World or a Map?

[Jahakob]

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.

I fully agree.

In my head the wasteland is great and amazing. I mean, ANYTHING could be out there! Canyons, caves, vaults, fortresses, burnt forests, military camps, lost worlds, cities, nomads, monsters, societies, factories, swamps, dumps, wanderers, lunatics and everything that is fallouty...
Even if they made a 3d world that is 10 times better then the world in 'World of Warcraft' it couldn't measure the love I feel for the worldmap and the vision I get when I think of the wasteland.
It is better scenery in a book then in a movie or any game.

Driving/walking trough a well-modeled world doesn't fill any purpose. It wouldn't be as mysterious and great if I could look at every dirty inch and stone of it.

Keep the world map, they should put most of their efforts in the cities, missions, storyline, music, NPCs and dialog.

 

[Sina]

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.

It is not. -Repeats answer given to Sander-.... The atmosphere of the game is desolate, sometimes, the world of Fallout has equal numbers of creatures, places, quests, action, interactivity as any other big RPG game.
And i agree that 3D is not the holy grail. by the way....

And , as i said before, if you find a right balance, which all games must try to do, than it is not desolate so much that there is nothing to do, or over populate and full of life which does not fit the setting of the world.

If you get it right than its good game ...if not....
That is entirely in the realm of the developers doing the game...so it does not apply as an argument here.

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.

FOT? whats that preciouss....is it good for eating?
Yes Fallout had a few of those small maps, i always understood them as a result of the engine...not something that gives Fallout its feel.
Or something that should stay the same always no matter what.
If fallout3 goes that way i hope those maps would be more elaborate and appropriate. If you are in the mountain region of Fallout than when you load down into it it should portray mountain
kind of land, and be bigger....and have different versions, not just one bloody always the same piece of graphic.

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.

It does not need to be smaller.
Maybe just compress the time when you are traveling a little, as it was compressed on the Map in the first two games.
Have a day lasts a hour or two in the game not actual 24 hours.
It did not, even in the first two games.
Ofcourse it would be hard to do....but maybe it can be.
I would not mind it, but i certainly can recognize that many other players would, depending on their personal tastes.

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

No it does not. You can blend the two. How good thats another question. Check Hellgate London for future reference ( if they manage to do what they are now saying they will).
For me RPGs are both, character and the engine, the game.
I want to see as much as i can read, learn, think off.

The simplest example i can think of, (in a fantasy setting) of how you can have both, would be:

In the fight, the player, swings a sword at an enemy and hits him every time he is in range of the weapon, making combos, and different types of attack by clicking and taping the keyboard.

The stats ( and perks) decide how much damage you did, did you really hit him or maybe just gave him a blow on the armor or shield, did the enemy managed to defend himself, how much damage his armor diverted, or has it maybe received a critical blow that punctured the armor, how much armor get damaged from blows on it alone, will the parts off it fall of.....how much damage and what kind of damage your combos or special moves do...etc.

The mechanics would be similar if you played Post apocalyptic game or any other.
RPG-s will not stay the same.... And i do not see one reason they should stay PnP in their core.
I see it as a first step(PnP), not all there ever will be.

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.

We have been over this already in this thread.

But anyway.....

Fallout is not desolate and deserted wasteland, in fact its full of shit.
The atmosfere of the game on the other hand is like that, and thats why most people feel like it is desolate and deserted.
If it realy was so, than there would be nothing to do in the whole game. And there is a lot to do, and thousands and thousand of cratures you meet...if you play it long enough.

Hyperbole, sina.

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?

-You force the player to pay attention to details when you give him to play an RPG in the beggining.-

By having stats give player ability to see the clues in the first place. If your skill is too low you see only a few tracks that disappear after a while, if you have higher skill than you can follow them to the end.
There is a number of ways to present it graphically that would look nifty and useful.
And there are many different types of tracks.
It could be like a field of view around the player, visible or unvisible,
that you could direct around the player in search for clues....like it is you are directing your attention on the nature around you...the higher your skill is, augmented with a few specific perks, the more clues you would find.

And use them just to track something, or to discover that somebody is lying about something too.... the uses are many, and all good. Thats one part of the game that definitely needs some improvement.

In my head the wasteland is great and amazing. I mean, ANYTHING could be out there! Canyons, caves, vaults, fortresses, burnt forests, military camps, lost worlds, cities, nomads, monsters, societies, factories, swamps, dumps, wanderers, lunatics and everything that is fallouty...

