World or a Map?

[Sina]

Would you rather have "real" unbroken Fallout world, such as Oblivion will have, or a Map with loading into cities, random encounters and such, done in old style.

I think that full 3D world where you would literally travel on foot through it, would be very very good thing for immersing player more into Fallout world.
And making game look more beautiful, as you would really climb the mountains, cross canyons, deserts...whatever. Ride Chrysalis through it.... where possible. And so on....
Im kind of tired now so my imagination is somewhat slowing down...

Later on it could become tiresome as it did in morrowind, which can be cut down if you had any type of transport available.

But , maybe we could have it both ways....
In the beginning you would have to walk it, later on when you would
collect some maps, and knowledge of the land, if you would chose you could use them to travel across the land in style of old Fallouts.
And it would be really nice if you could get back to some random encounter places...maybe even have some of them expand into small quests if you done things properly....


What do you think?

And what do you think there should be in this kind of the world, what kind of enviroments, what kind of nature (even if its a burnt one)?

And as "we" are at it.... where should fallout 3 take place?

US only?

Mostly in the US but somewhere else too?

I don't know why but Antarctic comes to my mind....and traveling through some parts of Southern America too...Amazon forest or whats left of it, Ande-s mountain range.....
I don't see why it has to be some state now long gone.
Just Earth....

Moon...? Secret base type of thing, low gravity....this and that....

 

[Max Demian]

Considering the amount of resources (both in personnel and time) Bethesda is putting into Oblivion, it seems entirely plausible for FO3 to inherit most of what makes that game kick. And yes, it would be kind of cool to unrestrictedly roam the wastelands relying solely on ones wilderness survival skills (and a compass of course). Who knows what they’ve got in stored for us. Fallout adventure game!?

 

[Member of Khans]

Even though The Elder Scrolls is a great serial: THE HELL, NO!
Everything other would be a PA action rpg, and could be a fun game, but no Fallout.
A Fallout game needs an isometric view. Maybe this could be included in a Morrowind-styled game as one of different angles, mkay, but: No isometric - no Fallout.
I'm very conservative in this respect.
Also, I think a world map is obligatory, for the same reason.

 

[Max Demian]

Even though The Elder Scrolls is a great serial: THE HELL, NO!
Everything other would be a PA action rpg, and could be a fun game, but no Fallout.
A Fallout game needs an isometric view. Maybe this could be included in a Morrowind-styled game as one of different angles, mkay, but: No isometric - no Fallout.
I'm very conservative in this respect.
Also, I think a world map is obligatory, for the same reason.

Who knows what they'll orchestrate...an isometric game two (or three) years from now? That most probably not. Think of all the options available by then. A large number of gamers will have upgraded their rigs to use multicore processors, and will have NV 7800 GTX equivalent graphics (or better)… (which makes Playstation 3 a perfect platform - but that’s another story…) and you think they’ll opt for some turn-based isometric anachronism? Sorry. You’re in for a nasty surprise if you deem so. At best, they’ll leave that as a perk for those Fallout nostalgiats. My shot: it’ll be a first person adventure game with certain character generation freedom, though I seriously doubt character simulation (like the one you have in d20 or Fallout) will remain that popular (which, btw is quite waning as we speak). What people want is simple character augmentation, an alter ego they can immerse themselves in, and enjoy doing all the things they only dreamed of (or hadn’t had the balls for) in real life. Hence the need for first-person game play… That my friend is what sells. Period.

 

[Sina]

Max im going to aks you nicely.
Do not use Fallout and adventure game in the same sentence.
OK i did it, but just to warn you.

And especially not in my posts.

Firstly, that kind of agitation serves nothing, an secondly it will get many people including me riled up and we will start fighting about something that i don't want to talk here.

Fallout will have isometric view. And amazing 3D graphics.
Maybe the angle will be adjustable,so you can see to the horizon - and you will have the ability to zoom in to check goody details of your Power Armor but thats it.

Every statement from Bethesda Devs, and i think i have read them all - states that they themselves are fans of Fallout, that they played it, loved it, and want to make it the way that game deserves it.
And that they have every intention of staying true to the specifics of the game.

You or somebody else may have different opinion about this but post it somewhere else.



I will ask the moderators to delete all posts that will continue what you started from further on.

