Why is Boston unhurt by the atomic bombs?

Then what is your point exactly?

All of those towns have people walking all over the place, from generic drifters and caravan guards, to named people you can talk to such as they mayors, the shop keepers, the doctors, etc. etc. I never felt like any of them didn't feel not busy.

Except Primm in NV, but that was because the NPCs lacked scripts and thus never came out of their houses
 
Someguy37 said:
Then what is your point exactly?

All of those towns have people walking all over the place, from generic drifters and caravan guards, to named people you can talk to such as they mayors, the shop keepers, the doctors, etc. etc. I never felt like any of them didn't feel not busy.

Except Primm in NV, but that was because the NPCs lacked scripts and thus never came out of their houses
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Let's compare Fallout 1/2 where the major cities had more then thirty people, with a lot of them having unique dialogue. Now let's compare Fallout 3/4/NV (to a lesser extent) where the major towns have like 20 or less people and few unique dialogue.
 
Fallout 1/2 were also 2d, used sprites, separated the cities into like 4-5 different maps, and most of them were wholly static objects never moving or doing anything, to reduce strain.

OFC they had more people in them.
 
Someguy37 said:
Fallout 1/2 were also 2d, used sprites, separated the cities into like 4-5 different maps, and most of them were wholly static objects never moving or doing anything, to reduce strain.

OFC they had more people in them.
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That's true, but they still had more dialogue, maybe because it wasn't voiced (which is the way to go in my opinion).
 
Dr Fallout said:
That's true, but they still had more dialogue, maybe because it wasn't voiced (which is the way to go in my opinion).
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Most older RPGs had more dialogue because NPCs had to explain every little thing about the world to the player, as complex book/terminal/note/codex systems didn't exist, and graphics were so muddy that trying to do anything but larger details was impossible. Modern games shouldn't have as much dialogue, because theres no need for NPCs to spew out all that background information that could, and realistically would, just be in notes/books/terminals/codex.

A lot of questions posed to NPCs in old RPGs, especially fantasy RPGs, amount to setting a game in the modern day, and letting the PC ask what a car is. They should already know, having spent their entire lives in the modern world.

Fallout 1, 2, 3, and 4 at least had the excuse of either coming from a sealed vault, or a backwater tribal village in the middle of nowhere, but even then, the response to 90% of those question would have been "uhh, are you stupid?", with NPCs being perplexed you are asking about things literally everyone knows about. I actually kinda liked how Fallout 4 lampshades this a lot with NPCs acting confused when you asked about ghouls, or super mutants, or synths, or several of the chems. NV was the odd one out with the Courier having come from the NCR, yet being totally oblivious to everything about it.

Voiced VA did nothing but force devs to actually have to think of ways to present this other information other then the typical "PC: I know I have lived in this world for my entire life, and there is only this one massive empire or pantheon of gods that everyone is part of, but I am still going to ask basic questions about it as if I was totally oblivious to its existence even though that doesn't make sense." stuff we got before.
 
Someguy37 said:
Dr Fallout said:
That's true, but they still had more dialogue, maybe because it wasn't voiced (which is the way to go in my opinion).
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Most older RPGs had more dialogue because NPCs had to explain every little thing about the world to the player, as complex book/terminal/note/codex systems didn't exist, and graphics were so muddy that trying to do anything but larger details was impossible. Modern games shouldn't have as much dialogue, because theres no need for NPCs to spew out all that background information that could, and realistically would, just be in notes/books/terminals/codex.

A lot of questions posed to NPCs in old RPGs, especially fantasy RPGs, amount to setting a game in the modern day, and letting the PC ask what a car is. They should already know, having spent their entire lives in the modern world.

Fallout 1, 2, 3, and 4 at least had the excuse of either coming from a sealed vault, or a backwater tribal village in the middle of nowhere, but even then, the response to 90% of those question would have been "uhh, are you stupid?", with NPCs being perplexed you are asking about things literally everyone knows about. I actually kinda liked how Fallout 4 lampshades this a lot with NPCs acting confused when you asked about ghouls, or super mutants, or synths, or several of the chems. NV was the odd one out with the Courier having come from the NCR, yet being totally oblivious to everything about it.