Yes there is a lot of stuff there, i thought it would be nice to actually see it.

...they should put most of their efforts in the cities, missions, storyline, music, NPCs and dialog.

That wouldn't be so bad, in fact i would be very pleased if they did it that way.

I just wondered would it be possible to do, and tryed to imagine it like that..... but you cannot find if the idea is really good if you do not have some kind of other input on it, hear some other opinions from different angles.

Now, i feel it maybe could be done in Fallout4 or 5 maybe....
Maybe its too much a change for this game we all have been waiting for too long.

Still, even if its a Map first game i would like to see much bigger areas, much more detailed, and many different small maps you could load into that would correspond to the bigger map.

 

[Sander]

It is not. -Repeats answer given to Sander-.... The atmosphere of the game is desolate, sometimes, the world of Fallout has equal numbers of creatures, places, quests, action, interactivity as any other big RPG game.

It has as many populated places as most RPGs, but the main and huge difference is that the amount of non-populated places are much, much greater than in other RPGs. The balance is entirely different. Which makes it desolate. The fact that you only visit the populated places is rather logical, because you can't really do anything interesting in non-populated places.
But that doesn't change a thing about the fact that Fallout is desolate, it's a huge wasteland with nothing to do in it. That's it.

And , as i said before, if you find a right balance, which all games must try to do, than it is not desolate so much that there is nothing to do, or over populate and full of life which does not fit the setting of the world.

If you get it right than its good game ...if not....
That is entirely in the realm of the developers doing the game...so it does not apply as an argument here.

What bull. Go read this again. It basically says 'if they do it right, it's good. So it isn't an argument.'
So, in short, we shouldn't accept anything as arguments, because hey, if they do it right it's right, so it isn't an argument anyway.
Finding the balance isn't needed, it's already there in Fallout. And that balance says that Fallout is largely empty, with a few populated places. Altering that balance for the sake of being able to walk somewhere and not be bored would not make it Fallout.

It does not need to be smaller.
Maybe just compress the time when you are traveling a little, as it was compressed on the Map in the first two games.
Have a day lasts a hour or two in the game not actual 24 hours.
It did not, even in the first two games.
Ofcourse it would be hard to do....but maybe it can be.
I would not mind it, but i certainly can recognize that many other players would, depending on their personal tastes.

This can't be done without altering the entire feel. The only way to do this would be to let the player walk for a much smaller time before reaching a new place. Which would immediately alter the entire feel of desolation. If walking to a place takes only an hour instead of a full day that makes the entire world feel more desolate, nevermind if you say it's still the same distance, it will feel fuller.

No it does not. You can blend the two. How good thats another question. Check Hellgate London for future reference ( if they manage to do what they are now saying they will).
For me RPGs are both, character and the engine, the game.
I want to see as much as i can read, learn, think off.

The simplest example i can think of, (in a fantasy setting) of how you can have both, would be:

In the fight, the player, swings a sword at an enemy and hits him every time he is in range of the weapon, making combos, and different types of attack by clicking and taping the keyboard.

The stats ( and perks) decide how much damage you did, did you really hit him or maybe just gave him a blow on the armor or shield, did the enemy managed to defend himself, how much damage his armor diverted, or has it maybe received a critical blow that punctured the armor, how much armor get damaged from blows on it alone, will the parts off it fall of.....how much damage and what kind of damage your combos or special moves do...etc.

The mechanics would be similar if you played Post apocalyptic game or any other.
RPG-s will not stay the same.... And i do not see one reason they should stay PnP in their core.
I see it as a first step(PnP), not all there ever will be.

Okay, so then you get the following example: I don't have the willl or time to find out about all those combos, but I do want to play the game with a character who is great at melee. End result: I suck at the combos, my character is a great melee fighter, but I still can't hit anything.
Logical? No. So that's why stats were invented.
If people wanted to do twitch gaming or create cool combos they wouldn't be playing Fallout, they'd be playing Soul Calibur.

We have been over this already in this thread.

No, you think you're right, so you say that you've already been over this in this thread. That discussion was far from conclusive.

Fallout is not desolate and deserted wasteland, in fact its full of shit.
The atmosfere of the game on the other hand is like that, and thats why most people feel like it is desolate and deserted.
If it realy was so, than there would be nothing to do in the whole game. And there is a lot to do, and thousands and thousand of cratures you meet...if you play it long enough.

