Why is Fallout 3 so loved ?

apt means inclined toward or disposed to, or prone to.

I think I understand where the confusion over the term role playing is coming from and why we are missing each other. I am using the strict sense or how the general population would use the term to describe the popularity of the game, and the hardcore gaming nerd (relax, I am a gaming nerd) has its own specific criteria for the term.

Yes, I would agree that Fo3 vanilla or straight out of the box is equivalent to gaming fast food. I only played it once that way, it was okay(starting as a baby was a new twist) and I was curious what the Fallout style Vaults would look like in first person view. I thought the graphics were pretty good. As for the character I played, in vanilla, I went with how I would personally handle the challenges at 18 years of age, basically I played as myself.

Then I added a couple of simple mods, and a generated a "super-hero" type character and started the game again to see how many choices were available to the central character during the game. Although the main story would not deviate very much, there are actually several endings that actor Ron Perlman voices for the ending sequence, describing the changes the character effected in the DC wasteland during the main quest, but the main quest concludes the same way.

What I noticed in this "Super-Hero" experiment was that depending on what skills and perks are chosen by the player for the main character, certain choices would be made available in the side quests. When I gave the character near perfect SPECIAL and Skills, all choices were made available for all the quests.

... afterward I just modded the crap out of the game and played it that way, same with New Vegas, except for the second play, I stopped short of the Second Battle for Hoover Dam, so I could just wander through all the mods available, still fun. That is how I learned to tweak the game graphics and sound to maximum by modifying the config files, now it is fun with cool graphics, although the fps tends to slow down a bit when there are more than 6 people attacking you (cranky old nVidia card).

While someone said that there is a lot of "junk" mods available, there is also a lot of really great mods too. I would say that the game modding community keeps the game pretty much alive, ...that is until Fallout 4 is released.
 
Apt also means 'suited' or 'appropriate'. ;)

Fallout 3 is designed as a theme-park style simulation first, and ~everything else is secondary. This is part of why you can shoot the BOS paladin in the face at the Citadel in front of BOS witnesses, and return later to join up.

I think it's why they deliberately simplified the Fallout setting to make it an anachronistic 1950's instead of the future that the 1950's guesstimated about.
Far easier to tell one's friend, "It's the future, but everything is like really old an @%^&"...

The original series required pragmatism; FO3 assumes nothing, and barely even that you speak the language that the game is presented in; it absolutely doesn't assume the player is literate.

*And this is a BIG part of why it's loved.
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BuffHamster >
And i am talking about the actual sense of roleplaying, the one you actually do.
When you are roleplaying with your friend, you aren't acting something that is already written, but try to play a character that you defined, interact with others characters and have the gamemaster depict the consequences of your actions. A good part of the fun comes from the fact anything would happen. If there was a gamemaster that would force the player to always say specific lines and do specific actions, never what the player want to try, it would kill the roleplay and the gamemaster probably won't be chosen next time. Once again roleplaying is the opposite of the theater, no matter the crap you want to see on the wiki.
 
This kind of Roleplaying is exemplified by an actor that knows their character well enough to improvise suitable lines on the fly.
 
naossano said:
BuffHamster >
And i am talking about the actual sense of roleplaying, the one you actually do.
When you are roleplaying with your friend, you aren't acting something that is already written, but try to play a character that you defined, interact with others characters and have the gamemaster depict the consequences of your actions. A good part of the fun comes from the fact anything would happen. If there was a gamemaster that would force the player to always say specific lines and do specific actions, never what the player want to try, it would kill the roleplay and the gamemaster probably won't be chosen next time. Once again roleplaying is the opposite of the theater, no matter the crap you want to see on the wiki.
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Wow, such a harsh tone. I apologize if I have angered you in any way, but ...

... please allow me to share what I have learned in formal study and on the job about role playing as a dramatic art and its use in theater. The term 'role playing' has such a broad definition and contextual use in dramatic art that it can take many forms depending on the setting, circumstances, purpose, and story structure.

