Fallout Fallout: Sonora - new Fallout mod from the Fallout: Nevada team - now available in Russian

Well it is not the design philosophy I have a problem with, utilizing various skills for more solving quests, especially ones that have gone very underutilized during Fallout 1 and 2.

What you kind of mention yourself is what I have issue with, the design and writing of the lore and the campaign progression though I don't know how to put that better it words as this is really an opinion.
But I feel that the world Sonora is setting up is not that interesting, especially because quite some of it is a copy and paste from Fallout 1 and 2.

I also don't think Fallout games should primarily be about combat but it does play a role in the game. But if the designers fill up empty maps or empty segments of maps with vermin the player has to fight or deal with I do think that the designers could have upped the challenge and have included more interesting confrontations.

What I feel is most at fault with the campaign, factions, and such was the writing such as trying to justifying for example slavery so that a slaver faction would still be considered morally grey. This kind of doesn't work because the player's starting quest is to free a number of captured townspeople including their own father.
The slavers claim they mostly deal in captured criminals which they sell on (claiming that this way these criminals repay their debts to society) but are not above capturing people from isolated villages and tribals to meet quotas.
So from the start the player should have some kind of bias or hatred towards the slavers and the people behind them and not feel ambivalent because the slavers claim it is all about industrialization and progress.

I don't think a Fallout campaign should be your basic generic hero epic (activate the water purifier) but if one does a campaign that heavily builds philosophical or ideological choices on who to support one needs to make the available parties more compelling in one way or another. I found the available end game parties unappealing in their own way.

 

You aren’t me.

 

I am making a playthrough of this game with English translation. I tried my best to stay faithful to the original writing. Is anyone interested in checking out?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhkdZnbJN8I&t=00s

 

I am making a playthrough of this game with English translation. I tried my best to stay faithful to the original writing. Is anyone interested in checking out?

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhkdZnbJN8I&t=00s

Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6YbsCGyBbI&t=0s

 

I really like this but shit man, why did you had to use fucking green comic sans to translate the game?

Also i wonder how long is it going to take to have a real English translation of the game.

 

Nice effort, man. However, I'd say it'd be more productive if you helped with the actual translation of the game instead. See this topic where they are working on it :
http://www.nuclear-city.com/index.php/topic/1039-fallout-sonora-английская-локализация/page-2

There's a discord server you can join: https://discordapp.com/invite/ECGgQeG

 

I tried to use another image but it wouldn't allow me to use a custom avatar, duh...

 

I think there were more of them early on (just like in the original Fallout games). However, I could either avoid them by running away (unless I was close to a level up situation when every little helps) or had good enough stats/weapons to finish the fight in a few turns with critical hits.

It's interesting to observe that I've been anti-village all along. The game's given me an opportunity to re-consider the views on slavery within the game world over time as I've been encountering more advanced fractions. Basically, their point was often "it's for the greater good". So why wouldn't a primitive villager eventually see a bigger picture of the world accepting some sacrifices for the greater future of the mankind? You may see where I'm heading. Think of the Soviet Union where people would pretty much march into the slavery or at least would be making huge sacrifices provided the right mixture of propaganda and story telling about the prospects for the future generations. Millions of people would report their neighbours and members of the community knowing the potential consequences. There was even famous example of kids giving in their parents as they believed they were harmful to the system. Even people who were personally affected in a negative way would still support the leader and his decisions.
Anyway, this is more of a philosophical debate depending on your personal beliefs and world views.

 

Translation is in the works, and going steady. If you want to contribute or just hang around following the progress -
be sure to join the Discord server.​

(A small screenshot dump. Do not worry, no spoilers here. These are the original promotional materials from Sonora's web-page, recreated in English.)​

More info on the Discord server:
discord.gg/ECGgQeG​

 

I dunno, just first looks nice I guess

 

The codex's true halcyon days was when the entire forum was Comic Sans for ~a month.

 

Should be an annual thing.

 

Fallout Nev Vegas with its hero is blank slate aka Curier aka tramp was the best one you could choose dialogue options during play to establish your PC as one who visited New Reno or not but only fixed part was that you lived in divide for a time, hence you could justify siding with any faction with no hassle here your entire family, friends and community got captured and enslaved at start (guess you need to carry big iron on your hip if you wish to be independent town) and hence no arguments would sway you to back the slavers unless your PC was total bastard and/or abused by his own people, it should start like this instead:

You awake tended by villagers and they tell you that most of their kin was kidnapped then you will have choice to follow their quest or not, just like you were not forced to fix the Goodspring convict problem.

 

I think you are right and that the setup for the player should have been more neutral instead of starting the game with that the player should have some deeper kind of connection to the settlement they start in.
I know that Fallout 1 and 2 had the opening setup that the player had to save their community by first finding an item and then dealing with a threat to the community (which also happened to be a threat to the world) and I am not going to say that those setups were bad but there are some issues with Villa that rub me the wrong way. (the philosophy of its elders)

Okay you can betray Villa's people because you disagree with the philosophy but there is still this player connection issue.
I wish I could better explain some of my problems with it and why I feel that the player being a complete independent blank character works better.

 

I think the best neutral start is the Prisoner one of Van Burden, you get to chose a crime, you get you chose if you are guilty or not and then you are good to go on neutral ground.

