Why Fallout 3 is not as bad as most people on this forum think

[lujo]

I'm not trying to tell you what you should or shouldn't do. I'm just telling you that your opinion may not necessarily be the majority when you look at the industry as a whole. I joined here because I haven't played FO1 or 2 all that much and I'd like to get back into them and finish them both this time. I could see from the first hour on here that the entire board has a bias towards the original 2 games. And that's fine. I understand that on one hand it's like me walking into a Ford factory and yelling Chevy rules, but also, this is the FO3 board. Everything I have said is in the appropriate place. If you guys set up the FO3 board just to have a place to bash the game, I think that's a bit juvenile, but I will continue to support it because I like games of all types.

This isn't necessarily so at all. The bias thing, that is. If your replaying FO1 and FO2, I'd reccomend not even considering playing 2 without the restoration patch mod. You can't even consider it a mod really, and it's also semi-offical, so it's more like an update patch (and deffinitely not without the high-res patch). Much better.

As for whether FO3 is better than it gets credit for... Not really. Well, either it gets 0 credit, in which case, yes it's marginally better than that - there was good and interesting stuff in that game and the originals are overpraised (not just on these boards, and for sort of understandale reasons). If it's getting credit for a few interesting things only compared to the totality of it as a game - no, it's not any better than that. And that's not even in comparison to the original games.

If you look at it as a 3d RPG - Witcher mops the floor with it, compared to it you can hardly call it an RPG.
If you look at it as an RPG with mature themes - again Witcher makes it look stupid, and it doesn't raise the bar set by the originals (graphics excluded). Or planescape torment. Or even a lot of the less imaginative stuff. However, if you're really, really shut in and have had little experience with any media, then yes, maybe it's not wholly terrible.
If you look at it as an open world game - there's so much competition which outdoes it that it isn't even mediocre. GTA has been mentioned, but the list is pretty long.
If you look at it for story - it has a rather banal story. Also a rather stereotypical banal story, with very little original components even when dealing with franchise specifc elements.
If you look at it as a first person shooter - dear god is there ever competition
If you look at it as a survival shooter open world thing - can't hold ammo to Far Cry 3.
If you try to assess the originality of the world it lets you immerse yourself in, or style if you prefer - it's been done before, and that world wasn't very immersion friendly to begin with, ever, scenery wise. Maybe if you've been living in a cave for the last 100 years and are completely ignorant about most media (old and new), then, yes, I suppose it could be the place where you've first seen stuff, otherwise, not really.

So it kind of sucks. It could've been much better and much more in too many ways. You don't even have to bring the originals into it. Or you could even bring them into it, but within their genre, any way you look at it, were and still pushing new ground and ended up being high water marks (sometimes on their own merits, startlingly often just for utter lack of competition). Within it's genre and in it's own day, FO3... wasn't nearly as standout.

 

[Gaspard]

Hoot. Lujo summed it up quite nicely. Although this topic is getting rather old. NV improved on the original FO3 on several counts.

If you look up tumblr where FO3 fans post their stuff then even there's just two things people mostly comment on: dumb stuff (NPCs included) and the uberviolence where bits go flying. Except, unlike classic FO fans, the new fans tend to love the dumb bits.

 

[Mathius]

Hoot. Lujo summed it up quite nicely. Although this topic is getting rather old. NV improved on the original FO3 on several counts.

If you look up tumblr where FO3 fans post their stuff then even there's just two things people mostly comment on: dumb stuff (NPCs included) and the uberviolence where bits go flying. Except, unlike classic FO fans, the new fans tend to love the dumb bits.

Oh well if that's what happens on tumblr, then that must speak for everyone. Makes sense to me.

 

[Gaspard]

Oh I'm sorry, should I include a list of references with my post?

 

[Mathius]

Oh I'm sorry, should I include a list of references with my post?

No, you should probably try actually reading the thread first and making a response you put some thought into that actually debates something that was said instead of just lumping all the people who actually like FO3 into one category without any evidence to support your point besides your experience with tumblr. But hey. I could be wrong.

Because I mean with that kind of logic I should forget trying to debate everything and say all FO1 and 2 fans are just old people who can't handle too many things going on in a 3d game because my dog told me that. (and I don't have a dog)

 

[Gaspard]

You're right about that. I did and do applaud lujo's take on it, though. Among others. I do not intend my tumblr comment to stand on its own. T'was more like icing – worthless without the cake.