Although the wikipedia is generalized source, I can cite other examples of how the term is used as a part of theatrical production and how it incorporates the "willing suspension of disbelief" in all of its aspects as a common thread:

... in psychology:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8970653
... in education:
http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/topic/roleplay/holidays/theatre.html
http://idainstitute.com/events/seminars/theater_session/
... and theater:
https://www.facebook.com/roleplayersensemble
"Role play is the basis of all dramatic activity. The ability to suspend disbelief by stepping into another character's shoes comes quite naturally to most children." -source http://dramaresource.com/strategies/role-play

"role-playing: using the imagination to identify with someone else in order to explore and represent experience from their perspective or viewpoint; also called being in role." -source http://artsonline2.tki.org.nz/ecurriculum/drama/glossary.php

... as part of dramatic arts: "role playing: improvising movement and dialogue to put oneself in another’s place in a particular situation, often to examine the person(s) and/or situation(s) being improvised." -source http://www.ket.org/artstoolkit/drama/glossary.htm

... as part of theatrical games:
http://www.gamesoapbox.com/rpg-theater/
http://con.sagepub.com/content/18/1/85.short

... role playing games: "a game in which participants adopt the roles of imaginary characters in an adventure under the direction of a Game Master." -source http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/role-playing+game

... role playing game definitions: "A game is a computer RPG if it features player-driven development of a persistent character or characters via the making of consequential choices."- from the article "What makes an RPG an RPG: a universal definition" http://sinisterdesign.net/what-makes-an-rpg-an-rpg-a-universal-definition/

... "the definition of an RPG has proved to be quite controversial in my experience" -from "The Definition of a Role-Playing Game!"
http://www.rpgfan.com/editorials/old/1998/0007.html

... sub genres of Role Playing Games:
http://www.techopedia.com/definition/27052/role-playing-game-rpg

As you can see, the core of Role Playing is still improvisational movement and dialogue that enables you to act out an imaginary situation in an fictional setting. All of those things are part of theater as a dramatic art form, not the opposite.

"fictional character (or characters) that undertakes a quest in an imaginary world." -source http://www.techopedia.com/definition/27052/role-playing-game-rpg

I believe what you are describing is a written play where actors rehearse their lines and blocking based on a director's instruction and is performed in front of an audience, but that is only one small aspect of theater, just as role playing, or improvising what a character in a story might do or say is also an aspect of theater as a dramatic art. Role playing, live theater, dramatic arts all use the same tools to create a willing suspension of disbelief in story telling, game play, and live or recorded performance.

What you may think of as opposite, isn't truly opposite at all, just varying degrees of constraint. A rehearsed play is more constrained and limited in its story structure and ability to role play than an improvised one, that is true. But they both have fictional characters using movement and dialogue that enable them to act out in an imaginary situation. The players just have more freedom and choice in the later. This applies to role playing games as well, ie; characters, movement and dialogue, an imaginary situation, all guided by a Game Master or computer program.

Fallout 3 is a combination of Action and Adventure with elements of Role Playing, but it is not a pure Role Playing Game in the strictest sense of the term.

Why didn't Bethesda make a true role playing game?

The reason Bethesda Studios chose to use the structural template presented in Fallout and Fallout 2 and combine it with an Action/Adventure style of game play along with some of the elements of Role Playing games, was to attract the widest possible audience. That was primarily a marketing and economic choice on their part.

As a financial investment, choosing to build the game around a constrained and linear story line using an already successful proprietary game engine, was a safe bet. It wasn't too complicated, had a quicker production time, used fewer paid voice talent, and involved less cost. And it worked, Fallout 3 was enough of a success that they felt they could contract Obsidian to build on the Fallout franchise and produce a second Fallout title that came closer to the Role Playing style of game play. A story where the main character has even more choices, and consequences of those choices, than in the first title.

