I'm gonna separate a few of your statements and mix-and-match them around a bit, FOvet, just so I can keep their "thematic messages" consistent with what I'm about to address. Not trying to misquote you at all.
As someone else said, extremists of all types are both annoying as hell, and neither one is worse--they are both just as bad. [...] While one can argue the point of whether or not FO3 and New Vegas are genuine RPGs, they are still Fallout, they have RP elements to them, they definitely keep to the spirit of the series. We fans of the old games may yet get that one amazing gem we've been waiting for that blends the best of the new generation with that of the old generation--we just have to be patient.
I'd say extremists on both sides are just as bad. Though to be fair, when you DO start venturing away from either extreme and closer to moderation, one side does have slightly more sensibility than the other. Not much, but some. The utter extreme of the elitists are unreasonably allergic to change and updates, but the more moderate ones simply enjoy great games. The utter extreme of the fanboys are just clueless morons who can't be bothered to understand why their game isn't loved by everyone as much as them, but the more moderate ones at the very least have genuine difficulty accepting the fact that what they like is NOT a real great game. Of course, without qualification that would just be blowing smoke up my own ass, but I feel like I have granted substance to this argument on many, many occasions, so for once I'd just like to not rehash that all over again, if possible. The best perspective seems to lie ever-so-slightly in the favor of the nostalgia-junkies' camp. VERY Slightly; I just mean it's not perfectly in the center of the 2 extremes. So, if there was any answer to the central question of "Which is worse?" I suppose it would be the fanboys over the elitists, if only because their more moderate incarnations aren't as reasonable as their opponent's more moderate incarnations. But they're still both extremes, so that would be an answer based on technicality alone, so.....
I also find it highly annoying how someone comes on the forum, posts a discussion about FO3, and they get accused of being trolls. That kinda stuff grates on my nerves too--it's like being told you are a troll because you have an opinion that differs from the mainstream (and the mainstream at NMA is that FO3/NV suck and FO1 and 2 are the gods of the gaming industry). [...] Personally, I love all 4 of the games (haven't gotten into Tactics yet). [The modern games] are new, they drew new attention to Fallout, and regardless of whether you think FO3 and NV suck ass or are amazing games, if you like Fallout, you ought to appreciate the fact that the series has been given new life [and] we have Fallout 3 and Bethesda to thank for it.
The final note of being grateful for Bethesda/FO3 for getting a wider audience I'd have to say it rather moot, because it's reaching out for wider audiences that has been plaguing the game's industry as a whole this last generation (not just the
Fallout series), not helping it. What the fans of the series that already existed got out of the modern titles was hordes of players coming along, proclaiming their love for "the series" without ever having played any of the games outside of FO3, and singing endless praise about something else to others that has nothing to do with them. That was never something to be thankful for. What we did get was SOME players who "migrated" over to the originals after playing the modern game(s), a decent chunk of which were reasonable people who could recognize in hindsight that the "amazing" game that got them into the series was in actuality not very amazing. But the originals were always there, and it didn't take a new game to bring them to anyone's attention. There were other options for who might purchase the rights to the series and make the next title, so since it was hypothetically possible that a better game could have been made in FO3's place it's not necessarily obligatory to be thankful to what we got for the droves of people we shouldn't be grateful for and the comparatively tiny number of people we can very well appreciate the addition of "into the ranks". Essentially, there really is no cause to be grateful of any of that, because the originals were always here, and no new game was going to change that. Steam "gave them new life", as did GOG, so need we really center our thanks on something else that did harm as as well as good?
But as for the primary point, I will agree that the knee-jerk reaction is unnecessarily vulgar. At the same time, the compulsion for all these fanboys (and let's be honest, they are fanboys) to come along, resurrect ooooooold topics with ideas that have already been voiced before, long before they came along, and do all of this WITHOUT reading those original topics, and WITH creating their very own, new incarnation of the same tired rhetoric? While I'm not condoning the knee-jerk vitriol, I do want to point out that there's a recurring theme providing legitimate cause to be at least a little upset and/or sick and tired of. There's fertile ground for debate in all things, regardless of how much that ground has been tread time after time, but when newcomers disregard the best material and just willfully venture into a website that ought to be regarded as "hostile territory" and stake their claim in the most obnoxious fashion possible, you have to acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of reactions are rooted in something totally understandable. They could be handled better, absolutely, but at their core the basic reaction is at least understandable.