Also - when I said that somebody likes dumb stuff, does not necessarily mean I consider them dumb. I assume you were offended at that.

 

[Mathius]

You're right about that. I did and do applaud lujo's take on it, though. Among others. I do not intend my tumblr comment to stand on its own. T'was more like icing – worthless without the cake.

Also - when I said that somebody likes dumb stuff, does not necessarily mean I consider them dumb. I assume you were offended at that.

Well I did mention several times in my posts that I don't play the game for the FPS combat bull****, so when you jump in and say everyone who likes FO3 only cares about body parts flying off it's hard not to take it personally, you know?

I like VATS in the respect that it does make combat easier and thus I have to deal with it less. However, it seems like it makes it harder to make a mesh for the game, and it's also completely unrealistic that you can't get a headshot without their head becoming completely sheared off (although it's been a while since I played NV and I think they actually fixed that in NV.) I also think VATS is responsible for a lot of crashing and general game instability.

However, having said all that, it would be kinda fun to play a game that had Skyrim's melee abilities and FONV's gun abilities, assuming they worked out all the bugs. Also, Skyrim's melee isn't the best in the world, I just happen to think it's better than FO3 or FONV. It just generally has better animations, IMO.

Now I'm going to go search and see if there's a mod that puts bow and arrows in FO.

 

[Korin]

Skyrim's melee isn't the best in the world, I just happen to think it's better than FO3 or FONV.

Being able to sneak up behind someone and slit their throat was one of my favourite things to do in Skyrim. Also a huge fan of the unnarmed suplex, which would make Fallout fist melee a lot more entertaining. Between Skyrim and Obsidian's improvement on New Vegas combat I think Bethesda is going to put in a lot more satisfying features like that in future games.

 

[Gaspard]

I wonder why there weren't any bows and arrows in New Vegas Would make some sense with the tribals for example and might make stealth interesting (I'm not so sure about Skyrim bows and stealth, though)

Mathius, yeah I did generalize by saying "the new fans". I meant some - specifically the Tumblr kids. those who create the memes and those who gladly repost them by the hundreds. Most of them are kids, 14-15 year-old girls, surprisingly I remember trying to get my gf to go see a horror flick with me. Now girls probably love gore more than I do...

 

[Korin]

I wonder why there weren't any bows and arrows in New Vegas

Global shortage of pre-war string... no, of course you can't make more. It's the apocalypse, dummy! Use this energy weapon I found in a trash can.

 

[Gaspard]

Really. Perhaps I'm ruined by Minecraft and its clones, but I think it would have made the crafting bit way cooler as well - make bows out of wood and shit and reinforce it with springs and other scrap you can scavenge. You can make a slingshot bloody easily out of old car tires - if it didn't melt in the war it's going to survive several millennia even in the fucking desert.

Slingshot /w plasma grenades, anybody?

 

[TheChosen1]

You see, I have no choice but to classify the Chinese and the Enclave as "evil" Beth didn't give me enough backstory to sympathize or even look at their point of view, from the way the game was set out, the Enclave were the "ultimate bad guy" and the Chinese were "the guys that destroyed the world" who didn't even play ANY role in the story (apart from blowing the world), and collateral damage?

Interesting. So when you meet people in real life do you feel this need to have a back story on them before you judge them or is it just a video game thing?

Also, what more back story do you need when FO1 and 2 exist? They didn't change that much that you should feel the lore is different.

Literally skip half the main quest? Only if this is your second (or more) playthrough, otherwise you're herded in to follow your dad when in Vegas you're given a LOGICAL reason to follow the first part of the main quest, oh yeah, as soon as you reach the 188 you can pretty much go where you like.

I skipped a great deal of the main quest on my first playthrough, because I'm not a sheep. I wandered around exploring and ended up catching up with my dad's trail in Rivet City, because I refused to pay Moriarty's 300 cap extortion fee. So I skipped paying him, and I skipped all that crap at GNR.

A logical reason to do the main quest in NV? More like you're not given a choice unless you want to get raped by Deathclaws and Cazedores. You literally have no other choice without saving 100 times and trying to find the perfect mountain range to climb since you run into invisible walls every 10 seconds. Are you serious? Whatever dude.

My feelings for a faction and the feeling of an idiot who shambled into an apocalypse from a vault (most likely full of american propaganda) is most likely different.