This is not a post about will it be isometric or not. It will be.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

It's got to be a world map, the game is meant to be set in a barren landscape with only sporadic instances of humanity or interesting locations. Look at the date go round when you are travelling on the world map, it takes you weeks if not months to get anywhere and you're meant to only rarely get an encounter.

Translate that to a realtime world and you'd be spending 90% of the game trapsing around empty landscapes looking for something to do. That doesn't sound very interesting to me.

 

[Kahgan]

The worldmap also give you a better ability to roam the wasteland since you won't have to worry about just sitting for hours pressing the forward key.....

 

[Endless Void]

Well, Arcanum had a great way to deal with this problem... It can be converted to FO3...
But my vote still goes to same old worldmap... For the problems mentioned above by requiem_for_a_starfury...

 

[Sander]

I STARTED THIS THREAD, SO I TELL YOU WHAT TO POST!

You're not a moderator, and frankly your 'moderation' is rather unwanted. It is entirely logical for threads to evolve new topics to talk about, and if that gets out of hand. we can always split the problematic posts into a new thread.

As for the 'walk everywhere you want'....no. While 'realism' is nice, but when you play a game, enjoying it is most important. That's why you play the game. And frankly, walking through a deserted and radiated desert to a new town will never give me any enjoyment.
In fact, walking through a mildly alive environment in Morrowind was incredibly boring, so to answer this problem: it would be a waste of resources.

 

[Sina]

"sander".... i am avare i am not moderator you know? and im not trying to moderate anything..... it just does not get me off...like maybe some "people" .....

And that fake quote was a stupid thing to do. It just shows what your personal opinion is, not mine.

I was just trying to prevent flames and since i have made a post about something i did not want it to turn into something completly different.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

I don't mind having a huge world without area transitions. Arcanum had something close to that and it worked flawlessly. I don't see any obstacles from technical standpoint, and from gameplay standpoint it would contribute to realism and immersion.

 

[Rev. Layle]

Personally I don't care how it is done, as long as traveling from one place to another does not take forever.

(and I have yet to play arcanum.... must play, sounds fun)

 

[Sander]

"sander".... i am avare i am not moderator you know? and im not trying to moderate anything..... it just does not get me off...like maybe some "people" .....

And that fake quote was a stupid thing to do. It just shows what your personal opinion is, not mine.

I was just trying to prevent flames and since i have made a post about something i did not want it to turn into something completly different.

Good for you, but as I was pointing out, that isn't something you need to be doing, especially not requesting that certain posts are deleted, since we don't do that here at all. And no matter what your intentions were, you were plainly telling people what they should write. Which is exactly reflected in my 'fake quote'. And which is also moderating. So don't. If that needs to be done, we will be the ones doing that, not you.

 

[Sina]

Yeah, whatever....


Nice to see a couple opinions going other way in this, too.

don't get me wrong i loved those old maps in the first two games, i just want more from this one.

I was thinking that it could go something like this:

You start from a certain point in the game, Like it was the Vault or Arroyo in previous two. Then when you go out in the desert for the first time you do it "manually" , by walking yourself.
It would give you a sense of acomplishment when you would finally reach another settlement, much greater than traveling on the map.

All the time you are traveling PIP boy would keep track of where are you going, literarily - making the map as you go. Then you could access the map in that old way and travel by it if you chose so to the places you already visited, so that possible traveling-boredom factor would be lessened outright.

And one more thing...you could put markers directly on the world/map yourself through the PIPboy so you could return directly to any spot you choose.
Yes you could do the same on the map, but its more satisfying too actually see what and where yourself. Or you could just walk back which was not possible previously.

Why? Because RPG means freedom to do anything you like, not to be constricted to one way of doing something.

You could even build your secret shelter somewhere, take up residence in some cave, set traps on it....build repair shop inside, take kidnapped people there until you get ransom, hold slaves, chicks, drug factory....

And for the passing of time.....you just arrange it differently. If you had to travel weeks and months of course it would be boring.
If you would translate it directly, which i don't think anybody would do.

This way you could have bigger world in the smaller general space.
Meaning - fuller world. And im not advocating smaller Fallout world by this. Im just sayin.... you know.

Plus , in between, you would have much more opportunity for exploration , encounters and such and they would seem more real that way, ....you could stumble upon a cave...or fall into one by accident, get attacked by different kinds of vermin, find wreckages or ruins by seeing them from the far off...etc.

