Why FO4 may be liked by intelligent people

Immortalkickass

Immortalkickass

First time out of the vault
I recently asked the opinion on a few friends who played FO4, and out of 3 of them, 2 liked it and 1 did not. I was curious on why the 2 of them liked it, and here is what I found out.

The first guy is a few years older than me. He's recently married, lead a busy life, and had little time for gaming. But not long ago he was in between jobs, so he had 1 week of free time to play FO4. I cannot really understand why he likes it, because he seems to think FO4 is good because it is pretty much the same as FNV and FO3. This guy is an intelligent person (i know him personally), so I'm not sure how he can't see that they are so different. My only possible explanation is that he probably switch off his brain when playing the game. Its quite common really. I've seen lots of smart people just want simple entertainment when chilling out. In fact, most adult entertainment is quite mindless (booze, sex etc). Its a nice perspective (even though i disagree with his stance), since we'd like to think that those who enjoy FO4 are the silly CoD kids.

The 2nd guy's reason for liking it is obvious: he likes the minecraft style settlement building system. However, he only just started the game not log ago, so his opinion may change. But he did note that Bethesda's Fallout cannot be compared to Obsidian's, so I guess he knows what to expect.
 
TheGreatCornholio said:
Sometimes people like to turn off their brains and just have fun. I do it with movies
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Same. And sometimes people have different standards for different things. Just because someone has a low standard for games does not necessarily mean they're instantly unintelligent. The problem lies in the fact that Fallout was different before, and it didn't change for the better. No one would've minded if Bethesda made a completely unrelated Elder Scrolls with guns. But you have a somewhat-dead series (in their opinions) and an idea for Elder Scrolls with guns, why waste the world? At least that's how I assumed the decision to make Fallout 3 went.

See, a lot of the intelligent people that play Fallout 3 and 4 commonly says "Bethesda can do what they want with the series now, it's theirs". It's assumed this is in the context of "Bethesda are good developers, so they can do what they want". No, what they mean is "It's their series now, whether we like it or not". It's acceptance of facts - smart people doesn't exactly mean resistive people.

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Let's say I put it this way...

If Bethesda was a totalitarian government that took over the country of Fallout, most people would just shut up about it, no matter what they think. In this instance, NMA is basically an off-the-grid resistance working to topple that government. But just because someone isn't in NMA doesn't mean they support Bethesda. They just think Bethesda is better than a lot of other potentially worse governments, that Bethesda's government keeps the country strong in its own way, or that it's pointless to do anything about Bethesda because they're holding all the power anyways. Or even, in the case of Fallout 4 now, because they're intelligent but not locals (immigrants, for example) and do not understand that Fallout was different before. As far as they're concerned, Fallout was always under the Bethesda regime.

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So there's a lot of people that would like classic Fallout a lot more if they knew it was what Fallout was actually about. And there are a lot of people who come to Fallout 4 to relax from playing complex games like cRPGs (ironically). And then there are people who are happy with enjoying what's left of Fallout because there's nothing they can do about it, and if they want the old experience they play Wasteland 2 and Underrail, and any future Fallout-like successors.

That's all, really. Intelligent people who don't know the history of the game, or play other intelligent games and then come to Fallout 4 to relax, see things differently. That's why you still find people who aren't "CoD kids" playing Fallout 4 too - they have their own lives, of which they may have had no previous contact with Fallout before.

I'm just here because I really like writing lots of long paragraphs in my free time, this one took up only a few minutes anyways
 
All these reasons are valid. Frustration from some people because Bethesda shat on a game series they loved is valid, too.
 
vdweller84 said:
All these reasons are valid. Frustration from some people because Bethesda shat on a game series they loved is valid, too.
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I agree. :ok:

But in the logic of the world, a series belongs to its creators and not its community. That is how George Lucas got the prequels made (I still don't hate them). It's a result of the world putting money on a higher pedestal than social morals and art. But that's not changing anytime soon, so we can only work with getting around this system.