I've skipped that part of the quest too, but that is literally the only thing you can skip, after that you don't have a logical cause to skip that part or the knowledge of what to do, how come I can't go straight to Vault 84 (or whatever it was) but no, unless you have high speech, you have to do a quest for a bunch of stupid (and invincible) kids instead of shooting them in the face and climbing over their "unpenetrable" defenses? Or is that not called herding you into a decision? And you keep complaining about the deathclaws, the DC was full of Super Mutants that apparently were strong enough to rip a man apart with their bare hands, yet it doesn't work as a good device to scare the player away as I was able to take a stroll through DC with just a pistol and shotgun. So if the DJ is telling you to stay away from DC then you can ignore him, but if Sunny Smiles and a sign tell you that there are deathclaws in the quick area, then you get pissed.

 

[Mathius]

My feelings for a faction and the feeling of an idiot who shambled into an apocalypse from a vault (most likely full of american propaganda) is most likely different.

Right. Because we already established in your last post that you pre-judge people before talking to them. Moving right along....

I've skipped that part of the quest too, but that is literally the only thing you can skip, after that you don't have a logical cause to skip that part or the knowledge of what to do, how come I can't go straight to Vault 84 (or whatever it was) but no, unless you have high speech, you have to do a quest for a bunch of stupid (and invincible) kids instead of shooting them in the face and climbing over their "unpenetrable" defenses?

First off you're wrong. If you're just wandering around looking for stuff there's nothing stopping you as far as I know from walking right into Braun's vault, so you can technically skip right up to tranquility lane. You can probably skip that as well, but you're not getting into little lamplight early and if you want to do the main quest you're going to have to rescue your dad at some point.

I constantly find it amusing how pissed off people on this board get because they can't shoot children in the face. Seriously? You seriously don't get why they won't let you do that? Go download a mod or something.

None of which changes what I said before. You don't have to do the main quest. Nobody is making you do the main quest. That's the huge difference between New Vegas and Fallout 3. There's nothing to do in New Vegas except the main quest. The number of side quests is laughable. However in Fallout 3, I spent several hours just doing the quest for Moira Brown. Not including the quests for Rivet City, the Arufu quest, etc. etc. etc. There's so much more content it's not even a contest.

Or is that not called herding you into a decision? And you keep complaining about the deathclaws, the DC was full of Super Mutants that apparently were strong enough to rip a man apart with their bare hands, yet it doesn't work as a good device to scare the player away as I was able to take a stroll through DC with just a pistol and shotgun. So if the DJ is telling you to stay away from DC then you can ignore him, but if Sunny Smiles and a sign tell you that there are deathclaws in the quick area, then you get pissed.

Please. Warnings in video games are laughable. You're the hero. You're supposed to be able to do things other people can't. Sunny Smiles also warns you about Gecko's and Coyotes. Did you have trouble with those?

 

[Gaspard]

There's so much more content it's not even a contest.

You know what else has a lot of content? A phone book. It definitely has more content than Fallout 3. Why play Fallout at all? You could enjoy so much more content reading a phone book.

Right. Because we already established in your last post that you pre-judge people before talking to them. Moving right along....

It has been proven that, as time passes, people reading phone books will generate an extremely strong entoponetic field. Anything and everything ever said about anyone else is suddenly ripped out of context and targeted at such a Reader of Phone Books.

In this case, the forum member "TheChosen1" was talking about the game's protagonist being an idiot, and the entroponetic field emanating from the Reader of Phone Books made them think it was targeted at them instead.

Science is amazing!

Do note, though, that CAUTION should be exercised when dealing with a Reader of Phone Books. When the entroponetic field is active for too long at one time it might disturb the equilibrium of the whole Solar system, shift it out of balance and make everything revolve around the Reader.

 

[naossano]

I hope you don't mind if we tell you that you didn't play New Vegas enough, but i can guarantee you that the number of quests in Fallout New Vegas has nothing to be ashamed compared to the number of quests in Fallout 3.