Fast Food as an analogy to game play? Sure, that's a fair one, it's appropriate. Does Fallout 3 use a constrained story arc with limited outcomes? Yes, it certainly does, no argument from me there. But its financial success has also given the hardcore computer Role Playing gamers Fallout: New Vegas. Yay!

Is F:NV a perfect example of Role Playing game? Nay, it is still a hybrid game incorporating elements of real time combat with elements of role playing, and more complex story lines and outcomes based on the player's choices. The lines the main character has to speak are still scripted, but the paths the main story can take have gone from one to many and the consequences of the choices the main character makes have more impact on the surrounding world space. I would say it's a good step in the direction of pure role playing game though.
 
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BuffHamster said:
naossano said:
Why didn't Bethesda make a true role playing game?

The reason Bethesda Studios chose to use the structural template presented in Fallout and Fallout 2 and combine it with an Action/Adventure style of game play along with some of the elements of Role Playing games, was to attract the widest possible audience. That was primarily a marketing and economic choice on their part.
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What structural template? They took only the names of a couple factions and even those were scarcely related at all. They did rip-off the plots of both games.*

*One can try arguing technically that it wasn't ripping off anything because they own it... but at the time they made it, they did not own anything, they had licensed the IP.

Imagine if a company licensed HALO, and released HALO 6... a BloodRayne clone about discovering a figure 8 world with a hidden imprisoned menace called the Flush, and it was up to the Mistress-Chief with her twin energy swords to find and ally with a dishonored Covenant elite prophet, to root out and destroy the coming invasion of the Flush that culminates in a Witcher 2 style Kraken fight with a tentacled creature called Granamyr. Is that so different conceptually than what was done to FO3?
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Gizmojunk said:
Is that so different conceptually than what was done to FO3?
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Well, Halo and BloodRayne aren't part of the same universe, Fallout 3 is still part of the Fallout universe so it makes sense that there would be things like GECKs and power armor around. Besides, Fallout 3 was more similar to Fallout 2 more than 1, what with the finding the GECK plot and Enclave and all. Super Mutants and the vault were pretty much most of the "Fallout 1 stuff" so it's more like ripping off one game rather than two.
 
I don't think i was that harsh.

I mainly instead about the practical/factual approach of Roleplaying. When you are roleplaying, you are involved with your character and get to decide how he react. If the gamemaster were to force you to say all your line, you wouldn't be roleplaying at all, no matter what people want to write about it. The fact are to be taken into account first.
 
Gizmojunk: yeah, I understand, but I am not sure what you mean by "plot of both games", unless you mean that all three plots involve providing water to the wastelands?

I guess what I meant by "template" was the use of the Pipboy as a character interaction tool, the use of the SPECIAL, Skills, experience levels, and Perks in character development, the porting of many of the 2.5D objects into 3D, the factions you mentioned, the dialogue with NPC function boxes, the Fallout "back story" and the reasons for the war, the Vault Tec story line, rad scorpions, giant rats, super mutants, and other monsters, the game introduction "War. War never changes", and the finale video, where the narrator describes the changes the player made to the game world, ... and there might be some smaller similarities that made the transition.

The changes made to the franchise were many and big, there is certainly no denying that. A 3 dimensional first person view(switch to third person allowed) of the world space as opposed to a 2.5 dimensional third person view(major change), West Coast locations to East Coast settings, subways and tunnels in addition to underground Vaults, the Pulaski Preservation booths, real time action combat as opposed turn based combat(very big change), walking around the main world area as opposed to just pointing where you want to go on a world map, (although you could 'quick-travel' in the Fo3 PipBoy map), the introduction of the VATS system as a combat aid (a visual transition of a Fo2 perk?), cars exploding like small nuclear detonations when shot at, new radiation altered monstrosities, radio signals and stations and a new non-player character type in the form of radio DJ (Three Dog) describing the changes the main character makes, and many more that you could name.

