Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

My Fallout 3 impressions.

uhjghvt

Scholar
Joined
Aug 7, 2008
Messages
463
Elwro said:
Just for kicks, does leaving the Overseer alive change anything later on?
a little bit
 

Hamster

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 18, 2005
Messages
5,934
Location
Moscow
Codex 2012 Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014
Elwro said:
Just for kicks, does leaving the Overseer alive change anything later on?
Yes, he will be involved in some quest later on, or at least thats what i heard.
 

Balor

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
5,186
Location
Russia
Stevee Wonder said:
Balor said:
Is there anything in Fallout lore that can explain this?

Do you need Fallout lore to tell how people can learn to read? WTF?

Holy shit man... just wow.

Maybe it's a fucking pop-up picture book with Molerats that fold up. Then even you might fucking understand it.

Drakron said:
Balor said:
Somebody already mentioned literacy, and it's a very good question... the Moira questline for 'writing a book' is not only haven for the most stupid dialogue in the game, but if you think about it - it's utterly pointless!

Why? I mean serious folk ... its not WRITING WAS CREATED OVER OVER 4000 YEARS!

RIGHT!

I guess LITERACY CAN ONLY BE ARCHIVED BY THE AWESOME POWER OF SCIENCE!!!! not having someone explain what letters means and how to construct phrases, you know ... HOME TEACHING!

Heh, you think you are so smart, huh?
Well, while writing existed for thousands of years, absolute most people, except for elite (nobles, priests), were illiterate. That changed only about a hundred years ago, when a lot of jobs started to require literacy, and a system of public education was established.
What do we have in a PA world? Schools destroyed (well, all infrastructure destroyed). People have to battle for survival - spending every waking hour hunting and scavenging for food, working in the fields, etc.
The first generation would be literate, and may attempt to teach their offspring basics of literacy, with varying degree of success. And then they die off.
Next generation may not even bother teaching their children - they have much more problems at hand, due to pre-war food reserves running out, and this skill being generally useless in day-to-day life of a 'typical wastelander'.
And remember, kids, as a norm, are LAZY and DON'T LIKE TO READ (and learn in general). Imagine a typical console retard (redding is teh hard!), but 2x dumber due to malnutrition and genetic aberrations. Imagine him in a situation where he has to toil 12 hours a day just to survive and his parents too, btw. No schools, no teachers, very few (if any) books. No reading with a flashlight under a pillow… cause flashlights are a damn precious commodity. Fuck, some people cannot even afford clean water!
Now that continues for about 5 generations before game starts (likely even more, cause life should be much shorter in general... supermutants aside).
Of course, people in vaults must be literate, and perhaps so are people in large settlements, where they can have luxury of free time, and where literacy may actually be useful (but not all, certainly – only ‘high class’ citizens).
But remember, it's Moira's book I'm talking about. People in Vaults will not see it - they are sealed from outside world. Elite in large settlements do not really need it - they are established already.
Target audience of this book, 'typical wastelanders', struggling to survive on a day-to-day basis... are highly likely to be illiterate.
That's what I'm talking about.
 

Elwro

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
Hamster said:
Elwro said:
Just for kicks, does leaving the Overseer alive change anything later on?
Yes, he will be involved in some quest later on, or at least thats what i heard.
Too bad, then :D My baseball bat was too hard for him. I somehow assumed (memories from the Gothic games or something) I'd just be knocking him unconscious.
 

Balor

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
5,186
Location
Russia
Btw, read this article I've googled after one minute of searching:

Illiteracy in the united states.
Year 1880, and some states still boast total illiteracy of more then 50%. So much for '4000 years'.
Don't underestimate the effect apocalypce can have on people. You think it takes a lot for them to 'turn native'?

EDIT:

Also, an example from Russian history (talking about 'Blessed Monarchy and evil commies', heh)

At the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, 37.9 percent of the male population above seven years old was literate and only 12.5 percent of the female population was literate.