Voiced VA did nothing but force devs to actually have to think of ways to present this other information other then the typical "PC: I know I have lived in this world for my entire life, and there is only this one massive empire or pantheon of gods that everyone is part of, but I am still going to ask basic questions about it as if I was totally oblivious to its existence even though that doesn't make sense." stuff we got before.
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Nice excuse, but you're forgetting a massive part that is used for quests, casual talk and more. And I love it how you justify less interesting dialogue, which only works if the majority is explanation which it isn't, showing a bit of ignorance the amount of differing dialogue in Fallout 1 and 2. I mean it would make sense if your examples for all dialogue was from Shady Sands.

Actually that's quite wrong, a lot of the information in Fallout 1 was heavily regional, meaning that it was quite normal you wouldn't know of things, and contrary to what you state it has a small amount of stupid questions, also ignoring the fact that communication was limited meaning that what would be common knowledge in one area has barely any application in another. Shady Sands for example trades with Junktown freely (almost) yet barely knows if the Hub exists while Junktown has a roaring trade with the Hub and is without doubt.

Again, that actually rarely happens, and is limited to tutorial areas like Shady Sands, while Fallout 2 you're a tribal and people comment on that (yes they can actually say you're asking stupid questions, it totally never happened before Bethesda).
 
I never justified less interesting dialogue, only less dialogue in general.

Nor did I say Bethesda was the first to do the lampshading.

If you are going to straw man me, do it less blatantly.
 
Someguy37 said:
I never justified less interesting dialogue, only less dialogue in general.

Nor did I say Bethesda was the first to do the lampshading.

If you are going to straw man me, do it less blatantly.
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If you're actually going to fully respond, please do.

More dialogue is always better if it's good, less dialogue is worse then more good dialogue even if it's also good.

I'm just saying that if you like it when Bethesda does it, won't you credit to the original games as well?
 
Dr Fallout said:
If you're actually going to fully respond, please do.

More dialogue is always better if it's good, less dialogue is worse then more good dialogue even if it's also good.

I'm just saying that if you like it when Bethesda does it, won't you credit to the original games as well?
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I did.

More dialogue, even good dialogue, isn't better if theres no logical reason for that dialogue to exist. At that point you are just making stuff up to throw more dialogue at the player, which is nothing but bloat.

I didn't list Fallout 1/2 for the same reason I didn't credit literally every single game in history that did it. Fallout 4 is just the most recent game to do it, so its the one I listed. Are you really THAT sensitive that something that small bothers you that much?
 
Someguy37 said:
Dr Fallout said:
If you're actually going to fully respond, please do.

More dialogue is always better if it's good, less dialogue is worse then more good dialogue even if it's also good.

I'm just saying that if you like it when Bethesda does it, won't you credit to the original games as well?
Click to expand...
I did.

More dialogue, even good dialogue, isn't better if theres no logical reason for that dialogue to exist. At that point you are just making stuff up to throw more dialogue at the player, which is nothing but bloat.

I didn't list Fallout 1/2 for the same reason I didn't credit literally every single game in history that did it. Fallout 4 is just the most recent game to do it, so its the one I listed. Are you really THAT sensitive that something that small bothers you that much?
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That was it? You ignored pretty much my hole response apart from two 'strawmen'.

Bloat is bad if it's shitty. As long as the dialogue is good and provides loads of choice then it's not bloating it's spoiling you. Too much bad dialogue is a bad thing, but too little (as seen in Fallout 4's limited choices and one liners) is bad.

Because you used it against Fallout 1 and 2, which you state don't have it by saying "PC: I know I have lived in this world for my entire life, and there is only this one massive empire or pantheon of gods that everyone is part of, but I am still going to ask basic questions about it as if I was totally oblivious to its existence even though that doesn't make sense.' Which implies as you talked about how Fallout 1 and 2 have a problem of the PC asking stupid questions, hence I responded by saying that they have the response too, meaning that this is a minor problem and isn't as big as you say it is.
 
