Fallout Are the first two Fallouts still considered the gold standard for reactive worlds?

[JarlFrank]

No, Arcanum is.

Any specific examples from a playthrough which showcase the reactivity?

The sheer amount of little things that change in quests based on your actions.

In Shrouded hills, some gnome wizard who hates tech wants you to destroy the town's steam engine.
There's a retarded dwarf guarding it who attacks you if you attack the engine.
Usually, this ends with the dwarf being killed, especially if you have Virgil along because companions don't stop fighting when an enemy flees.
But if you go solo in that room, and let the dwarf live, he will tell the constable that YOU smashed the steam engine, and he will refuse to talk to you from that point onward, making you miss out on his quests.
I only found this out 15 years after first playing Arcanum btw, because leaving the dwarf alive is such an unlikely event in this quest, you deliberately have to go out of your way to not kill him.

If you kill the dwarf, he won't know who did it and gives you the quest to fix the engine.
For that you need a gear from the nearby mines. If you give the gear to the constable so he can fix the engine, the gnome wizard who told you to destroy it will consider you a traitorous flip-flopper and refuse to talk to you.
This cuts you off from his second quest, and from his services as a merchant.

In Tarant, the quest with the two fortune tellers is pretty interesting. One of them wants you to steal the other's crystal ball. If you kill her, she curses you, but if you tell her her rival wants the crystal ball she just gives it to you.
Carry it to the rival, tell her it was given as a gift, she panics and it turns out there was a curse on it that kills her. Oops!
When you return to the other fortune teller, she will reward you with one of two things: either she tells you the location of a stolen painting, or if you already found that, she gives you a permanent blessing.

The lost painting quest also has some nice reactivity. You can find out about the heist, talk to the woman whose painting was stolen, and have her give you the quest to find it.
But if you never talked to her before and arrive with the painting right away, she'll accuse you of being the thief trying to scam her: "How did you know I was looking for the painting? How did you get it?"
So you first have to explain yourself or she assumes you're the criminal!

The brothel quests for Madam Lil are different depending on your character's sex, men and women get different quests from her.
There's also a gentleman's club that doesn't allow women in, but you can talk to the proprietor and make a deal with him (suck him off lol).

There's a lot of little things like that throughout the game, checking for your race and sex, or having different outcomes depending on the order you do things in, including solving other quests beforehand, or already carrying the quest item with you, etc.

 

[Ryzer]

No, Arcanum is.

Any specific examples from a playthrough which showcase the reactivity?

The sheer amount of little things that change in quests based on your actions.

In Shrouded hills, some gnome wizard who hates tech wants you to destroy the town's steam engine.
There's a retarded dwarf guarding it who attacks you if you attack the engine.
Usually, this ends with the dwarf being killed, especially if you have Virgil along because companions don't stop fighting when an enemy flees.
But if you go solo in that room, and let the dwarf live, he will tell the constable that YOU smashed the steam engine, and he will refuse to talk to you from that point onward, making you miss out on his quests.
I only found this out 15 years after first playing Arcanum btw, because leaving the dwarf alive is such an unlikely event in this quest, you deliberately have to go out of your way to not kill him.

If you kill the dwarf, he won't know who did it and gives you the quest to fix the engine.
For that you need a gear from the nearby mines. If you give the gear to the constable so he can fix the engine, the gnome wizard who told you to destroy it will consider you a traitorous flip-flopper and refuse to talk to you.
This cuts you off from his second quest, and from his services as a merchant.

In Tarant, the quest with the two fortune tellers is pretty interesting. One of them wants you to steal the other's crystal ball. If you kill her, she curses you, but if you tell her her rival wants the crystal ball she just gives it to you.
Carry it to the rival, tell her it was given as a gift, she panics and it turns out there was a curse on it that kills her. Oops!
When you return to the other fortune teller, she will reward you with one of two things: either she tells you the location of a stolen painting, or if you already found that, she gives you a permanent blessing.

The lost painting quest also has some nice reactivity. You can find out about the heist, talk to the woman whose painting was stolen, and have her give you the quest to find it.
But if you never talked to her before and arrive with the painting right away, she'll accuse you of being the thief trying to scam her: "How did you know I was looking for the painting? How did you get it?"
So you first have to explain yourself or she assumes you're the criminal!