You could even follow tracks in the much more engaged and satisfying way....if you would rise your outdorsman skill enough you could "see" more tracks/clues than some other player.

Thats something i always missed when playing Ranger/Outdorsman kind of character in most games. It never gave any greater reward, the only example i can remember,where you could actually do something, being - finding out where Vault 13 is in Fallout2, if you managed to get where you needed to be for that.

I would really like to see a game where that kind of ability would significantly improve gameplay by giving you distinct and satisfying rewards for good tracking ability.

And if you had a full 3D world than you could directly see the tracks and follow them, not have your skill giving you written directions through dialog box once in the whole game. Like its a custom in all the games i played.
The higher the skill the more tracks you could discover.

Furthermore, if you imagine it like it is Morrowind than ofcourse it could get boring, but this is Fallout, you could put tons of interesting content that way. At least i could think of a few ways of using that kind of enviroment that it would really give gameplay rewards to player that i don't think are possible or interesting if you have the world that old way.

Well, it would mostly be radioactive sand, radioactive bugs, radioactive bleached bones, radioactive parts of Power Armor, radioactive wreckages, radioactive brahmin, radioactive people, radioactive.....well you get the picture....

I could never get enough of that man.....

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I'm sure that locations will have more wilderness around them (depending on the area). Fallout would probably of had more room around the playing areas if time, money and engine would of allowed but to be able to walk directly from one location to another, without spending all game searching for something to do, would mean shrinking the main area of the game to a few hours travel in any direction. That would mean setting it in and around a single small town.

As for having a fuller world, that kind of goes against the Fallout setting and feel. An empty world where life is sparse and intact remains of the old world are few and far between. Even with Fallout 2 with it's NCR, New Reno and San Fran, everything was somewhat far enough apart to maintain that feeling of desolation.

There's no reason that the Outdoorsman skills couldn't be made more of with a world map. Just have a selection of non-hostile encounters. Instead of 'do you wish to encounter some radscorpions', have a message pop up 'you have spotted a <insert here> do you wish to investigate'. Whether it be a cave or a set of tracks which lead you to another location on the WM. In fact that would work better than discovering something in real time, unless they make items glow depending on the level of your characters skills or really really obvious then given everyone has different computers and level of graphics capability some people with lower end machines (or even poor eyesight for that matter) might not spot tracks or a cave hidden in the shadows.

 

[Sina]

I would rather stumble on to some encounter myself , than avoid it myself - or choose to engage. than have a message in the box telling me it was while i don't see a smurf.

By fuller i didn't mean going against the setting of the game , because the feel would be wrong, and it would not be Fallout.
But 3d world would be fuller than the old map just by existing.
I would still like to see it desolate and lonely in between cities and settlements and other encounters, which would only be more desolate and lonely if you had to walk through it yourself.

When you are using a Map you don't even get to see that wasteland you know?

And i do go for a combined option, walk first, ride a gecko second, have the little guy dying on you from exertion third.....give your PIPboy something to remember , than use it as a Map. If you don't want to just roam around.

I would like to see much bigger world In Fallout 3 , so maybe developers could tweak it to be big but not boring, fuller but still wasteland.
America has some of the most beautiful places on the earth, so you can use them. I mean America...not USA. I mean nature, not cities, although it would be nice to climb on the top of the ruins of Empire state building, or Chrysler building and sneak around manhattan , half submerged, Dallas, Atlanta, L.A.....Seattle....whatever....

It would be beautiful for me if i could just see the Great canyon and walk through it, see some petrified forest, Rocky mountains....Black Hills in Dakota maybe, ....
and maybe some other parts of the planet, instead of reading about it in a message box.

There's no reason that the Outdoorsman skills couldn't be made more of with a world map. Just have a selection of non-hostile encounters. Instead of 'do you wish to encounter some radscorpions', have a message pop up 'you have spotted a <insert here> do you wish to investigate'. Whether it be a cave or a set of tracks which lead you to another location on the WM. In fact that would work better than discovering something in real time, unless they make items glow depending on the level of your characters skills or really really obvious then given everyone has different computers and level of graphics capability some people with lower end machines (or even poor eyesight for that matter) might not spot tracks or a cave hidden in the shadows.