However the problem is the lack of motivation of a player to do something, i tried it playing it in PnP and i ended up with players avoiding the first town thinking they would recognize some random bum that just escaped the prision, so they wandered around the desert, dehydrated, got mauled by rats in a cave and then tried to rob a caravan with a empty gun.

Its hard to give a good start in a RPG while covering the motivation and supporting the plot at the same time.

 

Well I did more enjoyed the beginning of Fallout of Nevada to be sure, its nice to start as citizen of the most city state in wasteland instead of another tribal trash to be sure, then you can go either the redemption for your past crimes route and make Vault City great again or act as mentally ill person aka liberal and betray your own people to go and live among the savages (who hates your civilized arse anyway) and die of leprosy, pneuomia or trip in Reno gutter, its your choice of course Comrade.

P.S. Was really when they decided in FNV that my beloved VC would fall under the NCR yoke what a for one and only true civilized place especially since

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

There was a way to defend its independence and make it expand in Fallout 2, you even got promoted VC Generalissimo for this feat.

 

I can't remember the name of the game doing this, you start in a cell in castle's dungeon but before this, you get to choose a crime and if you're guilty or not among other things.

I think it's turn-based, i'm not sure wether or not you get companions, pixel graphics.
Also, it's probably not so good (i think the loot/inventory management bugged me) as i stopped fairly early but i liked the premises.

 

So, so, so...
There is a quest, which... well.
In short - there is 3 outcomes in this quest.
The one the does requires something besides runing and pressing 123 somehow looks liek the worst one.
And this is a problem with gamedesign.
We all playing games to - you guess it - to play it, to do something, to see conntent ad to take a part in it.
If some quest has different branching, one of them has more action, dialogsa and fighting, and the others are just pressing buttons - why I should I deprive myself from content?
The problem is, the most content rich branches of quest shouldn't be made as "bad" outcomes, and "good" ones shouldn't be made as those which are the poorest one on content.
In this quet - the most difficult, including fighting and whatnot branch is also morally bad, but rewarding, and good decision is short, takes only running and pressing buttins in dialogs, and not rewarding.
Why?
Make good decision rewarding and difficult, make the one that require nothing and gives nothing, makes the one that'sbad and gives bad things.

 

It least its not that quest where you side with the machines and they wipe the whole town BUT the trader in the middle of the base, where he hid in the closet and remains there for the rest of the game.
Otherwise everyone would side wtih the town, what a decision amirite.

 

It's in Sonora? Haven't find it yet then.

So, special encounter design decisions are doutful too in my opinion.
I got this

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

and this mean I jumped in weapon progression stright to the laser rifle, weapon that is only worse then plasma rifle.
Yeah my char has 10 Luck but WTF? Why? All me problems solved because even for my Str 2 char laser rifle with Str requirement 4 is better than improvised laser weapon I got from Lucas.
Imo - of course - this is not good thing.
Special encounters (this one is about robots watching horror movie - the movie about humans lol, with a doubtful or better to say pedophilic joke "that "Little Robot" makes my oil leak out") shouldn't have such ultimate things, solar scorcher was of limited use and not a serious weapon, of course if you aren't autist who can shoot all charges and then run outside to re-charge it, alien blaster - you can't just find it (except F1) in F2, you need to finish the game first.

Conclusion - I didn't like this, and will put this rifle where it was before leaving location.

Edit: not finish yeah, just to get 13 level and JUST travel through specific sectors on map where and only there could appear caravan who could sell you alien blaster. Chances are you never find it on your own, as I never did despite I was playing F2 many, many, many times.

 

I've made another Fallout Sonora with eng subs

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhkdZnbJN8I&t=00s

Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6YbsCGyBbI&t=0s

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/2gKh3GKZb8M

 

Most games already work this way: good way gives you best rewards - cash, xp and stuff; bad way gives lesser reward and often cuts you off additional content. For example, F2 - compare rewards for fixing nuclear plant in Gecko and blowing it up. Compare rewards to broking peace between Modock and Ghost Farm and wiping latter out.
That's not how the real life works. More often than not, bad ways are more rewarding than good ones. Let's say, you found a wallet. You can give it back to owner, he will thank you and maybe give you little cash as gratitude. Or you can keep wallet to yourself with all the money. Or, you're drinking with the girl - and she gets piss-drunk. You can lay her to bed or can persuade her to have fuck while she's drunk and agreeable. You see the pattern here?

 

In real life actually simple decisions that require no efforts often lead to bad results.

Like your electric kettle worn out, and you fixed it with electrical tape instead of give it up for repair, and got electroshocked.

 

This is a kind of skill check. I fixed a lot of electrical instruments in my life and they served me well. For example, my neighbor threw away burned out electrical grass trimmer, I fixed it and still use it. Don't try to fix anything if your repair skill is low.

 

Like Willy said, that is a skill check.

A real moral choice would be that your electric kettle stopped working BUT in the office you work there is a identical electric kettle and you are 100% sure you can easily replace the office kettle with your own without anyone noticing.

Thats a moral choice where you have 100% benefit if you take the "bad choice" and you have no benefit if you act legit, same thing with the wallet thing where if you find money, you either give it back and get rewarded with like 10% of the money or take it all with no consequences.

Fallout most of the time is like this, the good choices always have more rewards than taking the "evil choice" when in real life, taking the bad choices leads to more rewards.