The brothel quests for Madam Lil are different depending on your character's sex, men and women get different quests from her.
There's also a gentleman's club that doesn't allow women in, but you can talk to the proprietor and make a deal with him (suck him off lol).

There's a lot of little things like that throughout the game, checking for your race and sex, or having different outcomes depending on the order you do things in, including solving other quests beforehand, or already carrying the quest item with you, etc.

Nobody checks the newpapers, but it shows that the world reacts to each important quest the player character does.

 

[jackofshadows]

No, Arcanum is.

Any specific examples from a playthrough which showcase the reactivity?

The sheer amount of little things that change in quests based on your actions.

In Shrouded hills, some gnome wizard who hates tech wants you to destroy the town's steam engine.
There's a retarded dwarf guarding it who attacks you if you attack the engine.
Usually, this ends with the dwarf being killed, especially if you have Virgil along because companions don't stop fighting when an enemy flees.
But if you go solo in that room, and let the dwarf live, he will tell the constable that YOU smashed the steam engine, and he will refuse to talk to you from that point onward, making you miss out on his quests.
I only found this out 15 years after first playing Arcanum btw, because leaving the dwarf alive is such an unlikely event in this quest, you deliberately have to go out of your way to not kill him.

If you kill the dwarf, he won't know who did it and gives you the quest to fix the engine.
For that you need a gear from the nearby mines. If you give the gear to the constable so he can fix the engine, the gnome wizard who told you to destroy it will consider you a traitorous flip-flopper and refuse to talk to you.
This cuts you off from his second quest, and from his services as a merchant.

In Tarant, the quest with the two fortune tellers is pretty interesting. One of them wants you to steal the other's crystal ball. If you kill her, she curses you, but if you tell her her rival wants the crystal ball she just gives it to you.
Carry it to the rival, tell her it was given as a gift, she panics and it turns out there was a curse on it that kills her. Oops!
When you return to the other fortune teller, she will reward you with one of two things: either she tells you the location of a stolen painting, or if you already found that, she gives you a permanent blessing.

The lost painting quest also has some nice reactivity. You can find out about the heist, talk to the woman whose painting was stolen, and have her give you the quest to find it.
But if you never talked to her before and arrive with the painting right away, she'll accuse you of being the thief trying to scam her: "How did you know I was looking for the painting? How did you get it?"
So you first have to explain yourself or she assumes you're the criminal!

The brothel quests for Madam Lil are different depending on your character's sex, men and women get different quests from her.
There's also a gentleman's club that doesn't allow women in, but you can talk to the proprietor and make a deal with him (suck him off lol).

There's a lot of little things like that throughout the game, checking for your race and sex, or having different outcomes depending on the order you do things in, including solving other quests beforehand, or already carrying the quest item with you, etc.

Arcanum has lots of reactivity in quests like that yeah but it also has some global map reactivity as well, such as if you kill Bates, you'll begin to meet bounty hunters regularly from then on (a nice way to farm some loot) or if you hand specific book to the Hand's first blade, their assassins encounters will stop.

 

[Arvennios]

See title.

Or have any of the clones surpassed them e.g. Age of Decadence, Underrail, Atom etc.?

Any games from leftfield e.g. unrelated cRPGs, adventure games, JRPGs etc.?

Yes, they have been surpassed by some of the clones, if only from a technical standpoint, the games are nearly 3 decades old and could use a facelift, but they're still relevant and considered a must-play and genre-defining masterpieces amongst C-RPGs fans.

 

[kangaxx]

Colony Ship has a lot of choices with consequences. You can:

• Miss party members (there are also two mutually excluding party members).
• Lose access to previous explored areas.
• Get locked out of exploring certain new areas.
• Lose access to quests.
• Gain access to additional endings.

It is much more "reactive" in that way than Fallout was. Hence, it is a lot of fun to replay.

Colony Ship's endgame seemed pretty railroaded... the main choice that matters is "did you build to fight?"

 

[King Crispy]

Are the first two Fallouts still considered the gold standard for reactive worlds?

Well the first one has the giant robot and you have to find your dad so I say that's reactive and the second one you have to like defend your bases and stuff so yes they're the gold standardt!