The differences are :

- Not every kind of characters is able to do every quests, as the game put more emphasis on the roleplay elements (yes, it is possible in a 3d environment). There are many quests that you can do for mister X that will piss off mister Y. If you want to do the many quests that provides mister Y, you will have to do it in the next playthrough. But it that second playthrough, you will piss off mister X. Also, there are quests or outcome more suited for some kinds of characters. For instance, if you want to do the Quests for Black Mountain and Repconn, in a way that make everyone happy, you will have to sneak you way in. There are many quests in Fallout New Vegas and many outcomes, but you won't be able to get them all in a single playthrough. Every choice you make will matter in what happens next, contrary to Fallout 3 in which you can do everything with any kind of character and expect the same result. If, in Fallout 3, you kill thousands of BOS members, they would still consider you as a hero. If you kill thousands of NCR members in FONV, not only they won't love you, but they would send killers after you and you won't be able to get their ending.

- Most of the quests aren't related to the (five different) main quests, but share ties with what happen with the rest of the world. The locations aren't some single units that barelly have any connections with each other. If gives the impression of a coherent world. It may sounds to you that all quests are linked to the main quest but at the end, you can do a whole lot of things that aren't connected to the main (five) quests, but the locations themselves and the factions that lives inside it. For instance, the war between Goodspring & Powder Gangers is mainly about those two groups, even if some characters come from other factions. Everything that happens with the super-mutants is mainly about them. Even if the setting is never forgotten, there is enough breath to deal with more local issues.

- I find almost unbelievable to hear that in Fallout New Vegas, that you are forced into the main quest. There is only two thing that you need to do in Fallout New Vegas, it is letting the doctor heal you at the beginning, and be in the hoover dam battlefield in the end. But at the end, you could side anyone in that battlefield. You are, of course, expected to meet Benny at some point, but it is not mandatory to meet him to win the game if you support the NCR. If you support Yes man, you only need to meet him, not kill him. On the Caesar/House playthrough it is harder to make him live. But if you put aside what you need to do and focus on what the game intend you to do, the Benny's quest is the only quests that Obsidian expect you to do, to make yourself familiar with the mojave world and its factions. Even there, you get plenty of time, and no timer that tell you to hurry. After all, vengeance is a dish that is best served cold. When you got to Benny, everything you will do next is your own choice. You can choose you main quest (Yes man/Caesar/NCR/House). You can choose you own fucking main quest. I bet the games that provide that choice are less that fifty in the entire game history. Don't tell me about being forced man. Even amongst those fourth path, there are many things that you can choose. You can make other factions allied to you own or your ennemy. For many factions, you can make the leader die and have someone take the lead. Sometimes, the games feels like "Here are the tools, now you can build your own Mojave". And even if you don't care about those faction, you can choose Yes Man path and tell the robot you don't care about factions.

- Now about the Fallout 3 main quests, i think others already mentionned that you forced to choose the white shiny knight over the black evil guys, that locations aren't connected, and that there are many steps that you will have to do whatever your playstyle. And whatever your playstyle, you will be a hero for the same people. I would also say that, sure, you can avoid to look for you dad, for the most part. I did the same, in case the enclave arrival would prevent me to do some quest, and to get 3dogs secret stash. But on the other hand, if i want to stay in character, there is no single logical reason not to hurry to find dad. I purposelly act in an unlikely way, because the game allow me to go in many direction, while the ONLY logical thing would be to hurry. Come on. Your only family just left the home. He didn't told you why. You are kicked of the vault, the only place you know. You are in the outside world where the sky, the sunlight and the radiation make you feel nauseous. Now there is only one person that you know in that giant outside world. That person is your only family. That person is the only one who know why he left and why you got kicked out (from the only world you never known before). That person is only a few hours ahead of you. He could be in the next town, or even a few miles ahead. He could be hurt. He could be in danger right know. It is, for sure, the perfect moment to try Moira Brown Repellant stick or to look for 50 Nuka Cola Quantum bottle... If i were in character, i would have run for dad, and died agains't the DC super-mutants, on my way to GNR. Sure, this is an open world, but in the same time, you got a main quest that could only logically be done in a hurry and reckless way. Then is even more emergency to look for that, than to look for Geck or Water Chip. You had weeks/months for those things. Dad ? He just left a few hours before you. If you hurry, you can catch him (if we are logical). Then, in the second part, there is a war around the legacy of your father. Sure, now you can have a choice about what to do with that legacy. Except not. While just leaving from your vault, you are enough free of radiation, and have your brain fully fed with american propaganda, (more suited that the chosen one would never be) but this is not enough for you to want to be recruited and being accepted by the Enclave even if you killed thousands of innocents ghouls and BOS members in your way. You could also take your time, but contrary to new Vegas, it isn't a cold war, people are already killing each other. If you care about that legacy, you should hurry, before the only idiots that accept you will all be dead, or before your father legacy end up destroyed. You are not only forced into an unique path, but also, it doesn't make any sense for you to embrace the open world content as the main quest implies some hurry. More hurry than any other Fallout.