See above. Again: the only things you see are the places where there's something to do because, gee, what the hell are you going to do in a desolated wasteland other than walk through it?
This doesn't change anythjing about the fact that about 99% of Fallout's land mass is desolate and uninhabited.

-You force the player to pay attention to details when you give him to play an RPG in the beggining.-

By having stats give player ability to see the clues in the first place. If your skill is too low you see only a few tracks that disappear after a while, if you have higher skill than you can follow them to the end.
There is a number of ways to present it graphically that would look nifty and useful.
And there are many different types of tracks.
It could be like a field of view around the player, visible or unvisible,
that you could direct around the player in search for clues....like it is you are directing your attention on the nature around you...the higher your skill is, augmented with a few specific perks, the more clues you would find.

And use them just to track something, or to discover that somebody is lying about something too.... the uses are many, and all good. Thats one part of the game that definitely needs some improvement.

Again: that isn't what Fallout is about. If you want that, go play another game, but Fallout was never, ever about forcing the player to be actively pursuing things his character should be able to do. It's about letting the stats speak for the abilities of the player, not the combination of the stats and the player's ability. The player is supposed to make choices on how to play the game, not on how well the character does.
ANd frankly, I don't care whether you'd like it better if you had to do more things, that would not be a Fallout game. If you like that, you should search for another game to play.

 

[Sina]

I realy do not need somebody like you telling me what Fallout is or is not, and especialy that i should find a nother game to play, majmune(monkey),with that tone.

Why did you get hook up on combos in that example there, are you blind or stupid, or that was the only way you could think of something to say.
They do not matter, thats not what i was talking about... you can have them or dont...or something entirely different.

What you are saying is your personal taste in how some games should look and behave, so FRANKLY, i realy do not give a shit about what you say.

And besides if you have read my post to the end you could (maybe) figured that your posting this after that has no meaning.

 

[Sander]

I realy do not need somebody like you telling me what Fallout is or is not, and especialy that i should find a nother game to play, majmune(monkey),with that tone.

With that tone? I didn't know text had tones.
Get off your high horse and stop acting like you're flawless and don't do the exact same thing to people. Telling people what is and isn't Fallout is exactly what you've done before. So either learn to deal with what you're doing yourself, or shut up.

Why did you get hook up on combos in that example there, are you blind or stupid, or that was the only way you could think of something to say.
They do not matter, thats not what i was talking about... you can have them or dont...or something entirely different.

Hey, you were the one coming with that example, don't blame me if you don't like the example anymore once I show you what it is.

What you are saying is your personal taste in how some games should look and behave, so FRANKLY, i realy do not give a shit about what you say.

Then why the bloody hell should anyone give a shit as to what you have to say? The point of a discussion is to learn from eachother and figure out what's right and what's wrong. So don't run away once you have nothing to say anymore.

And besides if you have read my post to the end you could (maybe) figured that your posting this after that has no meaning.

So now what? I'm supposed not reply to something flaming me and basically ignoring an entire argument? Give me a break and stop pretending you're a holy shining beacon of what's right.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

It is not. -Repeats answer given to Sander-.... The atmosphere of the game is desolate, sometimes, the world of Fallout has equal numbers of creatures, places, quests, action, interactivity as any other big RPG game.
And i agree that 3D is not the holy grail. by the way....

And , as i said before, if you find a right balance, which all games must try to do, than it is not desolate so much that there is nothing to do, or over populate and full of life which does not fit the setting of the world.

If you get it right than its good game ...if not....
That is entirely in the realm of the developers doing the game...so it does not apply as an argument here.

Fallout might have a lot of stuff to do but it's all so far apart, unlike most other crpg games Fallout is set in a real world area that covers hundreds of miles. While a 3d world might work and work well for other games, Fallout is too epic, it's world too vast to be adequately rendered in a 3d world.

FOT? whats that preciouss....is it good for eating?
Yes Fallout had a few of those small maps, i always understood them as a result of the engine...not something that gives Fallout its feel.
Or something that should stay the same always no matter what.
If fallout3 goes that way i hope those maps would be more elaborate and appropriate. If you are in the mountain region of Fallout than when you load down into it it should portray mountain
kind of land, and be bigger....and have different versions, not just one bloody always the same piece of graphic.