 

[NecroLord]

There's also a gentleman's club that doesn't allow women in, but you can talk to the proprietor and make a deal with him (suck him off lol).

No need for that.
You can find a membership paper in one of the mausoleums in the cemetery near the Willoughsby Residence.

 

[NecroLord]

or if you hand specific book to the Hand's first blade

You have to give two books to the First Hand - Gideon Laier.
The first you find in Stillwater, talk to the gnome at the inn and he'll give you the book that Joachim left for you.
The second book is trickier to get, you have to go the Stonecutter Clan, some tough Undead battles await you there.
Then you will be able to tell him your story and he will remove the mark on your head.

Oh, and if you talk to the Tarantian Press and let them publish your story of being the only survivor of the Zephyr crash, more Molochean Hand assassins spawn in random encounters and you cannot persuade them to leave you alone!

 

[Tavar]

Far from me criticizing one of the best RPG surprises of the year for me, except that both initial Fallouts had exactly that and usually in larger amounts.

E.g.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout_2_endings

I don't mean the endings - here Fallout 2 has more "slides", but just one fixed ending - but the regular gameplay. In Colony Ship (CS) you can get locked out of content (including endings!) very easily (e.g., the last level of mission control) and you often have to pick sides which lead to some missed content. This is also present in Fallout, but I think CS does it more frequently. You party members also comment your actions and the surroundings much more than they do in Fallout. In CS your combat reputation is used in speech checks while I can't remember any situation in Fallout in which karma actually matters. However, it has been a while since I last played Fallout, so I might just be suffering from recency bias.

Colony Ship's endgame seemed pretty railroaded... the main choice that matters is "did you build to fight?"

Yes, the endgame is undercooked. However, I disagree that "did you build to fight" is the main choice: If you're underleved in "computer", "electronics" and/or speech skills, you will miss a lot of opportunities. Given that you need to practice your skills in CS, choosing to fight instead of talking might just bite you a couple of hours later. It is much easier in Fallout to be good at everything.

 

[jackofshadows]

or if you hand specific book to the Hand's first blade

You have to give two books to the First Hand - Gideon Laier.
The first you find in Stillwater, talk to the gnome at the inn and he'll give you the book that Joachim left for you.
The second book is trickier to get, you have to go the Stonecutter Clan, some tough Undead battles await you there.
Then you will be able to tell him your story and he will remove the mark on your head.

Oh, and if you talk to the Tarantian Press and let them publish your story of being the only survivor of the Zephyr crash, more Molochean Hand assassins spawn in random encounters and you cannot persuade them to leave you alone!

Either you've played some modded shit or remember things poorly. You need only the one from Stillwater. In order to get it you have to get first the telegram in Tarant btw.

 

[NecroLord]

or if you hand specific book to the Hand's first blade

You have to give two books to the First Hand - Gideon Laier.
The first you find in Stillwater, talk to the gnome at the inn and he'll give you the book that Joachim left for you.
The second book is trickier to get, you have to go the Stonecutter Clan, some tough Undead battles await you there.
Then you will be able to tell him your story and he will remove the mark on your head.

Oh, and if you talk to the Tarantian Press and let them publish your story of being the only survivor of the Zephyr crash, more Molochean Hand assassins spawn in random encounters and you cannot persuade them to leave you alone!

Either you've played some modded shit or remember things poorly. You need only the one from Stillwater. In order to get it you have to get first the telegram in Tarant btw.

Dude, you have to give him KERGHAN'S journal.
In addition to the book from Stillwater.

 

[King Crispy]

NERD FIGHT!

 

[kangaxx]

Yes, the endgame is undercooked. However, I disagree that "did you build to fight" is the main choice: If you're underleved in "computer", "electronics" and/or speech skills, you will miss a lot of opportunities. Given that you need to practice your skills in CS, choosing to fight instead of talking might just bite you a couple of hours later. It is much easier in Fallout to be good at everything.

I focused too much on that stuff and ended up getting fisted with little counterplay by an opposing faction and then the monks in the space of about 5 minutes near the end. To me it felt like there's "one ending" unless you're a competent fighting squad (or spend enough time getting good at the combat so you can win difficult fights with shit combatants). That said I'm no expert at the game, and I never will be because I didn't think it was all that good.

 

[Ol' Willy]

No, Arcanum is.