- About the kids, i don't think i ever wanted to kill children in Fo1-Fo2. Most of them are minor characters not enough involved in quests, or not pissing you off enough. There are some thiefs kids in Den, but if you kill them, you will have to kill adult too. Amongs those adult, there are some traders and quests giver that you may like. And in other places you may want to kill some adults, while there are children around. In that case, there is no point in sparing the children around, as there is no underage for being a witness. But i never purposly tried to murder children to get the Child killer perk and hope to meet Chris Avellone and his bounty hunters. The game didn't made me want to. In Fallout 3, this is the opposite. You are forced to meet some children. You are forced to do a quest for them. Those children spend every second disrepecting you (to say the least). There are completly inconsistent and illogical. There are magically new children everytime some of them left, they magically survive super-mutants, slavers and your own character. Beside that, there is nothing in the main quest that justify that we go in that cave/settlement, except that the dev wanted it. (there should have been at least someway to get some clothes that would allow you to go into the hot spot and skip Little Lamplight) There is none reffering Little Lamplight before you go there, and none refering it after you left. It could be a random place in the border, and it is probably something Bethesda added at the last second. There is no need in the Fallout universe to add those children and put them right here. And yet, you are not only forced to go to that illogical and unimportant place, but you aren't able to use your gun to remove that inconsistent content. At least, you can sell one of them to Eulogy, but this is a cheap consolation price. So in the first time in the entire series, you are provided enough reason to WANT to kill specific children, and in the same time, it is the first time in the entire series that you can't kill children. Let's say the devellopper honestly though that we would love those kids and wouldn't want to blast them, we could say "Okay, i can't kill children but there is no situation in which children are involved in bloody event". Except that not long before, Stanislas Braun change you into a children to kill adult. So It is unallowed for an adult to kill jerkass children, but mandatory for a children to kill innocent adults. (you kill them anyway) Also, we could talk about cannibal children. In the end, the problem is not that you can't children (it is, but only very minor) but that devellopper gave put them too much heavily in the front of the gun, teased you with the idea of killing them, while not even bothering giving a reason for their very existence. It's like they are convinced that children need to be killed and ask you to support them in asking the publisher to allow it.

You may be disagree with Fo3 haters, you may consider them wrong, but right or wrong they have many reasons to be pissed off, and brought of their immersion. It is not just "Because".

 

[Mathius]

- Not every kind of characters is able to do every quests, as the game put more emphasis on the roleplay elements (yes, it is possible in a 3d environment).

I'm aware of all that, and btw, those roleplay elements pissed me off because they ruined the open world experience. No, you can't open this door you'll have to come back later your lockpick is only 25. No, you can't talk to this guy because your speech isn't 75 yet. Then you come back levels later and find out you missed out on a few clips of ammo. Stupid.

As far as the other stuff you're talking about factions. Which is what I mentioned back into Chosen1 way back in the beginning. FO3 doesn't have a faction system. You're trying to make it sound like Obsidian went well out of there way to give you all kinds of outcomes for the Main quest, but the story is the same at the end. You're gonna end up fighting at the Hoover Dam one way or another. In that respect it's no different than FO3. Those quests you're mentioning that you can't do on the same playthrough are all faction related. You can choose to do some of them or not (I.e. You can deal with the khans or ignore them) but either way the more of those quests you do the more you're still moving towards that dam. Sure you can choose not to do that the same way you can choose not to do the main quest in FO3. I'm sorry if this offends hardcore FO1 and 2 fans, but at the end of the day I don't give one ounce of a damn about a slideshow at the end of the game. I don't need a powerpoint presentation to tell me how things ended up.

It may sounds to you that all quests are linked to the main quest but at the end, you can do a whole lot of things that aren't connected to the main (five) quests, but the locations themselves and the factions that lives inside it.

That's absolutely true, each town has faction related quests. But I got through these WAY quicker than anything in FO3. Just navigating the world in FO3 took longer because you were forced to use the metro anytime you wanted to travel downtown. It also made it harder to find certain routes.

- I find almost unbelievable to hear that in Fallout New Vegas, that you are forced into the main quest.

