can just these this wall of text of Institute apologists and "Ad Victorium" this way and that.
And most people don't seem to understand the meaning of the name "Railroad" either, which I feel is a bit distressing-----especially in the context of rescuing escaped Synths.
Reminds me of Silus, the Legion scout captured and help at Camp McCarran in the Mojave.
Every time you criticized him or the Legion or Caesar's, he'd immediately deflect any point you made and reposition himself as the hero of his own story, and of the Legions. It's only after the player continues to break down his blind loyalty to the Legion with logic that you see him start to question his orders, and begin processing information like an actual human being, (or synth!).
And you're totally right about players feeling like they NEED to follow orders, and that they're nothing stopping them from ditching the Brotherhood for a more preferable faction. Hell, there's nothing stopping them from playing Settlement Developing Simulator 2287 instead.
Spacemunkey
Vault Senior Citizen
I'm quite familiar with the history. That said at what point is the RR not only as bad as the other factions, but worse; BOS wants to eliminate all synths, Institute uses them as slave labor, the RR wipes away who they are. Because of bad writing we will never get to explore deeper philosophical issues that are present whenever dealing with AI; so instead we get the RR is good everyone else bad, which quite honestly the shallow writer of the game most likely intended that perception.
You're projecting your own ideals and play style onto Silus and assuming he's "seen the light," when it just as plausible he's simply out of options and hopes the NCR has some form of operation paperclip, or if you tell him you're with the Legion he's simply tricked and doesn't break at all. this is why I love FNV though lots of ways to reach a destination.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
I just kept on insulting him, commenting on his cowardice and his fear. Yeah, fun times...
Klarix
First time out of the vault
More along the line of a bad memory of the actual interrogation, combined with the fact that I haven't played a completionist/committed play through of the game in over two years.
It's memorable, surely, but I fully admit I might be remembering certain dialogues inaccurately.
That and I couldn't come up with a better parallel to the behavior previously cited without digging through a psychology journal to explain mindsets like that. (Although that would be an interesting read. I imagine there's some essay about the psychology of Youtube Gaming out there.)
Dr Fallout
Centurion
There is. Everything is in Youtube.
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
You're missing something kind of important about how large businesses operate. It's not how many total units you sell, or how big the pile of money you made is, it's "how many did you sell/how much did you make relative to what you were expecting." If you match the number you were projecting you did fine, if you exceed it then you did great, if you fall short you did bad.
This is why something like Demon's Souls can be considered a massive success despite not doing CoD numbers; they sold a whole lot more of them than they were expecting to. When you end up on the other end of things though, the suits start asking hard questions.
Based on the marketing budget devoted to it, it was likely Bethesda had projected Fallout 4 was going to do enormous numbers. If it even falls short of Skyrim numbers, hard questions are going to get asked.
TheGreatCornholio
First time out of the vault
I didnt like the railroad at all, I have a hard time believing that in a world where a shitload of actual flesh and blood humans need help that these guys were risking life and limb to help robots.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
All the factions were stupid. Railroad were handling the most useless problem there, the Institute does nothing, the Brotherhood just goes blow shit up and the Minutemen? Whine, whine, whine.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
Sure, the factions all had more flaws than good points, but people's attitudes towards the Brotherhood of Steel felt unique to me. They were actually making up arbitrary reasons to justify why they were going on with supporting arguably the most xenophobic and destructive faction in the game, all while chanting them on as saviours. It seems like just normal stuff, but when you really think about it, they're channelling the Brotherhood themselves, moving through their actions without once realising what they've done. And in a way, the Brotherhood were channelling a lot of the modern FPS gaming attitude and subsequently the modern attitudes towards politics as a whole.
I would say that, for all the stupidity and ridiculousness Bethesda injected into the game, at least this form of unintentional meta commentary is commendable.
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Anyways, back to the other factions - taking a look from the bright side, (or as I call it, the if Obsidian had made the game side) they have points that do make sense.
The Minutemen would be doing their protect-the-people and rebuilding work off-screen, all the way to the off-map areas of the Commonwealth. In a way, the fact that they're an organisation with the most busywork (got another settlement for you) but the least rewards, shows why they failed in the first place - no one was willing to support such a bum deal. The Minutemen are basically a charity PMC, a concept that just doesn't work in the post-apocalypse.
We should've been allowed to change how it all worked, possibly affecting the reputation of the Minutemen as a whole.
The Railroad rescues both normal slaves and Institute synths, but turned directly towards synths once they realised the Institute harmed far more than anyone predicted they would, and that they were a growing threat. They themselves realise that their objective is a bit more pointless than the other factions, plus, Desdemona herself doesn't mind if you tell her you're not particularly willing to see synths as equals.
To me, they felt like they would've worked better as a side-faction that you can integrate with the Minutemen, and not as an actual faction.