Well boo for them then. If they have that kind of poor sight they should have spended more points on perception before they were born. And i realy doubt if their sight is so bad that they could even read the message box.

And it better if they dont see the cave, it will be easier for them to fall into it. And die

Humor to the side, i dont see how a message box can contend with yourself spoting encounters than choosing an action.

And how it can have greater gameplay value if you see the tracks, or find them out "manualy" in some way that i yet have to invent, or fortunately Bethesda devs will..... oposed to messages saying it to you in some box

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

By fuller i didn't mean going against the setting of the game , because the feel would be wrong, and it would not be Fallout. But 3d world would be fuller than the old map just by existing.

You're going to have to define fuller to me, because I don't see how you can have a fuller world without ditching the Fallout feeling. If you're just talking pretty graphics, that's going to get old real fast, fuller to me means something to do other than look at the scenery.

I would still like to see it desolate and lonely in between cities and settlements and other encounters, which would only be more desolate and lonely if you had to walk through it yourself.

And it would get very boring to have to walk through it, you'd either spend so much time just walking that people would end up putting a weight on the forward key (and I really hope there won't be a forward key) and going off to do something else until they reach the next town. Or you'd have a radscorpion under every rock and a raider behind every tree, either way would get tedious fast.

When you are using a Map you don't even get to see that wasteland you know?

If I read a book I don't get to see anything of the locations or the characters except in my mind, doesn't stop me prefering books to movies. You can see the wasteland everytime you make a stop, the scenery would seem far more impressive if you didn't have to trapse through every foot of it.

And i do go for a combined option, walk first, ride a gecko second, have the little guy dying on you from exertion third.....give your PIPboy something to remember , than use it as a Map. If you don't want to just roam around.

The only way to do it would be to cut the area down so that all locations are close to each other, which would destroy the post apocalyptic feeling of an empty world. Or use devices to compress the time between locations, such as a working train/car/vertibird that would take you directly between locations, and to me that wouldn't be half as much fun as a world map.

I would like to see much bigger world In Fallout 3 , so maybe developers could tweak it to be big but not boring, fuller but still wasteland.
America has some of the most beautiful places on the earth, so you can use them. I mean America...not USA. I mean nature, not cities, although it would be nice to climb on the top of the ruins of Empire state building, or Chrysler building and sneak around manhattan , half submerged, Dallas, Atlanta, L.A.....Seattle....whatever....

It would be beautiful for me if i could just see the Great canyon and walk through it, see some petrified forest, Rocky mountains....Black Hills in Dakota maybe, ....
and maybe some other parts of the planet, instead of reading about it in a message box.

With a world map you could have plenty of landscape maps, some generic but others that are unique to a particular location. Do you really want to trapse through hundreds of miles of desert just to go look at a virtual version of the Grand Canyon?

Humor to the side, i dont see how a message box can contend with yourself spoting encounters than choosing an action.

And how it can have greater gameplay value if you see the tracks, or find them out "manualy" in some way that i yet have to invent, or fortunately Bethesda devs will..... oposed to messages saying it to you in some box

Because the box is fair, it relies only on your character's skills not the specs of your pc or your own perception. It's the same for real time combat in rpgs. It doesn't fit because it relies more on you the player than your character. What's the point of having character sheets, with stats and skills if at the end of the day it comes down to the player and not the character's reactions?

 

[Sina]

You're going to have to define fuller to me, because I don't see how you can have a fuller world without ditching the Fallout feeling. If you're just talking pretty graphics, that's going to get old real fast, fuller to me means something to do other than look at the scenery.

Being inside 3D world is fuller by itself than having a map only.
Ofcourse i do not mean just prety graphics. I mean good looking scenery with something to do in it.

And it would get very boring to have to walk through it, you'd either spend so much time just walking that people would end up putting a weight on the forward key (and I really hope there won't be a forward key) and going off to do something else until they reach the next town. Or you'd have a radscorpion under every rock and a raider behind every tree, either way would get tedious fast.

I do not see why it has to be those extremes. Those are not the only posibilities you know? Any game has to find a balance between those extremes to be good and so will Fallout.

When you are using a Map you don't even get to see that wasteland you know?

If I read a book I don't get to see anything of the locations or the characters except in my mind, doesn't stop me prefering books to movies. You can see the wasteland everytime you make a stop, the scenery would seem far more impressive if you didn't have to trapse through every foot of it.