Any specific examples from a playthrough which showcase the reactivity?

The sheer amount of little things that change in quests based on your actions.

In Shrouded hills, some gnome wizard who hates tech wants you to destroy the town's steam engine.
There's a retarded dwarf guarding it who attacks you if you attack the engine.
Usually, this ends with the dwarf being killed, especially if you have Virgil along because companions don't stop fighting when an enemy flees.
But if you go solo in that room, and let the dwarf live, he will tell the constable that YOU smashed the steam engine, and he will refuse to talk to you from that point onward, making you miss out on his quests.
I only found this out 15 years after first playing Arcanum btw, because leaving the dwarf alive is such an unlikely event in this quest, you deliberately have to go out of your way to not kill him.

If you kill the dwarf, he won't know who did it and gives you the quest to fix the engine.
For that you need a gear from the nearby mines. If you give the gear to the constable so he can fix the engine, the gnome wizard who told you to destroy it will consider you a traitorous flip-flopper and refuse to talk to you.
This cuts you off from his second quest, and from his services as a merchant.

In Tarant, the quest with the two fortune tellers is pretty interesting. One of them wants you to steal the other's crystal ball. If you kill her, she curses you, but if you tell her her rival wants the crystal ball she just gives it to you.
Carry it to the rival, tell her it was given as a gift, she panics and it turns out there was a curse on it that kills her. Oops!
When you return to the other fortune teller, she will reward you with one of two things: either she tells you the location of a stolen painting, or if you already found that, she gives you a permanent blessing.

The lost painting quest also has some nice reactivity. You can find out about the heist, talk to the woman whose painting was stolen, and have her give you the quest to find it.
But if you never talked to her before and arrive with the painting right away, she'll accuse you of being the thief trying to scam her: "How did you know I was looking for the painting? How did you get it?"
So you first have to explain yourself or she assumes you're the criminal!

The brothel quests for Madam Lil are different depending on your character's sex, men and women get different quests from her.
There's also a gentleman's club that doesn't allow women in, but you can talk to the proprietor and make a deal with him (suck him off lol).

There's a lot of little things like that throughout the game, checking for your race and sex, or having different outcomes depending on the order you do things in, including solving other quests beforehand, or already carrying the quest item with you, etc.

This is cool and all, but this is more of player based reactivity and some good quest design. But there is also a global reactivity which concerns broader changes that affect not only the player, but the entire gameworld. This is what people mean when they say that the gameworld is static or actually dynamic

Let's imagine that you can help the exiled king back to Dernholm, put him in his righteous place and convince him to embrace the technology more. On your next visit some time later, the entire location will change, going from the shadow of the former glory to fairly good looking town.

Or, if you help Donn Throgg in his struggle in Tarant, on your next visit you will observe the improvements in city's orcish population, and Throgg himself will get a new mansion as a member of city council. Which of course would earn you the ire of city's (((gnome))) population

Or set-up Donn Throgg as a sell-out who doesn't really care about his brethren and only uses them for political gains

 

[Nikanuur]

Far from me criticizing one of the best RPG surprises of the year for me, except that both initial Fallouts had exactly that and usually in larger amounts.

E.g.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout_2_endings

I don't mean the endings - here Fallout 2 has more "slides", but just one fixed ending - but the regular gameplay. In Colony Ship (CS) you can get locked out of content (including endings!) very easily (e.g., the last level of mission control) and you often have to pick sides which lead to some missed content. This is also present in Fallout, but I think CS does it more frequently. You party members also comment your actions and the surroundings much more than they do in Fallout. In CS your combat reputation is used in speech checks while I can't remember any situation in Fallout in which karma actually matters. However, it has been a while since I last played Fallout, so I might just be suffering from recency bias.

Colony Ship's endgame seemed pretty railroaded... the main choice that matters is "did you build to fight?"

Yes, the endgame is undercooked. However, I disagree that "did you build to fight" is the main choice: If you're underleved in "computer", "electronics" and/or speech skills, you will miss a lot of opportunities. Given that you need to practice your skills in CS, choosing to fight instead of talking might just bite you a couple of hours later. It is much easier in Fallout to be good at everything.