So... the majority sees your point as invalid. This is why NMA is written off as a haven of hatred (is that a new one?) - because technically, a series does not belong to its fans. This attitude continues to be prevalent throughout everything, really. This is the sorry state of art and entertainment. :seriouslyno:
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
I agree. :ok:

But in the logic of the world, a series belongs to its creators and not its community. That is how George Lucas got the prequels made (I still don't hate them). It's a result of the world putting money on a higher pedestal than social morals and art. But that's not changing anytime soon, so we can only work with getting around this system.

So... the majority sees your point as invalid. This is why NMA is written off as a haven of hatred (is that a new one?) - because technically, a series does not belong to its fans. This attitude continues to be prevalent throughout everything, really. This is the sorry state of art and entertainment. :seriouslyno:
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Except Bethesda didn't create Fallout, what they did was buy artwork from a struggling artist, mark it with a sharpie, and claim it as their own.
 
Spacemunkey said:
Except Bethesda didn't create Fallout, what they did was buy artwork from a struggling artist, mark it with a sharpie, and claim it as their own.
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Again, the legal system and money prevailing over art and entertainment. It's a sorry state.

They own it now. It does not technically matter who it was before. So on a global scale, feelings don't matter, history doesn't matter. What matters is the slip of papers and signatures and the money in the bank.

So yes, if that falls under the realm of lawful acts, they can buy artwork from a struggling artist, mark it with a sharpie, claim it as their own, make crappy artwork with a sharpie and call it modern art while using the name of the struggling artist, because it still falls under the realm of lawful acts.

I'm not saying it's a good thing. This is just how it is.
 
Hmmm...I think there's a logic flaw. You said a series belongs to its creators. Fallout 1&2 creators were Black Isle studio. The rights were acquired by Bethesda who could be viewed, in the most positive of scenarios, as a continuer of the creator's world, but in no possible way as the original creator. This dichotomy introduces the "you took something and fucked it up" in the "Fallout 3 and 4 are their creations and they can do whatever they want" argument.

A Terry Pratchett novel was published posthumously, maybe his daughter helped finish/edit it,idk. If it was inferior to the other books, people who busted their asses reading the previous 40+ novels all those 30 years could say that "they took TP and fucked it up". And how well would these people stand to the criticism of relatively new TP readers who only read the 2 latest (and not as good as the older ones) novels, saying "You people cannot accept change,here is how it's gonna be now like it or not"?

Edit: Ninja'd. Smartphone typing, hooray!
 
vdweller84 said:
All these reasons are valid. Frustration from some people because Bethesda shat on a game series they loved is valid, too.
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This is a good post.

As for the thread, I think it's a bit ridiculous when people gauge whether a person enjoys a particular video game to be related to their overall intelligence. I work in an IT office full of very smart people, many of them played Fallout 4 and loved it. More than 3 or New Vegas. They're smart people. I've known some of them 10 years. The difference between them and myself is... to them it's just a video game. Once it's done they move on. They don't sign up to the fan forums (or run them). They don't spend hours listening to 40-50s music. They don't read news articles debating the merits of the game, etc. They don't break the game down into its core components and try to see how it all fits together and how/why something didn't work or read reviews about it after-the-fact. They play the game for whatever it is... if it's shooting/blowing things up, leveling yourself and getting cool skills/weapons/items... then that's the game they play. There is no lamenting or remorse for it not being the game they played before. They may not have invested enough in the previous games (that they haven't played in 5-6 years) to even remember what the other games were like.