That was quickly fixed after the revolution, but the point still stands.
Rewind another 50 years ago - and we have 100% illiterate peasants (that stand for "typical wastelanders") and about 10% of literate people - them being government officials, clergy, nobility and some craftsmen.
If you think that nuclear war cannot set civilization back a few hundred years... well, I admire you optimism
 

Hamster

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 18, 2005
Messages
5,934
Location
Moscow
Codex 2012 Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014
Balor said:
At the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, 37.9 percent of the male population above seven years old was literate and only 12.5 percent of the female population was literate.
And population was growing at enourmous speed, now we have one of the highest literacy rates in the world and demographic crysis.
It would have been much better for population to stay illiterate for few decade longer, but reach about 300mln.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
Look Balor ... lets apply a bit of logic here.

The bombs drop and the survivors are literate, they CAN pass the oh not so difficult art of read and writing to their offspring, you examples continue to prove its not hard and only reason was due to society.

In fact considering how the pre-Great War world assumed people could read and right it was important to pass on that knowledge since important information was stored in writing.

Also we are talking about the basic here, Moira makes the comment if you use all those INT dialog choices that the book might be too hard for people.

You can pull all the examples off 1880's you want but the war happened in 2077, not in 1880's ... you cannot apply that "logic" to literacy and forget other aspects of society, as treatment of women and racism.

A nuclear war CAN thrown back humanity several centuries but that is just technologically, society can regress (it did in terms of slavery but that is because government collapsed) but that is a diferent subject and if women are allowed to vote, hold higher office and there is racial equality why on Earth would they decide "reading is teh hard" and ditch it? especially when its a easily taught very useful skill with all that pre-Great War stuff lying around?
 

Chefe

Erudite
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,731
You're absolutely right, Balor. Fallout 3 sucks and no one should buy it because the NPCs are literate and that's obviously impossible in a PA setting.

Seriously, why is anyone even responding to this idiot? There are not enough facepalms in the world to throw at him. A typical example of making up shit just for the sake of attacking Bethesda.
 

Texas Red

Whiner
Joined
Sep 9, 2006
Messages
7,044
How about you address Balor's points instead of just calling him a retard. Reading evolved as a necessity in civilizations and I can see how it would be lost somewhere for a 12 year old trying to grow something during day and fighting raiders and beasts on the evening.
 

Balor

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
5,186
Location
Russia
A nuclear war CAN thrown back humanity several centuries but that is just technologically, society can regress (it did in terms of slavery but that is because government collapsed) but that is a diferent subject and if women are allowed to vote, hold higher office and there is racial equality why on Earth would they decide "reading is teh hard" and ditch it? especially when its a easily taught very useful skill with all that pre-Great War stuff lying around?

Well, some people would gladly skip learning to read now if they could get away with that, I can guarantee you that. Otherwise we’d not have the ‘full voice acting’ being basically a requirement for games.
And reading is NOT very easily taught skill. It takes practice, literature and, above all - lots of time and dedication. And, unlike our brave protagonist, people in PA setting don't have such luxury. When war throws you back technologically a few hundred years, you must remember, that during that time an average peasant had to spend MOST of their time dedicated to survival - growing crops, mending tools and housing, fighting raiders, etc. And due to radiation, collapse of infrastructure, etc – it would be EVEN HARDER then for an average MA peasant. So, unless they REALLY need to, they will not spend their valuable time on teaching children to read and write (especially - write, and once books begin to fall apart - which is even noted in F3 - there would be nothing to learn from).
So, why do you think they would consider teaching their children literacy?
"Lots of prewar stuff" would be USELESS for 'an average wastelander'. And operation of guns/plows can be easily described vocally, just like it was for thousands of years.
Books will decay after a hundred years, especially w/o proper storage conditions.
Computers are available only to BOS and Vaults - and they don't have a problem with literacy, anyway. The fact that they are everyone in F3 is a travesty.
I daresay they would only know a few more common written words (like you may remember a few hierogliphs), and not much else.
Am I missing anything?
 

Fat Dragon

Arbiter
Joined
May 24, 2007
Messages
3,499
Location
local brothel
So why is this literacy problem just now coming up? I don't think I've ever heard anybody complain about their being a bookstore in Fallout 1 that sold everything from simple gun magazines to detailed "Big Books of Science".
 

Stevee Wonder

Scholar
Joined
Oct 12, 2008
Messages
122
Fat Dragon said:
So why is this literacy problem just now coming up?

Because some people like Fallout 3. End of story.