How are you not? Think about how you start the game off? You're level 1. You can't go west because of the mountains. If you go north you're going to run into Deathclaws and Cazedores. If you go south you can deal with that guy who sends you off fighting geckos and that's it. You're pretty much stuck going east and then down south to Primm. That's not even to mention the invisible walls.

Now yeah.. experienced players can find a way around the Deathclaws by finding your way north along the black mountain side of the pass and trying to go that way, but it's not easy even for an experienced player. You can continue east of Hidden Valley and go the long way there, but as soon as you stop to talk to someone in a town i.e. boulder city, the dialogue is going to drag you right back into the main quest, probably while you skipped a bunch of stuff.

On my first playthrough I stubbornly found a way through the Deathclaws and got a laser rifle off some fiends, found freeside and gunrunners, and sorted out Boulder City and found out where Benny was headed long before sorting out Primm. But I was still dragged into the main quest when they gave me dialogue at Boulder City that Benny had come through there and he was headed to the Strip.

- Now about the Fallout 3 main quests, i think others already mentionned that you forced to choose the white shiny knight over the black evil guys,

I hate to keep beating it over the head, but again it comes down to factions. There was no faction system in FO3, so you couldn't choose to join the outcasts (who didn't want you, btw), the mutants (who would probably eat you or kill you when they put you in a vat of FEV), or the enclave (who generally just wants to torture you because of who your dad is). On one hand it would have been cool to have those options, on the other as you sortof pointed out in the part I snipped... it's all about your dad. I don't necessarily agree with your conclusion that I was thrown out of the vault I would immediately go looking for him. Afterall he's the one who got me in trouble in the first place. However, regardless if which side you play, angry at your dad or helping him, the various "bad guy" factions aren't really interested in you (story wise), unless you want to become a raider and spend the rest of the game killing innocent people. And to me that's putting things in a realistic spectrum.

You are forced to meet some children. You are forced to do a quest for them. Those children spend every second disrepecting you (to say the least).

And yet you have no problem being forced to get your lockpick to a certain level to be able to open a door. Regardless, I would like to congratulate you. You got trolled by Bethesda. Bethesda knows damn well they can't let you kill children in this day and age because the ESRB would be up their *** in a heartbeat and lobbyists would have them on the news. So they went out of their way to make them as annoying and hated as possible to make you want to kill them. How's that feel? They did the same thing in Skyrim. The good news is, they had the foresight to support the modding community since far back in the beginning of their TES days and they've always done a fantastic job of releasing tool kits and other resources to help you fix what you don't like about the game. I don't know what else you could ask for since you're never going to please everyone.

You may be disagree with Fo3 haters, you may consider them wrong, but right or wrong they have many reasons to be pissed off, and brought of their immersion. It is not just "Because".

No, it more or less is just "because" and I'll tell you why. Because just because you guys don't like the game doesn't make it a bad game. And also the majority of the posters on this site don't seem to be near as open minded as you and at least willing to discuss the issues. It's a typical Bethesda game. When you start to nitpick each and every feature it has, each of them individually are gonna have flaws and they're gonna be average. But when you look at them as a whole, there weren't too many people doing games to this level of detail up until a few years ago OR this level of content. And I get really tired of Obsidian getting a pass because the majority of the work was already done for them when Bethesda handed over their resources. New Vegas wouldn't even be possible without Bethesda and yet Josh Sawyer responded by throwing them under the bus when they had issues with Skyrim.

 

[naossano]

You prefer open-world free of consequences while others prefer RPG playstyle. It is perfectly fair. I don't think that Bethesda did the right move in turning an RPG into an open world, and disregarded quality of writing, one of the focus and core quality of the game. The old fans are right to blame Bethesda for that, for a huge list of reasons, that the whole forum is not enough to describe, but it shouldn't prevent you from liking Fallout 3 if you want. At the end of the day, you are free to play and like what you want and it is normal. None of us should come to your place and force you to play or like RPG. In the other Many of us, in way that seemed open-minded for some, and uterly hostiles for others, provided enough arguments for you to understand where there come from (Fo1-Fo2, other games), what they dislike, why they disliked, how Fallout 3 kind of misguided them, in using a name of a franchise withouth being faithfull to its core, contradicting itself many times. At the end of the day, i am sorry, you can't say their opinion is arbitrary, that they're unwilling to look deeply into Fo3 or that they didn't think twice before talking. Once again, you may agree or not, but the opinion is grounded in some facts. Some of this facts could be disregarded in your opinion, as you prefer to praise other things, but those facts still exist. You even mention some flaws yourself. So, basically, it depends on how much you hate the flaws and how much you praise some good points, and how much you care about RPG and the overall Fallout franchise.