I was using FOT as an example of technology improving (even if the gameplay declined) you keep using the lack of variety of maps in Fallout as your argument for wanting to see more of the wasteland without any real reason why the same device shouldn't be used in the next game. Virtually all you suggest earlier like making a temporary location permanent, marking locations or a greater/unique variety of locations can be done with a world map if the game is programmed that way.

It does not need to be smaller.
Maybe just compress the time when you are traveling a little, as it was compressed on the Map in the first two games.
Have a day lasts a hour or two in the game not actual 24 hours.
It did not, even in the first two games.
Ofcourse it would be hard to do....but maybe it can be.
I would not mind it, but i certainly can recognize that many other players would, depending on their personal tastes.

It takes approx 9 days to travel from vault 13 to vault 15 in Fallout, they'd have to compress time by a lot more than an hour for a day outside of important locations. The average walking speed is 3.5 mph, given that there are few intact paved roads left and you're crossing mostly hostile desert let's say it takes at least half an hour to walk a mile. They'd have to compress the size as well, 1 mile for every 10 say. So you'd end up with locations 3-5 minutes apart. Really they would need to compress things so much to keep things interesting that you wouldn't get to see any more of the wasteland than by stopping at various locations on a world map. In fact you're likely to see even less.

No it does not. You can blend the two. How good thats another question. Check Hellgate London for future reference ( if they manage to do what they are now saying they will).
For me RPGs are both, character and the engine, the game.
I want to see as much as i can read, learn, think off.

The simplest example i can think of, (in a fantasy setting) of how you can have both, would be:

In the fight, the player, swings a sword at an enemy and hits him every time he is in range of the weapon, making combos, and different types of attack by clicking and taping the keyboard.

The stats ( and perks) decide how much damage you did, did you really hit him or maybe just gave him a blow on the armor or shield, did the enemy managed to defend himself, how much damage his armor diverted, or has it maybe received a critical blow that punctured the armor, how much armor get damaged from blows on it alone, will the parts off it fall of.....how much damage and what kind of damage your combos or special moves do...etc.

The mechanics would be similar if you played Post apocalyptic game or any other.
RPG-s will not stay the same.... And i do not see one reason they should stay PnP in their core.
I see it as a first step(PnP), not all there ever will be.

PnP might not be all there is, but I've not seen anything that'll let me role play that betters it. I'm playing VTM Bloodlines at the moment, the world and characters are great, but every main quest seems to end with battling a boss character. The vampire powers help, but there doesn't seem to be much difference between playing a melee character and a non-combatant, maybe your character dodges a bit more, takes and gives a little more damage. But if I don't react fast enough the character still gets killed the same way, whether they're a combat specialist or not. The trouble with stats and real time combat is that it still comes down to the player's skills and not the characters. While stats would affect the melee attacks, using them with firearms should only affect aiming, usually this ends up with player bob (or whatever), after all being stronger isn't going to make the bullet do more damage. Perception might allow you to hit more vital spots, but if you're aiming for the head anyway? It usually comes down to the more firearms skill your character has the steadier your gunsights. If you're really good at FPS games you can usually play these games and put your points into other skills. If you're not so good you need to put all the points in to your firearm skills. At least with the turn based system two people can play the same character, without needing to boost different skills to make up for their own in adequacies.

We have been over this already in this thread.

But anyway.....

Fallout is not desolate and deserted wasteland, in fact its full of shit.
The atmosfere of the game on the other hand is like that, and thats why most people feel like it is desolate and deserted.
If it realy was so, than there would be nothing to do in the whole game. And there is a lot to do, and thousands and thousand of cratures you meet...if you play it long enough.

Yes Fallout is a desolate wasteland, it might have a lot of stuff, and Fallout 2 might be full of shit but the playing area is huge, the games are Epic! You might only spend a few minutes travelling the world map but for your character that's, days, weeks and even months of travel. If you have several encounters travelling between locations, those encounters are days and kilometers apart. Of course if you play it long enough you'll meet thousands of creatures the time limit for Fallout 2 is in years, time enough for hundreds of radscorpions to be born, mate and give birth.

-You force the player to pay attention to details when you give him to play an RPG in the beggining.-

By having stats give player ability to see the clues in the first place. If your skill is too low you see only a few tracks that disappear after a while, if you have higher skill than you can follow them to the end.
There is a number of ways to present it graphically that would look nifty and useful.
And there are many different types of tracks.
It could be like a field of view around the player, visible or unvisible,
that you could direct around the player in search for clues....like it is you are directing your attention on the nature around you...the higher your skill is, augmented with a few specific perks, the more clues you would find.