I understand what you mean, but the 'slides' aren't the point by themselves; it's what they attest for. Meaning, the world's reactivity in F2 is insanely complex. Bazzillions of possibilities; people's fates, situations, factions, towns, places—everything can end up vastly different by the influence of your actions (dead Arroyo, enslaved Arroyo, redeemed Arroyo, different factions ruling over places, places populated by someone else than before, dead characters, saved characters, new places appearing where there were none, etc.). Heck, I feel strange that I even have to explain this on RPG Codex. If known for anything, it's that F1 and F2 are the pinnacle of reactivity and possibilities that have probably never been achieved by anything up to this date.

Btw, I don't think F2 has one fixed ending. I am not very sure about it now, but I vaguely recall that it should have at least three 'truly' different endings and one hidden (Enclave-relevant).

 

[NecroLord]

Far from me criticizing one of the best RPG surprises of the year for me, except that both initial Fallouts had exactly that and usually in larger amounts.

E.g.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout_2_endings

I don't mean the endings - here Fallout 2 has more "slides", but just one fixed ending - but the regular gameplay. In Colony Ship (CS) you can get locked out of content (including endings!) very easily (e.g., the last level of mission control) and you often have to pick sides which lead to some missed content. This is also present in Fallout, but I think CS does it more frequently. You party members also comment your actions and the surroundings much more than they do in Fallout. In CS your combat reputation is used in speech checks while I can't remember any situation in Fallout in which karma actually matters. However, it has been a while since I last played Fallout, so I might just be suffering from recency bias.

Colony Ship's endgame seemed pretty railroaded... the main choice that matters is "did you build to fight?"

Yes, the endgame is undercooked. However, I disagree that "did you build to fight" is the main choice: If you're underleved in "computer", "electronics" and/or speech skills, you will miss a lot of opportunities. Given that you need to practice your skills in CS, choosing to fight instead of talking might just bite you a couple of hours later. It is much easier in Fallout to be good at everything.

I understand what you mean, but the 'slides' aren't the point by themselves; it's what they attest for. Meaning, the world's reactivity in F2 is insanely complex. Bazzillions of possibilities; people's fates, situations, factions, towns, places—everything can end up vastly different by the influence of your actions (dead Arroyo, enslaved Arroyo, redeemed Arroyo, different factions ruling over places, places populated by someone else than before, dead characters, saved characters, new places appearing where there were none, etc.). Heck, I feel strange that I even have to explain this on RPG Codex. If known for anything, it's that F1 and F2 are the pinnacle of reactivity and possibilities that have probably never been achieved by anything up to this date.

Btw, I don't think F2 has one fixed ending. I am not very sure about it now, but I vaguely recall that it should have at least three 'truly' different endings and one hidden (Enclave-relevant).

Join the Enclave.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I understand what you mean, but the 'slides' aren't the point by themselves; it's what they attest for. Meaning, the world's reactivity in F2 is insanely complex. Bazzillions of possibilities; people's fates, situations, factions, towns, places—everything can end up vastly different by the influence of your actions (dead Arroyo, enslaved Arroyo, redeemed Arroyo, different factions ruling over places, places populated by someone else than before, dead characters, saved characters, new places appearing where there were none, etc.). Heck, I feel strange that I even have to explain this on RPG Codex. If known for anything, it's that F1 and F2 are the pinnacle of reactivity and possibilities that have probably never been achieved by anything up to this date.

I remember the thread about ending slides on KKKodex a while ago

Basically, slides are the cheaper cop-out to replace the real reactivity. This could be forgiven for Fallout 1 and 2 - the limitations of technology at the time, plus budget and time constraints (also applies to New Vegas with its 1 year of development). One has to remember that even Fallout 1 was considered a low key project and almost got cancelled when Interplay purchased D&D loicense

I am not blaming Interplay, Black Isle or 2010-s Obsidian for such design, they simply didn't have nor the time nor the resources to create an actually reactive gameworld, but for more well funded RPGs this is simply unforgivable.