It worked in Fallout 1/2 because I liked those games. It doesn't work in Fallout 3 so I'm going to trash it because I hate the game.

Here is some actual logic about it.

In a post-apoc setting very few kids would survive, and those that do would be born to survivors. And they would pass on survival skills, and in a world that is built on the littered ruins of past technology reading would be a necessity. Reading a box to see if it's noodles or bleach. Reading a bottle to see if it's nuka-cola or flamer fuel. Reading a computer terminal, reading a book.

And hey, you know what? Not everyone has to read. Some people may be read to! Like your mommy reads to you at night. And as long as one person can read the book to see the effects of rad poisoning and how to deal with then everyone benefits.

Fuck. Reading in Fallout. Serious fucking business.
 

Claw

Erudite
Patron
Joined
Aug 7, 2004
Messages
3,777
Location
The center of my world.
Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
Drakron said:
I guess LITERACY CAN ONLY BE ARCHIVED BY THE AWESOME POWER OF SCIENCE!!!! not having someone explain what letters means and how to construct phrases, you know ... HOME TEACHING!
Ehh... that's retarded. You're retarded. It's not science that the post-apocalyptic wasteland is lacking, it's civilization.
Knowledge is easier lost than kept. With the fall of every civilization large amounts of knowledge were lost. Case in point: The fall of the Roman empire. People forgot how to build fucking roads or aqueducts. I would not be surprised if literacy also took a massive hit. So, even though there may still be people who can read, the majority of people in the wasteland would sensibly be illiterate. On the other hand, that doesn't entirely preclude the option of someone writing a book.
 

Chefe

Erudite
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,731
Dark Individual said:
How about you address Balor's points instead of just calling him a retard. Reading evolved as a necessity in civilizations and I can see how it would be lost somewhere for a 12 year old trying to grow something during day and fighting raiders and beasts on the evening.

Because he's calling the entire game bad based on one stupid little subjective thing. The survival guide is obviously being written for people who can read at least a little, and vaults with their education programs also supply a steady stream of literate individuals. Plus, everything left over from pre-War times has words on it, and knowing what those words said would have carried over from the survivors to their offspring.

Yes, alternatively literacy could be lost and all that stuff. Alternatively, aliens could also have landed.

Arguing with Balor's logic here is like arguing with a duck. No matter what you say, it's still going to respond with "Quack!"
 

Texas Red

Whiner
Joined
Sep 9, 2006
Messages
7,044
Balor said:
A nuclear war CAN thrown back humanity several centuries but that is just technologically, society can regress (it did in terms of slavery but that is because government collapsed) but that is a diferent subject and if women are allowed to vote, hold higher office and there is racial equality why on Earth would they decide "reading is teh hard" and ditch it? especially when its a easily taught very useful skill with all that pre-Great War stuff lying around?

Well, some people would gladly skip learning to read now if they could get away with that, I can guarantee you that. Otherwise we’d not have the ‘full voice acting’ being basically a requirement for games.
And reading is NOT very easily taught skill. It takes practice, literature and, above all - lots of time and dedication. And, unlike our brave protagonist, people in PA setting don't have such luxury. When war throws you back technologically a few hundred years, you must remember, that during that time an average peasant had to spend MOST of their time dedicated to survival - growing crops, mending tools and housing, fighting raiders, etc. And due to radiation, collapse of infrastructure, etc – it would be EVEN HARDER then for an average MA peasant. So, unless they REALLY need to, they will not spend their valuable time on teaching children to read and write (especially - write, and once books begin to fall apart - which is even noted in F3 - there would be nothing to learn from).
So, why do you think they would consider teaching their children literacy?
"Lots of prewar stuff" would be USELESS for 'an average wastelander'. And operation of guns/plows can be easily described vocally, just like it was for thousands of years.
Books will decay after a hundred years, especially w/o proper storage conditions.
Computers are available only to BOS and Vaults - and they don't have a problem with literacy, anyway. The fact that they are everyone in F3 is a travesty.
I daresay they would only know a few more common written words (like you may remember a few hierogliphs), and not much else.
Am I missing anything?