And use them just to track something, or to discover that somebody is lying about something too.... the uses are many, and all good. Thats one part of the game that definitely needs some improvement.

I get it, they make items glow, the higher your perception or outdoorsman the brighter the glow. If you're skills are really high a great big flaming arrow appears pointing to the item of interest. I can see it now, I've spent 30 mins walking through the wasteland without an encounter. I've got the mouse view pointed down because I'm searching for tracks to lead me to something to do. While I'm walking a long staring at the ground I don't notice this flaming big arrow pointing to some camp fire smoke so I never find the tribal village just the other side of the hill.

Yes there is a lot of stuff there, i thought it would be nice to actually see it.

I still can be seen with a world map, in fact it would be more likely that you'd actually see it since they could spend more resources making these maps more detailed.

 

[Sina]

Fallout might have a lot of stuff to do but it's all so far apart, unlike most other crpg games Fallout is set in a real world area that covers hundreds of miles. While a 3d world might work and work well for other games, Fallout is too epic, it's world too vast to be adequately rendered in a 3d world.

I was using FOT as an example of technology improving (even if the gameplay declined) you keep using the lack of variety of maps in Fallout as your argument for wanting to see more of the wasteland without any real reason why the same device shouldn't be used in the next game. Virtually all you suggest earlier like making a temporary location permanent, marking locations or a greater/unique variety of locations can be done with a world map if the game is programmed that way.

I begin to tend to agree with the general meaning of what you are saying. Its logical.

It takes approx 9 days to travel from vault 13 to vault 15 in Fallout, they'd have to compress time by a lot more than an hour for a day outside of important locations. The average walking speed is 3.5 mph, given that there are few intact paved roads left and you're crossing mostly hostile desert let's say it takes at least half an hour to walk a mile. They'd have to compress the size as well, 1 mile for every 10 say. So you'd end up with locations 3-5 minutes apart. Really they would need to compress things so much to keep things interesting that you wouldn't get to see any more of the wasteland than by stopping at various locations on a world map. In fact you're likely to see even less.

That would not be good.

I'm playing VTM Bloodlines at the moment, the world and characters are great, but every main quest seems to end with battling a boss character. The vampire powers help, but there doesn't seem to be much difference between playing a melee character and a non-combatant, maybe your character dodges a bit more, takes and gives a little more damage. But if I don't react fast enough the character still gets killed the same way, whether they're a combat specialist or not. The trouble with stats and real time combat is that it still comes down to the player's skills and not the characters. While stats would affect the melee attacks, using them with firearms should only affect aiming, usually this ends up with player bob (or whatever), after all being stronger isn't going to make the bullet do more damage. Perception might allow you to hit more vital spots, but if you're aiming for the head anyway? At least with the turn based system two people can play the same character, without needing to boost different skills to make up for their own in adequacies.

I could not stand Bloodlines more than 10 minutes, its a rather bad example, the whole game is bad... implementation of those mechanics was bad.
My example of mixing statistics with player actions was just to show it is possible, because you said that would uterly destroy need for stats, which i showed it does not need to do.
Thats all.

I get it, they make items glow, the higher your perception or outdoorsman the brighter the glow. If you're skills are really high a great big flaming arrow appears pointing to the item of interest. I can see it now, I've spent 30 mins walking through the wasteland without an encounter. I've got the mouse view pointed down because I'm searching for tracks to lead me to something to do. While I'm walking a long staring at the ground I don't notice this flaming big arrow pointing to some camp fire smoke so I never find the tribal village just the other side of the hill.

whoaa there.... easy now.... i was thinking more in the direction thet besides huge flaming arrow in the skyes above the wasteland you should have some fireworks too, and hand of god like from Monthy Python coming down to show you the way, and mexican band playing Cucaracha every time you strike a clue.... with a ceremony of recieving some medal from the president of USA....and Buzz Aldrin shaking your hand, and....More fireworks, chinese in San Fran could do it! imagine that.....


nedilje ti....
It can be automatic you know..... so you dont have to lift the finger to do it if that was nececary.....


Thanks for your opinions Requiem, by the way, unlike sander, it seems that you are capable of talking to somebody that has different opinions without flaming, and bitching....mostly.


il just quote myself here to emphasize something that both of you chose to ignore or misinterpret.....