The things with the lockpick did exist in Fallout 3. But the RPG elements are what Fallout was always about. Obsidian didn't betray any expectations putting RPG elements in a game that belongs to a franchise of RPG. If those lockpick were to appear in GTA or Age Of Empires, they could feel out of the place. Sure, we can hate it. I hate the way lockpick are handled in Fallout 3 & Fallout New Vegas. But at the end, it fit to the kind of game you are playing. If you don't have the corresponding skill, you can't hack that computer, unlock that door or beat that bad guy. Because it the RPG genre, every character can't do everything.

About the Cazadore/Deathclaws stuff, it is more about scaling. Fallout 3 use scaling monster. If you are level one, you will meat an unarmed supermutant. If you are level 30, you will meet 30 overlord, that has one laser rifle in each hand, and another in the mouth. Fallout New Vegas use some scaling, but also provide some places that are supposed to be harder. I tend to prefer FoNV approch, but i can't say scaling was the reason i didn't like Fallout 3. Three issues that i had with it are that, on one hand, every dungeons are even more the same, as every place depend on you, and one the other hand, the highest regular monsters (ghoul reavers/Albinos Radscorpion) are too overpowered compared to other monsters, or regular people or even some endgame bosses. The third point it that is doesn't feel rewarding to kill anything as you are sure to be strong enough when you meet any of them. But this is more about taste. But in the end, you can still train yourself agains't weaker monsters before going in deathclaws territory, without caring about Benny's quest. But once again, Benny's quest in the only quest the game strongly suggest you to do. After that, you are on you own, with 80% of the locations still to explore.

You can say that you are forced to fight in the battlefield in the end, but in Fallout 3, you are forced to do many more things, like leave the vault, find daddy, kill Sally buddies, save daddy, kill 15 or 17 mutants, help daddy at Jefferson, watch daddy die, go to the citadel, find access to vault 87, help jerkass children, got to vault 87, kill those super-mutants while they're at home, take the geck, be in black rock, talk to robotic orange, take that FEV, go to the Citadel, be recruited by the BOS, even if you killed most of the staff 3 hours ago, walk the robot killing machine, storm the enclave strongold, even if it means killing the robotic orange buddies, have a regular human dies turning off the water purifier while there is a robot, a super-mutants or a ghoul buddy watching the scene without sheding a tear. Sure, Fallout 3 doesn't force you to do anything.


About Obsidian, let's not forget that those guys wrote Fallout 1, Fallout 2 & Van Buren in the first place. If they didn't, Bethesda would never had bought the franchise rights and Fallout 3 would never be born. Sure, the Bethesda provided some engine tools, but they owe more to Obsidian than Obsidian would never owe them. It's like now that Disney own the Star Wars franchiise ask Georges Lucas to write the screen play for new games, and do nothing else while they take care of all the making with awesome technologies, giant crew and millions of dollars, even using the voices of dead actors to provide new dialogs. And the end of the day, they owe more to him than the other way around.

 

[Mathius]

You prefer open-world free of consequences while others prefer RPG playstyle. It is perfectly fair. I don't think that Bethesda did the right move in turning an RPG into an open world, and disregarded quality of writing, one of the focus and core quality of the game.

I'm not going to argue the point about Bethesda's writing not being great, but I think there are two things that get overlooked when people criticize. Number one they overbudget their games. The games are too damn big and they waste money having bigger stars like Liam Nisan do voice work. You run into two problems with this, number one you start running into budget concerns with how much voice work you can add, and then you run into budget concerns with how long can you pay these guys to do all your modeling, programming, etc.

The other thing is, Bethesda is well known for generally leaving a lot of the story up to the player purposely. A prime example is back in Daggerfall you were given 5 choices of how to end the game. When it came time to decide which way the lore would go when they wrote Morrowind, they adapted the "warp in the west" idea where all 5 of those things actually happened at the same time in some kind of time upheaval. Another example is how all their characters start out without a backstory. The TES series is know for starting you off as a prisoner, with no mention of where you came from. It's left up to the player to decide because they leave these roleplay elements up to you. Lonesome Road forced a backstory on the courier long after the main game was finished and it felt awkward to me. (particularly since Ulysses was a rambling madman)

Sure, Fallout 3 doesn't force you to do anything.