Were the changes bad? I don't know, for some, maybe. I enjoyed them though, but truth be told, I would have enjoyed the Van Buren version too, if it had been made.

naossano : if by describing a human Game Master versus a computer program as Game Master, I would concur. In a computer game, the Player's spoken lines are scripted, but the actions allowed are much less limited. That is the nature of the beast I guess, computers are quite fanatical when it comes to rules.

woo1108 : true, but it does creep ever closer to a Role Playing style, well, ... as much as a computer application can, anyway.

Fast food is okay once in a while, but I wouldn't consume it on a daily basis. What counts most is, was it fun?
 
BuffHamster said:
Gizmojunk: yeah, I understand, but I am not sure what you mean by "plot of both games", unless you mean that all three plots involve providing water to the wastelands?
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There wasn't a wasteland water problem ~the Vault had a water problem; specifically a machine that could purify their water if it was fixed and turned on. Then there was also an unrelated supermutant threat that would see the vault invaded and all of the inhabitants killed or assimilated. Then in Fallout 2, we see a repeated need for clean water and habitable land, go out and find the part ~again... run into the Unity 2.0 [the Enclave]; Another force out to refashion the country in their own image.

In FO3, we see the player sent out to find the part needed [the dad] that can fix the machine to purify the water and make the surrounding areas habitable; and along the way you see the supermutants, and the Enclave recycled in one game.

I guess what I meant by "template" was the use of the Pipboy as a character interaction tool, the use of the SPECIAL, Skills, experience levels, and Perks in character development, the porting of many of the 2.5D objects into 3D, the factions you mentioned, the dialogue with NPC function boxes, the Fallout "back story" and the reasons for the war, the Vault Tec story line, rad scorpions, giant rats, super mutants, and other monsters, the game introduction "War. War never changes", and the finale video, where the narrator describes the changes the player made to the game world, ... and there might be some smaller similarities that made the transition.
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Trappings only. SPECIAL, Skills, experience levels, and Perks are used in name only and don't share the same behaviors or purposes in the game.

The changes made to the franchise were many and big, there is certainly no denying that. A 3 dimensional first person view(switch to third person allowed) of the world space as opposed to a 2.5 dimensional third person view(major change), West Coast locations to East Coast settings, subways and tunnels in addition to underground Vaults, the Pulaski Preservation booths, real time action combat as opposed turn based combat(very big change), walking around the main world area as opposed to just pointing where you want to go on a world map, (although you could 'quick-travel' in the Fo3 PipBoy map), the introduction of the VATS system as a combat aid (a visual transition of a Fo2 perk?), cars exploding like small nuclear detonations when shot at, new radiation altered monstrosities, radio signals and stations and a new non-player character type in the form of radio DJ (Three Dog) describing the changes the main character makes, and many more that you could name.

Were the changes bad? I don't know, for some, maybe. I enjoyed them though, but truth be told, I would have enjoyed the Van Buren version too, if it had been made.
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  • Fallout was not 2.5d; 2.5d is specifically faked 3D FPP... Like the first ID tech engine, and games using the Build engine. Fallout was all 2D, and not simulating 3D; except in the intro video ~and that was 2D.
    *Technically Fallout's models were 3D, but the game shipped with 2D rendered sprites.
  • RT combat was a really big mistake ~aside from higher profit potential; it has nothing to do with the series, and is just a cop-out to pull in fans of a different genre that otherwise wouldn't find Fallout much to their liking. Not at all unlike say... Vegemite, and if a company like Sarah Lee foods, had bought the brand from Kraft, and reformulated it as a sugary Nutella competitor. :yuck: (Indifferently discarding the original audience of the series.)
 
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Ah yes, that was it, all 3 plots did involve the player being tasked with finding a way to provide clean water to a group of people, and then being caught up in events during or after the initial quest. Okay, a plot rip-off, it wasn't very original to be sure.

As for 2D/2.5D/3D, I apologize, I thought everyone knew what I meant when I referred to the objects depicted, in the orthogonal third person view of the Fallout 1 and 2 games, that were recreated in a virtual 3D environment for Fallout 3. I wasn't sure that the technical details of the original graphic systems were part of the comparison, just that the objects from one were recreated in a virtual 3D environment, sorry, my mistake.