The Brotherhood are just pre-emptive strike dicks, who assumed that just because the Institute had a large power source meant that they were going to get attacked across the state. A reminder of real-life "Old World" politics, where a lot of wars are due to pre-emptive attacks. Remember, Maxson himself might not be as fanatical as he appears, but might have to appear so for obvious reasons. The Brotherhood good-guy knights has just reintegrated the West Coast styled Outcasts back in, and now he has to please both sides. As a result of bureaucracy and compromises, he appears conflicted and does not make much sense at first.
To me, his true reason for hitting the Institute was to show the Outcasts that he was capable of being a leader who could effectively quash potential threats, not because of anything directly related to the Institute.
Finally, the Institute was created by misguided people with lots of good ideas but had no idea what they were doing. They wasted potential every bit of the way and in addition destroyed everything that was good (they sent armies to destroy one of the biggest settlements in the Commonwealth for a single component, at University Point) along with that. In the end, the results is an organisation that means well, but fails entirely to achieve what they meant to become, and is overall a disappointment to people living on the surface. Everyone you take to the Institute laments on how much of a failure the Institute was to hold the key to rebuilding and just horde it all to themselves.
Ironically, all of the Institute was a good metaphor for what Fallout 4 was. Misguided, wasted potential, unintentionally destroyed the good things, fails to achieve its goals, and overall only looks good from the outside, until you really start to think about it.
I would say that, for all the stupidity and ridiculousness Bethesda injected into the game, at least this form of unintentional meta commentary is commendable.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Anyways, back to the other factions - taking a look from the bright side, (or as I call it, the if Obsidian had made the game side) they have points that do make sense.
The Minutemen would be doing their protect-the-people and rebuilding work off-screen, all the way to the off-map areas of the Commonwealth. In a way, the fact that they're an organisation with the most busywork (got another settlement for you) but the least rewards, shows why they failed in the first place - no one was willing to support such a bum deal. The Minutemen are basically a charity PMC, a concept that just doesn't work in the post-apocalypse.
We should've been allowed to change how it all worked, possibly affecting the reputation of the Minutemen as a whole.
The Railroad rescues both normal slaves and Institute synths, but turned directly towards synths once they realised the Institute harmed far more than anyone predicted they would, and that they were a growing threat. They themselves realise that their objective is a bit more pointless than the other factions, plus, Desdemona herself doesn't mind if you tell her you're not particularly willing to see synths as equals.
To me, they felt like they would've worked better as a side-faction that you can integrate with the Minutemen, and not as an actual faction.
The Brotherhood are just pre-emptive strike dicks, who assumed that just because the Institute had a large power source meant that they were going to get attacked across the state. A reminder of real-life "Old World" politics, where a lot of wars are due to pre-emptive attacks. Remember, Maxson himself might not be as fanatical as he appears, but might have to appear so for obvious reasons. The Brotherhood good-guy knights has just reintegrated the West Coast styled Outcasts back in, and now he has to please both sides. As a result of bureaucracy and compromises, he appears conflicted and does not make much sense at first.
To me, his true reason for hitting the Institute was to show the Outcasts that he was capable of being a leader who could effectively quash potential threats, not because of anything directly related to the Institute.
Finally, the Institute was created by misguided people with lots of good ideas but had no idea what they were doing. They wasted potential every bit of the way and in addition destroyed everything that was good (they sent armies to destroy one of the biggest settlements in the Commonwealth for a single component, at University Point) along with that. In the end, the results is an organisation that means well, but fails entirely to achieve what they meant to become, and is overall a disappointment to people living on the surface. Everyone you take to the Institute laments on how much of a failure the Institute was to hold the key to rebuilding and just horde it all to themselves.
Ironically, all of the Institute was a good metaphor for what Fallout 4 was. Misguided, wasted potential, unintentionally destroyed the good things, fails to achieve its goals, and overall only looks good from the outside, until you really start to think about it.
Spacemunkey
Vault Senior Citizen
The reason you get so many people liking the BOS in FO4 is because without even trying Bethesda made them the only complete faction in the game. Other than a few details we know how the BOS got to where they are from FO3, while we have bare minimum on the RR,the Institute, and the MM. Because of limited dialogue and shallow story telling we don't even get to explore any faction origins. I really had some hope for the MM as someone who likes that period in history, but nope, just a radiant ATM connected to a bank account full of shit quests.
TheGreatCornholio
First time out of the vault
I liked the idea of a citizen soldier militia but it gets silly when its one surviving member makes you the leader 10 minutes after meeting and then proceeds to give you orders
Spacemunkey
Vault Senior Citizen
Or while standing in the driveway of my house tells me "If I want to stick around I'm more than welcome," fuck you Preston this is my house. After that conversation I opened the console typed scrap all and took everything, enjoy sanctuary now asshole.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
Childish escapism, the game wasn't interested in anything other than giving the player rewards for everything in the simplest way possible. They never cared about exploring themes of transhumanism because they probably think that's just too complicated a word.
MercenarySnake
Kept you waiting huh?
The Institue caused problems by releasing hungry flesh eating ogres into the commonwealth, as for the Minutemen, you say whine whine whine while I say: