a grain of salt... GI FO3 article leaked.

[elander_]

So which skills were scraped? Fallout add more than 14 skills.

Barter, Big Guns, Doctor, Energy Weapons, First Aid, Gambling, Lockpick, Melee Weapons, Outdoorsman, Repair, Science, Small Guns, Sneak, Speech, Steal, Throwing, Traps, Unarmed

My guess is Gambling and Outdoorsman are out, which means no special encounters or world map in the old game. Then they must have merged some skills.

The combat was no surprise. It was evident that it would be RT with some sort of pause system. It ended up being a bit of a surprise with a mutant between Max Payne bullet time and FT continuous turn-base but without the turnbase part.

 

[mister lamat]

i'm thinking they used the van buren skill list created by this man:

prior to todd howard, he was history's greatest villian. read where he is savaged verily for wanting to introduce incredibly pernicious and hateful things such as a colour other than brown to the world of fallout

 

[Jinxed]

The combat system sort of reminds me of Parasite Eve, where you had a meter that was charging up in real time and different actions took away different amounts of the bar. You could always run around and dodge attacks while that thing charged up for your next action.

 

[Volourn]

Doesn't sound too bad if it's actually true.. except the combat system sounds like an abomination... and, since combat is one of the best parts of FO (role-playing being the other)... that's not good...

 

[Gwendo]

The combat system sort of reminds me of Parasite Eve, where you had a meter that was charging up in real time and different actions took away different amounts of the bar. You could always run around and dodge attacks while that thing charged up for your next action.

Or more like the most recent Final Fantasy game...

 

[Jaime Lannister]

The good: No level scaling, multiple endings, possibly dark story. 14 skills isn't that bad, it sounds close to the orginal's amount of skills. 3rd person perspective isn't a turn off for me.

The bad: REAL TIME WITH PAUSE! Beth has been going on and on about how outdated turn-based is, but really RTwP is the system that is outdated. Gothic showed it was possible to have real-time combat in an RPG without pauses (which basically make combat a clunky version of TB) and pure turn-based is not as boring as Beth makes it sound, especially if turns are resolved simultaneously. I would actually prefer a FPS/RPG without pause than another RTwP clunkfest. True real-time is more challenging, and forces more preparation before combat, whereas RTwP is basically, "I chose a weapon that can't hurt this guy. Let me go into my inventory and get a better one while he just sits there and let me do it."

Just my rantings.

 

[Zomg]

The Pennyarcadeosphere forums of video game criticism/hype catalysm are pissed... that there's a level cap. Jesus.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

The Pennyarcadeosphere forums of video game criticism/hype catalysm are pissed... that there's a level cap. Jesus.

We can't have level 99 characters of total imbalancing?!? The horror.

 

[Claw]

Well, the real-time combat system could employ a pause system to allow you to select a locational target. Action points would just be used to determine how many location-based attacks you could execute in a given period.

That's what I imagine as well. It just sounds stupid enough. They probably thought calling it V.A.T.S. was pretty clever.

There's one idea I like, though, such as radiation playing a larger role. That doesn't mean it'll be a good game, though. Oblivion could've had several endings and I would still have loathed it. I am sure this game will have a habit of offending me every second I play it.

 

[Koby]

Where is the article that matches the promises that where made on Oblivion to the actual final product?

I need to get into the mind of devil so I can see if all of this is nothing but some king of a <s>Jedi</s> Sith mind trick.

 

[MountainWest]

- Battle system is called the Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.). The article states. "While you'll certainly be able to tackle enemies in real time using first person shooting, V.A.T.S. lets players pause time and select a target at their leisure". Battle system still uses action points, but once you've used them up you'll still be able to fight targets in real time while they charge back up.

An FPS with the option to pause and aim as long as you have action points. TB is truly obsolete.

Knowing the difficulty will be set after people playing full RT, it'll present no to little challenge. Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised if you still could make headshots in RT. Imagine the outcry among the CS-kiddies if not.

However, XP, no level-scaling and multiple endings are all good things in my book.

 

[Mr Happy]

I certainly wasnt expecting multiple endings from bethesda, expecially with all their assertions that multiple endings rin continuity or something. The battle system is described incredibly vaguely, but sounds pretty terrible alright, so forget that. 14 skills is like, I dunno, 4 less then the original? They probably combined the ranged and medical skills, I was hoping they would be like, "hey lets be progressive and add synergies and more speech skills!" I never liked the karma system in fallout, I was hoping for a more reputation based thing, but figures. No level scaling is nice, and the rest pretty vague.

 

[The_Pope]

It doesn't actually sound that bad. If I'm reading it right, it's something like arcanum combat. You act during your turn, then stand there while the enemies all take their turn at once. Or just go into leet FPS twitch boom headshot mode if thats your thing.

They still haven't answered the real questions though: can you lead the brotherhood of steel, the unity, the enclave and the mages guild at once without any of the appropriate skills? Can you be a mutant cyborg ninja cowboy with a minigun and laser sword? WHERE THE FUCK IS MY CHOCOLATE MILK!?!

 

[Spectacle]

The combat system sounds exactly like the kind of crap Bethesda would come up with to try and placate both Fallout-fans and twitch-kiddies.

The other features listed sound decent though, better than I would have expected. Except for the character generation which sounds dumb.

 

[sheek]

If that's not bullshit, it's in the best case scenario range of possible Bethesda renditions, at least allowing that the dialog and story design are still not defined.

2nded.

The rest of you guys are a bunch of faggot whiners, as usual. The list of features on the whole sounds pretty good to me, actually far better than I would have expected. Of course maybe this is just their plan, and the problem will be execution. Bethesda have never proved themselves good at content, but it seems like they've had a 70% or so turnover since Morrowind and the Elderscrolls. Maybe they've recruited a few workers and creative minds alongside Halo-freaks and coffee-bitches...

Anyway if this is representative of the basic design it seems solid, and the chance of my buying their product goes up from 20% to 50%.

edit:
Give up on the turn-based fetish already. Fallout doesn't need it, the previous Fallouts had way too much combat and a decent F3 definitely needs to tone it down. Beth should be focussing (and 'we' should be pressuring them) on roleplaying options and content, stuff that is actually important and has a high probability of being where they fuck us.

It doesn't actually sound that bad. If I'm reading it right, it's something like arcanum combat. You act during your turn, then stand there while the enemies all take their turn at once. Or just go into leet FPS twitch boom headshot mode if thats your thing.

Exactly. I guess you all look down on System Shock, hmm? All combat was twitch/action/shooting... Actually most of you faggots play Stalker and Prey and God knows what else - so what are you complaining about again?

 

[Pegultagol]

Action points as implemented seems like a clever way of shoehorning Max Paynesque delayed bullet time into combat. Mana points post-apocalyptic style. It is nothing innovative or anything, but no one can botch bullet time right?

I agree with some here that combat should take somewhat of a back seat to overall exploration and roleplaying, or be an intricate part with respect to those elements. Not that I have any real hope of even giving them the benefit of doubt to seriously consider the alternative to appeasing the widest cross genre trigger happy demographic. The engine is capable of rendering some nicely rendered expansive environments so I think it will scale quite well depicting the subject matter. For the maximum visual effect without really trying.

 

[Globbi]

Some things sound really retarded but it is probably a lot better than Oblivion. I am most worried about this part

More than one way to play the game. Go balls out and kill people, or sneak past situations, or perhaps talk your way out of situations.

I need a proof that there will be dialogoues, I don't want retarded talking my way out "Passage"
"I like you enough so ok you can"

 

[spacemoose]

aside from the combat system, which sounds asstatstic, that list isn't half bad.

I particularly like these points:

- XP based system, most XP comes from quests

- 9 - 12 possible endings based on your actions in the game

this one bothers me though:

- More than one way to play the game. Go balls out and kill people, or sneak past situations, or perhaps talk your way out of situations.

the fact that they mention THIS, but not that you can acutally have different ends to a quest leads me to believe that its "three rails to the same place" deal again. so, empty choices without consequences

 

[Man-Fred]

Combat sounds pretty stupid, but at least it has some tactical elements in it. The character creation sounds kind of interesting. Too bad they've cut the number of skills. I suppose they combined the medical skills and removed some useless ones like Barter and Traps.

 

[Texas Red]

Hasnt anyone learned that half-actiony combat in RPGs simply *does not work*! Look at the long list of RPGs that have a shitty interface or generally poor combat. They should implent real FP combat or TB, none of the pseudo crap.

 

[Lurkar]

I don't mind them cutting down on skills if all 14 are fucking useful. Fallout was a great game, but some of those tags were only picked as a practical joke.

 

[filogreek]

Has anyone here seen the mag at all, or know someone who can get us a scan/transcript etc of the article Unless of course, we are concerned with the less-than-legal aspects of such actions...
Vague paraphrasing from the original poster of the info isn't really that great, and I've never seen GI at my newsagent in Aussieland...

 

[KreideBein]

Has anyone here seen the mag at all, or know someone who can get us a scan/transcript etc of the article Unless of course, we are concerned with the less-than-legal aspects of such actions...
Vague paraphrasing from the original poster of the info isn't really that great, and I've never seen GI at my newsagent in Aussieland...

The magazine is supposed to be distributed on Saturday, so we'll know for sure then. I would think that if the information were fake, though, that someone from either Bethesda or GI would say something.

 

[Kingston]

I can already see Pete Hines saying "I think the awards spek for themselves. There was no 'Hey this is good but not as good as it could have been'. We made a true sequel to Fallout. And we will continue to do so."

Multiple solutions and endings doesn't look bad, but man that combat system looks gay. I have no idea wheter to take this seriously or not.

 

[stargelman]

If this is indeed true, it's more than I expected.