Trappings?, well maybe, sure were a lot of them though, including some of the the back stories. Oh well, I enjoyed it, so did many others, which is the point, I guess.

Yes, you are certainly correct, SPECIAL, Skills, and Perks, were heavily modified to work within the game engine, I won't deny that.

Yet it was my intention to describe some of the aspects of the game that attracted so many to it; elements of role playing, not pure role playing with a human Game Master guiding a group of people, but it had some of the trappings of one, then include an immersive 3D virtual world to explore, add in fast paced real time combat, and an interesting story, I would say that those were some of the reasons why so many bought the game, and why many continue to enjoy it through the modding community.

Hmm, yes, it is true that changing over to a Real-time combat in a 3D environment was most certainly a big change. A mistake? I don't know about that as the game designers hoped the change would attract the largest possible audience and sell the most units, and it appears they weren't wrong, the idea paid off. Of course while there were a number of Fallout fans that liked the change, there was also a portion of that fan base that didn't like it, no arguments from me there.

From a personal viewpoint, and possibly for many of the others who did enjoy Fallout 3, I felt the 3D environment and real time combat added to the story immersion, others can and probably will say that it did nothing for them, but all analogies aside, software publishers can only market what they think people will buy. Profits or not, they still have to be able to pay the writers, programmers, model and texture artists something for their work and profits mean that they can stay in business making more games, so they make what they think most people will buy.

I don't like that either, and wish the game designers would work on what I would personally like, but, they don't always hit the mark with me either, ... oh well.

Still, it is good to know that the people who originally created Fallout 2 are the same people who gave us Fallout: New Vegas and are part of the team working on Fallout 4.
 
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BuffHamster said:
Hmm, yes, it is true that changing over to a Real-time combat in a 3D environment was most certainly a big change. A mistake? I don't know about that as the game designers hoped the change would attract the largest possible audience and sell the most units, and it appears they weren't wrong, the idea paid off. Of course while there were a number of Fallout fans that liked the change, there was also a portion of that fan base that didn't like it, no arguments from me there.
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Oh no, not a marketing mistake; not by any stretch. No, a mistake more akin to inviting folks back to a 3rd annual Barbecue and serving them a vegan buffet... in fact it's almost exactly like that. It is part three with no similarity with parts one & two. There is nothing wrong with FO3 ~it's a great game with impressive detail... but based on design and content... it's not at all appropriate to be called 'Fallout 3' ~and it is so only by fiat. Interplay was nuts and has earned the enmity of many fans for that mistake. [And if not they should have.]
*Not like Zenimax cares though.. they got their money from it; the rest is free milking.

FO3 is loved [primarily] for not being like Fallout at all. Imagine offering a plate of Brussels sprouts to kids [not much luck getting them to eat it huh?]; now imagine offering the same plate of sprouts, but they are made of bubble gum, or marzipan... That's your reason for FO3 being changed; and folks that like real sprouts can like the candy version too, but would probably not like being asked to dinner and served that. What else would one expect when announcing that they would release Fallout part 3. I came expecting something to sink teeth into [as before, and as per the name & reputation of the IP], and I got candy-floss and treated to "What do you mean you don't like it!?".

From a personal viewpoint, and possibly for many of the others who did enjoy Fallout 3, I felt the 3D environment and real time combat added to the story immersion, others can and probably will say that it did nothing for them, but all analogies aside, software publishers can only market what they think people will buy. Profits or not, they still have to be able to pay the writers, programmers, model and texture artists something for their work and profits mean that they can stay in business making more games, so they make what they think most people will buy.

I don't like that either, and wish the game designers would work on what I would personally like, but, they don't always hit the mark with me either, ... oh well.
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If a company bought HALO, and made it a Fallout Tactics clone set in the HALO universe with HALO's factions and all the bells and whistles of DX12 ~but used in turn based RTS, would that same reasoning above justify it? (How about if it sold a hundred million copies by fortuitous fluke of the times and the market?)