Ultimately the people you see online are people that have connected with something deeper in one or more the games... it was enough to drive them to go online and want to talk to other people about it. People like them (us) are more driven to want to dissect the game... we played a game a previous game we liked... the new game(s) didn't hold up. Then because everyone loves different things, they want to argue about it because it seems unreasonable that someone else could not love the thing that they love... like their dislike of it some how invalidates how much they like it. So people start saying things like, "Well people who like Fallout 3 are retarded because the game is intellectually vapid)" and "Fallout 1/2 were like 20 years ago, get over it!" and then some how people start relating whether they like a video game with the kind of person they might be. It is good that we can be so passionate about something but our passion is often misdirected and our anger misplaced.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
I agree. :ok:

But in the logic of the world, a series belongs to its creators and not its community.
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ZigzagPX4 said:
Again, the legal system and money prevailing over art and entertainment. It's a sorry state.
They own it now. It does not technically matter who it was before.
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Ah.

vdweller84 said:
Hmmm...I think there's a logic flaw. You said a series belongs to its creators. Fallout 1&2 creators were Black Isle studio. The rights were acquired by Bethesda who could be viewed, in the most positive of scenarios, as a continuer of the creator's world, but in no possible way as the original creator. This dichotomy introduces the "you took something and fucked it up" in the "Fallout 3 and 4 are their creations and they can do whatever they want" argument.
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Yeah, I noticed the logic flaw, sorry. :razz:

Want to try mailing that logic flaw to Bethesda to see how they'll respond? I don't think they will at all. Such is the way things are. My point is made - doesn't matter how things should be, because Bethesda owns it now. Unless you can find some sort of legal loophole and wrangle it out of their hands, I don't think there's much we can do to affect Bethesda's ownership of the series.

Back to the point - people who play Bethesda's Fallout aren't dumb. They just realise the above point and just deals with it in their own way - enjoying it for what it is or pursuing new series. NMA is one of the alternate ways to deal with things. None of the ways are wrong. More people should realise this, but I'm not saying you don't.
 
People can enjoy a thing at different levels and analyze them in different depth for a huge variety of reasons (the most important of them being something called Real Life). Maybe some dude watches porn, paying a lot of attention to details, knowing all the names of every pornstar, director and double, being able to tell the difference between true gonzo and fake homemade, appreciating the camera angles and how the cameraman focuses on the guy's weener etc. Maybe I just watch porn for a quick jack off and that's all. In the end, we're both dicking around, fapping like there was no tomorrow. Because, end of the day, it's still porn, and ain't nobody got a Nobel prize for doing that.

So I can accept someone who said that "Y' know, I played F4 for a coupla hours yesterday, had a good time, then had to pick up my child for kindergarten so I didn't want to leave anything too involving behind", or "well I like this game since I don't get to read tons and tons of difficult dialogue because chemo is making my eyes hurt". Okay pal, you've got your reasons for enjoying stuff. I can respect that.

What I have limited tolerance for is:
A) Media satellites lauding the latest dumbed down version of a game series. Even if some people are OK with this version because of a more relaxing playstyle (like in the examples above), gaming sites don't have to declare it's fucking GOTY material! It's like declaring "Car Of The Year" a car that comes with 2 black guys in the back seat, ready to push if you have a breakdown. You know, so that it's easier for the driver.
B) People with more "relaxed" standards, being possibly more influenced by A), donning their ideological mantle and elaborating on why the rest are "old-school elitists stuck in the past","new games are exciting and the old ones are boring","this is how it's gonna be deal with it" and all that. (This doesn't mean that it's OK for the "opposite" side to declare EVERYONE else a retard though.)
C) Fanboys/girls are annoying on all fronts so I'm not even bothering.
 
I think it comes down to taste in a sense when one person likes the older games and the other likes the newer ones in addition to which game you've started out with. Taste as in they like fast paced combat others like consequence driven narrative with indepth characters and places. It can't be denied though that the newer games made by Bethesda are filled with tons of flaws and pretty illogical, sure the older games had their flaws but they were not so as bad as Bethesda's. Still I would never make fun of someone for their preference, I like to think of it as an agree to disagree situation. At the end of the day everyone is going to have their own personal tastes and preferences so there's no changing that.
 
I have intelligent friends who actually are fans of Black Isle's creations, and also game designers today, with a lot of respect for good and old stuff, who indeed enjoy FO4.