...they should put most of their efforts in the cities, missions, storyline, music, NPCs and dialog.

That wouldn't be so bad, in fact i would be very pleased if they did it that way.

I just wondered would it be possible to do, and tryed to imagine it like that..... but you cannot find if the idea is really good if you do not have some kind of other input on it, hear some other opinions from different angles.

Now, i feel it maybe could be done in Fallout4 or 5 maybe....
Maybe its too much a change for this game we all have been waiting for too long.

And considering the arguments you have posted, it would be extrimely difficult to do it i sugested, althoug i refrain the right that maybe it can be done.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I could not stand Bloodlines more than 10 minutes, its a rather bad example, the whole game is bad... implementation of those mechanics was bad.
My example of mixing statistics with player actions was just to show it is possible, because you said that would uterly destroy need for stats, which i showed it does not need to do.
Thats all.

I quite like VTMB, other than the combat. Well the combat wouldn't be so bad if so much of it wasn't unavoidable. Your example still falls down if the player is useless at first/third person games. It doesn't matter how the mechanics are implemented if the player doesn't react quick enough, to attack when there's an opening, dodge etc or even get their character facing the right bloody way.

nedilje ti....
It can be automatic you know..... so you dont have to lift the finger to do it if that was nececary.....

If it's automatic then it's no different from Fallout's text box.

Just because they used a text box in the first game doesn't mean a world map is limited to using one in FO3. You could have it that depending on your stats and skills when you get an encounter you'd be dumped out of the world map. Where you get dumped depends on your character, low perception/outdoorsman etc you get dumped right in the middle of the encounter like you did in Fallout. The higher your skills the further away you got dumped, leaving the choice of entering the encounter proper or returning to the world map and bypassing it up to you.

il just quote myself here to emphasize something that both of you chose to ignore or misinterpret.....

I ignored it because I'd already made my arguement that you can't have a game with the Fallout name (be it 3,4 or 5) have a continous 3d world and still be a Fallout game and Jahakob's request ought to go without saying, it's the writing, the characterization and plots that keep bringing people to Fallout after all.

 

[Sina]

Do you think i want 3d fallout 3 without story, characters and plots?

Is that what you figured out of my posts?

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Sigh did I say that? Where did I say that?

You wanted a response to the last bit of your post, but most of it had been responded to already in the responses to your ideas for a 3d world.

For the rest, concurring with the quote from Jahakob, it didn't need a response, it should be taken as read (right phrase?) that's what any Fallout fan would want.

 

[Sina]

Just thought i check, cos it begun to look that way.

The main reason for this post is that this subject was worth disccussing in my opinion, considering what technology Bethesda has developed.
Though Oblivion engine most likely will not be used for Fallout3, there is a posibility they will consider something like it....
And so far most of their games were done in a 3d enviroment without loading into areas or maps.

So i thought to check what other people think, could it be done that way or not, and what ideas could we come up with from it that would fit Fallout in the best way.

so far two out of three.....

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I only played Morrowind for 20 mins but wasn't it set on an island? Most games I've seen that use a continous 3d world tend to be set on islands, they have a natural barrier and locations are close together so that little in the way of time dilation or distance compression is needed.

Unless a Fallout game is set on Hawaii and the surrounding islands I can't see it ever working for Fallout.

 

[Sina]

mmmm.....sunbathing with my grave robbed shades on.....and in power armor......sounds promising....hope they do it on hawaii.

A little more dancing you know...hula hula....in 3d.

Morrowind is on an Island but its so big there is no difference .... and there are almost no natural barriers that would prevent you from going anywhere you want.
And locations were adequatly distant from each other...so i never got the feeling its somehow fake, and unattural.
That part was nicely done in my opinion.
In Morrowind.
By which i do not mean to say it should be in Fallout. alright?

The biggest problem with Morrowind, again -in my opinion, was that its sometimes realy difficult to find what to do next...the story does not drive you forward, names of the NPCs are to complicated and too much alike to remeber, and Journal just gets you headache.

The rest is prety good and alright, and the atmosphere of the game is realy strong and unique.

Thats what i like the most in it, cos it reminds me of Fallout and its atmosphere which was the most valuable and most elusive content in it.

I actualy played through the whole game many times without knowing or caring for calculations beneath the Special system.... how much procent this and that, and the rest...it tires me.
The efect of stats is mostly clearly visible enough to slowly learn what to do and what not without needing to actualy learn the whole shabang...