You can see the same square little map, or two. Not the Wasteland.
If i want to read books then i read them, but in games i like to see as well as read, have a good story to folow through etc.... Games are made for seeing stuff. I dont want to read about wasteland and imagine it in Fallout 3, i want to see it.

And i do go for a combined option, walk first, ride a gecko second, have the little guy dying on you from exertion third.....give your PIPboy something to remember , than use it as a Map. If you don't want to just roam around.

The only way to do it would be to cut the area down so that all locations are close to each other, which would destroy the post apocalyptic feeling of an empty world. Or use devices to compress the time between locations, such as a working train/car/vertibird that would take you directly between locations, and to me that wouldn't be half as much fun as a world map.

No. It does not have to be.
It all depends how developers do it. If they do it good then everybody is hapy if not then everybody can scream that whole idea is wrong while maybe just implementation of it is.

With a world map you could have plenty of landscape maps, some generic but others that are unique to a particular location. Do you really want to trapse through hundreds of miles of desert just to go look at a virtual version of the Grand Canyon?

HELL Yeah. Except it would not be just for looking.

Because the box is fair, it relies only on your character's skills not the specs of your pc or your own perception. It's the same for real time combat in rpgs. It doesn't fit because it relies more on you the player than your character. What's the point of having character sheets, with stats and skills if at the end of the day it comes down to the player and not the character's reactions?

I do not see how my idea would vanquish stats or character sheets.

That was not what i had in mind at all.

I see it as something that would expand and add to all of it.
There are ways to do it so that skills and stats count as much as in that old style of showing the game visualy.

 

[Sander]

Being inside 3D world is fuller by itself than having a map only.
Ofcourse i do not mean just prety graphics. I mean good looking scenery with something to do in it.

Yet having something to do in it would largely destroy the Fallout feel of a desolate and deserted wasteland. Life should not be abundant, and there shouldn't be things to do in it. That's the whole principle of a wasteland.

I do not see how my idea would vanquish stats or character sheets.

Hyperbole, sina.

I see it as something that would expand and add to all of it.
There are ways to do it so that skills and stats count as much as in that old style of showing the game visualy.

How, then? How can you possibly still allow the player to rely on the characters stats if you force him to pay attention, look for 'tracks' and all that stuff?

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Being inside 3D world is fuller by itself than having a map only. Ofcourse i do not mean just prety graphics. I mean good looking scenery with something to do in it.

No it doesn't, 3d isn't the holy grail, if people get bored by travelling through the world until they find something to do then it isn't fuller than a map. And a world that doesn't contradict the Fallout setting wouldn't have much to do other than look at the scenery. Not that there would be much scenery as the world of Fallout is mostly featureless wasteland.

I do not see why it has to be those extremes. Those are not the only posibilities you know? Any game has to find a balance between those extremes to be good and so will Fallout.

There's already a perfect balance, it's called a world map.

You can see the same square little map, or two. Not the Wasteland. If i want to read books then i read them, but in games i like to see as well as read, have a good story to folow through etc.... Games are made for seeing stuff. I dont want to read about wasteland and imagine it in Fallout 3, i want to see it..

Fallout and Fallout 2 had limited landscapes, but that was due to engine and budget limitations, though if you stopped in the wasteland you got desert, the coast a beach, the city ruins. And by FOT you have the ability to have an unique landscape map for every square on the world map, even if they didn't use it.

No. It does not have to be.
It all depends how developers do it. If they do it good then everybody is hapy if not then everybody can scream that whole idea is wrong while maybe just implementation of it is.

Yes it does. The distances between locations in Fallout are sometimes hundreds of miles apart. You couldn't do that in real time, they'd have to compress the distances or the time travelled. In real time the least artificial way of doing that is to have a small playing area or a few small playing areas linked by an instant transport device.

HELL Yeah. Except it would not be just for looking.

I wouldn't, I'd rather spend 30 seconds travelling across the world map and then enter the location.

I do not see how my idea would vanquish stats or character sheets.

That was not what i had in mind at all.

I see it as something that would expand and add to all of it.
There are ways to do it so that skills and stats count as much as in that old style of showing the game visualy.

Anything that relies on you the player makes the character sheet worthless. For me RPGs are about playing the character not the engine.