That still would not justify it as an appropriate use of the HALO IP ~not if it took the place of HALO 6; as FO3 took the place of any possible Fallout 3 to come.

Still, it is good to know that the people who originally created Fallout 2 are the same people who gave us Fallout: New Vegas and are part of the team working on Fallout 4.
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Do we? Since when? I hadn't heard this.
 
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I really wonder why fo3 lovers(or worshippers) are always comparing NV?
they are totally different genre(free-roaming linear shooter and quest RPG) and comparing NV make fo3 more and more worthless.
 
I finally came full circle and fell in love with Fallout 3 again.

It's so empty that it's the perfect sandbox for free-form modding and roleplaying... why are you looking at me like that?
 
Gizmojunk: I hear you, makes sense to me, but a vegan BBQ? bleah, I need meat!

and then, ... Drat, my bad, I misread it, acck thhbbbt, it will be the same hack team that brought you Fo3? Again, I will have to mod the crap out of to make it worthwhile, when will these studios ever learn?

Is it made by people who made previous Fallouts?
We expect it will be developed by the same team who made Fallout 3, from Bethesda Game Studios. Interplay and Black Isle, the Fallout and Fallout 2 developers, were not involved in the making of Fallout 3. -source http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_4_FAQ

Well anyway, the reason F:NV is so much better is because Obsidian developed it:

Obsidian Entertainment, founded in 2003 after the dissolution of Interplay Entertainment's Black Isle Studios, is a video game developer for PC and console systems. Obsidian continues to operate under management by its founding officers: Feargus Urquhart, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, Chris Avellone and Chris Jones, ... On April 20, 2009, Bethesda Softworks announced that a new game in the Fallout series, Fallout: New Vegas, was being developed by Obsidian. The game was released on October 19 of 2010. -source http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Obsidian_Entertainment

woo1108 : no, no, no, I am not a worshiper of Fo3, I took lemons and made lemonade, ... I modded the crap out of it, my version of Fo3 is no longer the same game that came out of the box. As for the comparison, the only similarities are the Gambryo Engine with Havok scripting, FaceGen, some model and texture assets, and the 3D environment, after that, they are two different games. See my comments here: http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthre...-I-prefer-New-Vegas-Why-or-why-dont-you/page2

I know, it seems from my comments here that I appear to worship it, but in truth, I thought the main story arc to be too simple and limited in outcomes, and I truly hated the sick green tint to everything, so I modded it away, it even smells better now, ...(???)
 
BuffHamster said:
I know, it seems from my comments here that I appear to worship it, but in truth, I thought the main story arc to be too simple and limited in outcomes, and I truly hated the sick green tint to everything, so I modded it away, it even smells better now, ...(???)
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Modding it was fun.
 
naossano said:
BuffHamster >
And i am talking about the actual sense of roleplaying, the one you actually do.
When you are roleplaying with your friend, you aren't acting something that is already written, but try to play a character that you defined, interact with others characters and have the gamemaster depict the consequences of your actions. A good part of the fun comes from the fact anything would happen. If there was a gamemaster that would force the player to always say specific lines and do specific actions, never what the player want to try, it would kill the roleplay and the gamemaster probably won't be chosen next time. Once again roleplaying is the opposite of the theater, no matter the crap you want to see on the wiki.
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hmm. I dont know about it that much, I never role played outside of single player RPGs on the PC. But I think a friend of mine who was in D&D games told me that a player can not act out of his character. This can be quite funn when your party encounters a creature like the Hydra, but where no one of the characters has actually the knowledge in lore/intelect to figure out that you have to actually burn the heads after you cut them ... or for every head you chop of, there will be two new ones.

Now imagine the fun you can have with playing a half-human/orc party with low inteligence ... and how many hydra heads they will have to fight before they figure out that they have to use fire.
 
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