I actualy would not mind having a little more interactivity in the game...by having something i could do on my own, instead game doing it all for me..... like in that example with expanding tracking ability.... thats my personal taste, i like it that way..... In my mind that would be just a way for me to use my skills, the skills i developed.


And sincerly Fallout means so much more to me...
those kind of changes would not compromise what Fallout is to me.

If, ofcourse, the core would be done as it should be...story, plots, freedom, and that unique feel of it.... having special and the rest that make Fallout what it is from mechanics point of view goes without saying. Map too.



And in morrowind you can just press -q- if you dont want to put a slab of granite on the forward key too.

It is an alright game to play. considering.


okay im starting to repeat myself a little bit....so im gona cut it

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I was refering to natural barrier to prevent leaving the playing area, reaching the coast and having to turn back is far better than suddenly hitting an invisible barrier and not being able to move any further.

While Morrowind's island might be large I doubt it was any where near the scale of a continent.

 

[Sir_Fred]

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.

I'd really like that, but I don't think that Bethesda does it.
It could be great a detailed printed map of the wastelands and you'd have to use it for navigating in the game (using scenery references, camp names, heights...), but I'm sure that this will not happen.

S2

 

[TheWesDude]

ok... trying to think of a way to merge sina's idea with the world map deal...

how about an out-of-encounter time-slider. it wouldnt work inside an encounter or a town/city/location but when you are trying to move from place to place it would work.

the higher you move the slider, the more over-view you become from first-person perspective and the faster time goes, and the faster you move through the land, the higher your outdoorsman/scout skill has to be to find special locations and such.

if you want to find lots of special encounters with the medium to low score, you need to go slowly, if you just want to get from A to B, set it to max and yer on your way and it wont take much IRL time by navigating on the map.

 

[GhostWhoTalks]

I, for one, have no interest in investigating the many thousands of different instances of cacti or tumbleweed which pockmarks the landscape of Fallout.

Forcing someone to get to a new area by overland travel, even once, would be arduous to say the least.


That said there are some minor changes I would like to see made to the world map.

I want the world map to reflect the terrain better. I would like to be able to tell the difference between a ravine and a mountain, and when there is a city I would like to see little tiny buildings. Just a nitpick of mine.

I SERIOUSLY stress getting rid of knowledge of the encounter type before making the encounter. You really shouldn't know that you are facing deathclaws if your character can't detect them. And no I won't accept the "But you are using outdoorsman" excuse. Outdoorsman and a good perception should allow you to know you are going to have and possibly avoid an encounter; characters without those features will have to just get encountered. Though to be fair and perhaps add another dimension of strategy, I might like to see a "numbers indicator" which tells the player how numerous the character thinks the encounter will be. If the character is like "I hear a throng of heavy evenly spaced foot steps," then it might be a good time to avoid the encounter.

In a similar vein it might be nice to have a closeness indicator which details how close the enemy got before you detected them. Then the difficulty of avoiding the opposing force could be determined by their skill at outdoorsman, their perception, and how close they are to you at the time you decide to try and avoid. So later game enemies, like deathclaws, which have good perception, outdoorsman, and stealth skills will be harder to avoid because they will get close and have fairly good detection skills.

 

[Arquebus]

I would like to keep the worldmap too.
A greater number of random encounters would be appreciated(?) but not guntooting raiders on every corner, more like you see a lone gecko\ brahmin a higher outdoorsman skill should make it easier to be a hunter finding game for food and pelts in the wasteland, luck and perception to find\avoid other encounters.

I would like to se a few waystations aswell, old gas stations converted to inns along the highway for tired brahmin herderes to get laid and have a bath, maybe gamle a bit and get drunk.

 

[RPGenius]

if you want to find lots of special encounters with the medium to low score, you need to go slowly, if you just want to get from A to B, set it to max and yer on your way and it wont take much IRL time by navigating on the map.

If you were going to use that, wouldn't it make more sense to have fast journeys put you at more risk of encounters, whilst taking your time and being careful reduced the chances of being attacked?

 

[Mattaus]

well the posts ive read say it will be isometric

my opinion is: keep falout as fallout!.. world map, random encounters, quests etc etc.. with ofcourse a main goal to accomplish at the end of the game...

If anyone has played Dawn of War... the view angles they used in that could be good.. its isometric but with the ability to zoom in and pan to horizon!...