I don't really have anything to say that's gonna change your mind on this one. I didn't feel forced at all. Like I said to Chosen1, I left the vault and didn't worry about the main quest. I went through Springvale first and didn't know if I was strong enough to take on the Raiders, so I backtracked to Megaton to see what all the fuss was about since I'd been hearing about this city for a while now (outside the game). When Moriarty told me he wanted 300 caps to tell me where my dad went, I didn't bother with the main quest at that point and started working for Moria Brown.

About Obsidian, let's not forget that those guys wrote Fallout 1, Fallout 2 & Van Buren in the first place. If they didn't, Bethesda would never had bought the franchise rights and Fallout 3 would never be born. Sure, the Bethesda provided some engine tools, but they owe more to Obsidian than Obsidian would never owe them.

I can't agree with you on this one either. Bethesda had enough reputation in their own right that they didn't need the Fallout name. It's not like they bought it to take on the FO franchise fans. As you continue to point out, they made a game that was very little like the original FO games, and it was very successfully, so clearly they didn't need the name. And as you said, Obsidian sold the rights. So if you ask me, you should be blaming them if you don't like FO3, and thank Bethesda for agreeing to the FONV collaboration.

 

[Gaspard]

I can't agree with you on this one either. Bethesda had enough reputation in their own right that they didn't need the Fallout name. It's not like they bought it to take on the FO franchise fans. As you continue to point out, they made a game that was very little like the original FO games, and it was very successfully, so clearly they didn't need the name.

With these bits you yourself summed up quite nicely the beefs dem FO3 haters have with it However much you argue about anything this way or that.

 

[lujo]

I can't agree with you on this one either. Bethesda had enough reputation in their own right that they didn't need the Fallout name. It's not like they bought it to take on the FO franchise fans. As you continue to point out, they made a game that was very little like the original FO games, and it was very successfully, so clearly they didn't need the name. And as you said, Obsidian sold the rights. So if you ask me, you should be blaming them if you don't like FO3, and thank Bethesda for agreeing to the FONV collaboration.

I think it's highly unlikely that Fallout 3 would've been so much of a success without the name. There were 2 reasons I bought it - 1) I was genuinely curious what a Fallout game done in open-world 3d style would feel like (and I'd ask for a refund there, in that specific case) and

2) Oblivion was, compared to Morrowind, such an enormous dissapointment in terms of immagination and variety that them making a Fallout game got me thinking that it was maybe going to be an attempt at another Morrowind - discarding everything that's stale about fantasy, but giving you a really different and immaginative open world to take a vacation in. I think I wasn't alone in this, and there really was a chance for Bethesda's redemption towards a lot of people who, through Morrowind, got to think about them as sort of artistic innovators but were let down by the shallow and cookie cutter pile of poo that was Oblivion. There were Planescape Torment fans who were charmed by Morrowind, hooked purely on the aestethics, that's how standout and immaginative that place felt. Most of Bethesda's cred, back when they had any but production costs and money, came from Morrowind, and they had plenty of well deserved cred. Problem is, Bethesda arsed it up - Morrowind's a great vacation spot, fallout 3's scenery isn't.

In short, the name was very important. They've alienated quite a few folks by following up a sort of ground breaking game (Morrowind) with a game that was aestehicaly the polar opposite (Oblivion). Then, for their next game they took the name of a franchise which was also remembered as something "unlike anything else", and there was a lot of folks to whom this looked promising. At least it promised not to be bland, rehashed, unimagginative and badly written. I didn't buy Skyrim because I've got burned on Oblivion, but I HAD bought Fallout 3 for the same reason. So they managed to not only arse up the potential to make a 3d fallout game actually good, but even the promise to make a Bethesda game that was worthy of a fond memory. Double fail.

And if you ask me, Oblivion was about as big of a step backwards for TeS games as FO3 was a poor move for the FO franchise. The huge and enduring popularity of Morrowind came from it pushing the limits of what you can think of when you say "fantasy". The only thing Oblivin pushed limits off is hardware sales. For Fallout 3 to work out - I didn't have too much expectations. For Oblivion to be what it is, from guys who made Morrowind? That actually shocked me quite a bit.