The most recent example of this nonsense that I can recall was stirred up by a user who spent the majority of their time on this site just deliberately stirring shit up, ultimately getting banned in the end- a VERY difficult accomplishment, on NMA! Responding to that is certainly nothing less than falling for trolling, in which case those who partook have only themselves to blame. But it did provide opportunity to tread that fertile ground once more, and in that opportunity I happily partook. Sadly, the trolls and the people falling into their troll traps make sifting through the decent conversation a little tricky, but then again most of the time you can just select the lengthier posts (wink wink =D) and that will lead you to the more enjoyable conversation. It's disgusting that people fall for trolling, and it's disgusting that a solid idea with good purpose in existing has been corrupted over time on this forum into a frothing compulsive explosive reaction. Sometimes, amidst all of that, there's still tiny gems to be appreciated. =)
I'm going to go ahead and get in my fire-retardant suit now, and maybe call the fire department...
That won't spare you from the pitchforks and the beheadings, don't forget.
That brings to mind another famous game series--Silent Hill.
I'm reminded of what became of
Dead Space, personally. Lots of people go off on massive hateful tangents about what happened to the franchise as of DS3, but quite frankly I LOVED DS3. Was it overall much more action-heavy that its predecessors? Sure, but it had some AMAZING moments of tension-building and atmosphere well beyond what the previous titles had. Just floating around in space- actual space, not being locked to a ship's surface, or just flying around in a zero-g tunnel -with no sound, and unsettling music reminiscent of the
Aliens franchise, and the perpetual need to combat your sense of orientation were excellent parts of the game. I lost hours just loitering during space walks because of how much I loved those parts; and that was in the first quarter of the game! Anywho, to avoid deviating from the topic too far, I just feel that it can't be stressed enough that change to a series ISN'T always bad. DS3 could have been better, no doubt, but it wasn't all "change"'s fault that it was lacking in certain areas. Much of it had to do with things like violent shifts from good writing to silly writing, predictable moments, and so on.
Likewise, FO3 wasn't a bad game due to change, alone. While I was reading about it in the likes of "Game Informer" and other magazines following the game's development back in 2006-2007, I had WAY bigger hang-ups on them calling the biggest of the Super Mutants "Behemoths", because THAT was the name of the most evil (in the break-your-keyboard-out-of-sheer-frustration sense) enemy you had to face from another, really great
Fallout title. I was open to the idea of them explaining why Super Mutants were all the way East to the nation's capitol. I was open to the idea of the game being "optionally third person perspective" but focusing on first person gameplay. I was open to change, and many die-hard
Fallout fans at the time were, too. The true disappointment came provided by the game itself, not unreasonably highly built-up expectations. Did I miss the Pipboy2000? Sure, but I had nothing against the IDEA of a smaller, wrist-mounted Pipboy3000; but the game's end-result? Ugh, disappointing. Did I want isometric gameplay? Yeah, but they provided a third-person camera which hadn't been done before in Bethesda's previous works, so I was willing to overlook that. But the end-result of the camera? TERRIBLE idea. Why zoom in on "fine details" that really don't look that good at all? Don't show off what you haven't polished, after all. I wrote tons of praise for FO3 in the past, and I'm not going back and retroactively removing my compliments. I still dislike the game, but it's a very, very, veeeeeeery distant "second worst" title of the series compared to it-which-shan't-be-named, but at least FO3 was an entertaining ride if you shut off your brain and tried not to notice all of the bad things. I replayed it many times until FONV came along (a vastly superior game, even if it carries its own set of faults), which says a lot.
There are legit complains about the change of gameplay and perspective, but the biggest complains come with the poor quality of writting, the lack of dialogs, the lack of actual NPC, the inconsistencies within the fallout universe, the internal inconsistencies (without even considering it as a Fallout, the game contradict himself), the illogical stuff, the lack of choices, especially the lack of consequences of those choices, the lack of replayability, as you can do everything in 1-2 playthrough, the fact that the character building became useless, as you can master everything in the end, the quantity over quality, the decrease of the grey area, the inability to pick sides, the Bethesda vision about provided more sceneries to see instead of more things to do, the overload of "generic" contents instead of "unique" contents, the lack of cities, factions, the fact that people didn't recovered in 200 years. (It means that you do nothing, like your father did nothing, like your grand-father, your grand-grand-father, his own grand-grand father... You can believe this ?), amongs many other things agains't what defined what was Fallout, for the fans, and for the develloppers themselves, as read in their own statements, for no gain in exchange. Those things aren't about technical/engine stuff, but the crippling lack of skills from the Fo3 team.
Barring aside the grammatical and spelling errors, well said. =)