Fallout 1 laid the foundation for other games to expand, do the same but instead of slides, make the changes appear during the actual gameplay, not after it. But the industry turned the other way

 

[Nutmeg]

Fallout 1 laid the foundation for other games to expand, do the same but instead of slides, make the changes appear during the actual gameplay, not after it. But the industry turned the other way

As long as it's hand crafted, at some point the reactivity would have to end. If it's a system, then it would lose the artistic merit which (many) players play CRPGs for.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Fallout 1 laid the foundation for other games to expand, do the same but instead of slides, make the changes appear during the actual gameplay, not after it. But the industry turned the other way

As long as it's hand crafted, at some point the reactivity would have to end. If it's a system, then it would lose the artistic merit which (many) players play CRPGs for.

Few per location would suffice. We can imagine how Shady Sands, Junktown, etc change depending on player actions

You help Gizmo - one change, you help Killian - the other

 

[Nikanuur]

I understand what you mean, but the 'slides' aren't the point by themselves; it's what they attest for. Meaning, the world's reactivity in F2 is insanely complex. Bazzillions of possibilities; people's fates, situations, factions, towns, places—everything can end up vastly different by the influence of your actions (dead Arroyo, enslaved Arroyo, redeemed Arroyo, different factions ruling over places, places populated by someone else than before, dead characters, saved characters, new places appearing where there were none, etc.). Heck, I feel strange that I even have to explain this on RPG Codex. If known for anything, it's that F1 and F2 are the pinnacle of reactivity and possibilities that have probably never been achieved by anything up to this date.

I remember the thread about ending slides on KKKodex a while ago

Basically, slides are the cheaper cop-out to replace the real reactivity. This could be forgiven for Fallout 1 and 2 - the limitations of technology at the time, plus budget and time constraints (also applies to New Vegas with its 1 year of development). One has to remember that even Fallout 1 was considered a low key project and almost got cancelled when Interplay purchased D&D loicense

I am not blaming Interplay, Black Isle or 2010-s Obsidian for such design, they simply didn't have nor the time nor the resources to create an actually reactive gameworld, but for more well funded RPGs this is simply unforgivable.

Fallout 1 laid the foundation for other games to expand, do the same but instead of slides, make the changes appear during the actual gameplay, not after it. But the industry turned the other way

Choosing the questionable slides was a poor example by me. At any rate, I tried to explain before. Let me say it in other words:

Sliders are not something to cheaply replace reactivity. They are a mere summarization of what the player has done and how the world has turned out to be.
The stuff the player *already saw* happening during game play, because they *made* those specific things happen out of many possible outcomes—that's the reactivity right there.

 

[Nutmeg]

Few per location would suffice. We can imagine how Shady Sands, Junktown, etc change depending on player actions

It would just be weird that after things change N times, all of a sudden there's nothing else left to do. No new quests, no new interactions with NPCs except the most generic ones. From a living world to one inhabited by static lifeless puppets.

 

[JarlFrank]

Fallout 1 laid the foundation for other games to expand, do the same but instead of slides, make the changes appear during the actual gameplay, not after it. But the industry turned the other way

This is the great tragedy of all classics from the late 90s and early 00s. They did great things, scratched so much potential - games like Fallout, Arcanum, Deus Ex, etc, are great games in their own right but a lot of their design principles have potential to be expanded, to be realized more fully.

Instead, the industry abandoned those principles entirely.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Few per location would suffice. We can imagine how Shady Sands, Junktown, etc change depending on player actions

It would just be weird that after things change N times, all of a sudden there's nothing else left to do. No new quests, no new interactions with NPCs except the most generic ones. From a living world to one inhabited by static lifeless puppets.

Why? You will have location in two stages: before the player, and after the player. This shows the impact of player's actions, and this is quite enough.

Few locations could be made multi staged, like you enter the location, do some quests, location changes and unlocks new quest lines for you. This would be hard to do for many locations but not really necessary, such set-up is best to be applied to few central locations while others change but with less new content

 

[thesecret1]

I like more organic kind of reactivity, though it's a rare occurence to see it in a game. Like maybe it's not even a quest - just go somewhere, find, say, a bunch of bandits occupying a farmstead, kill them, then come back later and find a peasant living there, thanking you that you drove off the squatters. Or clear out an old iron mine, then come back and see people working it - it makes it feel like the world is alive rather than just reacting to changes in your quest journal, and that your actions have impact even outside of scripted sequences.

 

[Nutmeg]

: before the player, and after the player

But the player is still there, it's just the player has first animated the world, and then drained the world of its life. "After the player" are only the ending slides.