The most interesting opinion I had was "I love old Fallout RPGs, I play this game as it is now, a shooter, better in shooting gameplay, and shoot and loot, in that scenario, the game is fairly well, despite all the cons and all the loses from the old games. It is not a fallout game, but Bethesda does this kind of games, and I like them too. Not hoping anything from them they can't do."

(This guy was actually programmer of Master of Orion, not any close to a CoD Kid).

"Explore, Shoot and loot, sometimes chat. Not expecting more. Imagine Stalker, which is actually a really good game. Hoping to have RPG, but they gave me this... is not a really good game, but well, I am playing".

(RPG-Blizzard fan)



And my personal thoughts of the game: I was really critic with FO3. I really enjoyed FO:NV (despite gameplay). I think they ignored everything in Obsidian improvements, I understand they business. The gameplay is indeed better. RPG and Story is FAR worse. Also simple stuff, like finding unassigned Settlers, they did a lot of stuff really wrong, that can be really easy to make them better.
Despite, I think it is a fun game, but not any close the sensation of playing it's predecesors... (including FO3, which I think it is not a really good game, but far better than this one). Despite all above, I am still playing it... until today 22hs Diablo Season haha.
 
I'm all for Bethesda innovating and moving the franchise forward, except they haven't done that. Both FO3/FO4 are more like fan fiction of a better story, and with FO4 your character is now full on Marty Stu/ Mary Sue. It's pretty clear Bethesda is stuck in prewar crap, so why not set the game at the same time as FO1 or earlier, with your own factions growing from there. The Commonwealth: A Fallout Chronicle.
 
There's nothing bad or unusual about intelligent people liking things that are (or are perceived to be) kinda stupid. There are lots of really smart people who love sports or pro-wrestling, or slapstick comedy, or superhero comics, or cartoons aimed at children, or whatever.

Just because you are capable of appreciating something esoteric and challenging that many people cannot, doesn't mean you can't enjoy stuff that's aimed as the masses. As my brother the writer once put it "the reason I read all the great Russian novels was, in part, so people couldn't give me shit about enjoying wrestling."

So the question to ask is less "how could anybody enjoy Fallout 4" and more "why do/don't I enjoy Fallout 4" That second question is the one that can give you relevant information.
 
Fallout 4 is a great game to waste time and have fun, but for many here (maybe just me) I play games not just to have fun, but to explore an interesting and fascinating world. What makes Middle Earth so interesting because it feels real, with it's cultures, history and languages even.
 
No one is stupid or a moron for liking Fallout 3 and 4. And you're also not an idiot for saying that you like those games. Even here. As long as you're ready to eventually have your opinion challanged.

The morons are the people that come here with no other intention but to troll us. - And I would say the same about die-hard-Fallout1-fans that do nothing else but trolling on the Bethesda board.

Immortalkickass said:
Why FO4 may be liked by intelligent people
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Maybe the answer is much simpler than we think?

Even intelligent people enjoy silly schlock once in a while. I love awesome food. Hell, particularly since I got really into cooking! But even I sometimes enjoy fast food, despite of it.
 
Crni Vuk said:
Maybe the answer is much simpler than we think?
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So sorry man, I couldn't contain myself.
 
I treat them like this.
1,2 and New Vegas are the original Star Wars trilogy, a fun series with good stories, good characters and plenty of action and drama to go around. They have their goofy moments, but those goofy moments are there to set up the world at hand and give them a little atmosphere.

3 is like the Force Awakens, taking story plots from previous stories and may not be the strongest story wise, but there is plenty of action to keep you entertained for a while (even through this isn't as much of a fair comparison as Force Awakens has a pretty good story).

4 is like Revenge of the Sith, not exactly good, but awful either. It misses the heart of previous instalments but is trying so hard that you kind of feel sorry for it. While it isn't going to wow anyone, you can just switch off for a couple of hours and make your own fun.

Brotherhood of Steel is like Attack of the Clones, it just sucks.
 
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