Dr Fallout said:
Because you used it against Fallout 1 and 2, which you state don't have it by saying "PC: I know I have lived in this world for my entire life, and there is only this one massive empire or pantheon of gods that everyone is part of, but I am still going to ask basic questions about it as if I was totally oblivious to its existence even though that doesn't make sense.' Which implies as you talked about how Fallout 1 and 2 have a problem of the PC asking stupid questions, hence I responded by saying that they have the response too, meaning that this is a minor problem and isn't as big as you say it is.
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Re-read a post, FAR more carefully this time. I did nothing of the sort, in fact, I explicitly stated Fallout 1/2 were exempt from this for the most part.
Fallout 1, 2, 3, and 4 at least had the excuse of either coming from a sealed vault, or a backwater tribal village in the middle of nowhere, but even then, the response to 90% of those question would have been "uhh, are you stupid?", with NPCs being perplexed you are asking about things literally everyone knows about. I actually kinda liked how Fallout 4 lampshades this a lot with NPCs acting confused when you asked about ghouls, or super mutants, or synths, or several of the chems. NV was the odd one out with the Courier having come from the NCR, yet being totally oblivious to everything about it.
Click to expand...

Dr Fallout said:
Bloat is bad if it's shitty. As long as the dialogue is good and provides loads of choice then it's not bloating it's spoiling you. Too much bad dialogue is a bad thing, but too little (as seen in Fallout 4's limited choices and one liners) is bad.
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Choice only means something if the situation its present it has an actual purpose, and a logical result.

Choice for the sake of choice is bloat, and inherently bad, as it only cheapens the entire point of choices in games.
 
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The Courier is never "Entirely oblivious" to the NCR, his questions usually ask people what they think about them and how their foothold on the Mojave is. You won't get any "What is the NCR?" questions at all, sometimes you can even ask things that only someone who has lived in the NCR or played the first 2 games would know the context of.

Also, "bloat" of choices? Since when is having lots of choices is a bad thing? Having no options is bad, specially when even the limited number of choices you have net pretty much the same result, like what happens with Fallout 4's dialogue options often.
 
I read your post, it makes no sense. You are calling detail "Bloat" even tho RPGs are always about such detail. And bethesda games in particular supposedly being about free exploration and big maps, such ampount of dialogue would actually be more appropiate to thsi kind of game. Also, more optional dialogue is never a bad thing, only forced excessive dialogue is.
 
Walpknut said:
I read your post, it makes no sense. You are calling detail "Bloat" even tho RPGs are always about such detail. And bethesda games in particular supposedly being about free exploration and big maps, such ampount of dialogue would actually be more appropiate to thsi kind of game. Also, more optional dialogue is never a bad thing, only forced excessive dialogue is.
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Thanks Walpknut. The thing is, choice for the sake of choice IS bad, but where do we get that? All the choices in Fallout 1 and 2 are interesting and have various effects.
 
Someguy37 said:
Then what is your point exactly?

All of those towns have people walking all over the place, from generic drifters and caravan guards, to named people you can talk to such as they mayors, the shop keepers, the doctors, etc. etc. I never felt like any of them didn't feel not busy.

Except Primm in NV, but that was because the NPCs lacked scripts and thus never came out of their houses
Click to expand...

Staring out of the window can be considered busy I guess.

 
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I understand from a gameplay stand point why it's not ruined. It wouldn't be fun to explore a scorched crater. Boston provides a nice dense urban environment with some interesting verticality and gameplay possibilites. I really don't blame them for it. I just wish Boston was more art-deco-ish like the Boneyard or even D.C. At the moment it looks like something from pixar with all the brightly coloured walls.
 
From a story perspective, whatever was supposed to hit Boston missed the city and landed in the water, creating the Golden Sea (If I recall.)
 
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