And most literature would be highly irrelevant and probably alien.
 

uhjghvt

Scholar
Joined
Aug 7, 2008
Messages
463
JarlFrank said:
I didn't even know FO3 was supposed to be set 200 years after the war before reading it here.
don't feel too bad I don't think anybody at bethesda knew it either
 

Chefe

Erudite
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,731
uhjghvt said:
JarlFrank said:
I didn't even know FO3 was supposed to be set 200 years after the war before reading it here.
don't feel too bad I don't think anybody at bethesda knew it either

Todd knew. He just forgot to tell everyone else until it was too late.
 

Balor

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
5,186
Location
Russia
Chefe said:
You're absolutely right, Balor. Fallout 3 sucks and no one should buy it because the NPCs are literate and that's obviously impossible in a PA setting.

Seriously, why is anyone even responding to this idiot? There are not enough facepalms in the world to throw at him. A typical example of making up shit just for the sake of attacking Bethesda.

Fuck you too.
I'm not saying that F3 is a pathetic piece of shit simple because of that.
However, what REALLY made Fallout games so stellar (at least for me) - is great attention to detail and lots of internal consistency, even given the bizarre 'past in the future' setting (easter eggs aside, of course).
It did not feature exploding cars, precious commodities (stimpacks, narcotics, food) lying everywhere untouched and unguarded, computers and electricity being nearly everywhere and working like Swiss clocks, and so on, and so forth.
That was a REALLY believable world.
I can understand why someone can be completely satisfied a with F3:
Having "it's just a game!" attitude, and playing it just for the <strike>lulz</strike> atmosphere, exploration and combat. (Btw, STALKER has it, too! So, STALKER is Fallout too?)
However, while F1 and F2 also were 'only games', they were MUCH more internally consistent. F2 was bitch-slapped for MUCH less!
Of course, you may try and justify everything - Enclave, HOARDS of supermuntants, BoS being turned upside down (it's 'Lyon' that should be outcast), and generally everything looking just like the bombing was like 10-20 years ago at best... but why should I?
I will just say: No, this is not Fallout. It's fun PA game. It is even a fairly good RPG! Yea, writing is horrendous sometimes, but sometimes it's quite ok.
But as a continuation of Fallout saga, it simply falls apart. The world, given the timeframe and lore, is simply not believable.

So, let's put it this way: W/o the lore, it's not Fallout game, it's just a 'Fallout-inspired PA game'.
The lore is butchered.
Q.E.D.
 

Chefe

Erudite
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,731
It's Fallout. It's different from Interplay's Fallout because Interplay is not making it. Call it whatever you want, I don't care and it doesn't matter. My point is that you were calling it a piece of shit because of the literacy thing, and it would be pointless to argue with you about it because it's a fake problem that only exists to satisfy your Bethesda bashing desires.

Q.E.D.? There is no Q.E.D. here. This is the goddamn Codex.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,380
To be honest, I am still perfectly confused as to the timeline in f3. I'm told its 200 years after the war, allegedly, though it rather feels like it was little more than 50.
 

Balor

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
5,186
Location
Russia
Just a quick analogy, before I go to sleep:
Let's imagine a setting, where the wheel is not invented.
It's a very cool setting, and somebody buys rights to make a racing game in it.
Yea, racing on cars with wheels and whatnot.
It may turn out that it's the best racing game of all time, but if you care about setting, you can only play it by putting a 'mental block' and saying 'it's not "setting X"! Wheels are impossible there, so it's just some sort of spin-off.'
If you can do it - you will enjoy the game. If not - it would be the proverbial 'spoonful of tar in a bucket of honey' for you.

So, in order for me to enjoy F3 (just like for VD), I must renounce all it's ties to Fallout 1 and 2. Otherwise, I'd have to cringe at the butchered lore constantly, thus lowering my enjoyment considerably, to the point of complete rejection. (See skyway).
 

Chefe

Erudite
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,731
Whatever let's you sleep at night.

Sweet dreams, Balor.
 

Balor

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
5,186
Location
Russia
Chefe said:
... My point is that you were calling it a piece of shit because of the literacy thing, ...
Q.E.D.? There is no Q.E.D. here. This is the goddamn Codex.
No, it's just a dumb bitch being owned and resorting to putting words in my mouth. Yea, I'm talking about you, bitch. Next time, put MY dick you in YOUR mouth, please.
 

Chefe

Erudite
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,731
:roll:
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom