Bethesda NEVER Understood Fallout

[Fedora Master]

Kind of like when that hot girl you like is fucking a guy who is clearly not right for her

Wait, so Bethesda is the guy and 'Dex is the hot girl? I'm confused.

Todd is the hot guy, clearly. Dex is... Well...

Spoiler

 

[almondblight]

Now do Fallout 2.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Fallout Tactics is underrated as fuck. I liked it. It's better than all the Bethesda ones.

It's also the best-looking Fallout game, IMO. Has a slightly sharper look than Fallout 1-2, while retaining the same aesthetic sense.

It's a great decent enough Fallout game with shitty gameplay added for some reason.

 

[Bigg Boss]

https://www.moddb.com/mods/xkcons-ultimate-rip-off-mod

Perfect time to shill this Tactics mod I liked.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Fallout Tactics is underrated as fuck. I liked it. It's better than all the Bethesda ones.

It's also the best-looking Fallout game, IMO. Has a slightly sharper look than Fallout 1-2, while retaining the same aesthetic sense.

It's a great Fallout game with shitty gameplay added for some reason.

It's actually a shit Fallout game with... well, decent gameplay.
Nobody would have cared about it if it didn't have the Fallout name, though.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I'm not interested in the minutia of tactical combat in games.

 

[Bigg Boss]

What are you one of the gays?

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm not interested in the minutia of tactical combat in games.

Okay....

So that means the gameplay is bad?

If you're interested in what made Fallout good that's exactly what's missing from Tactics so I don't really see how you can call it a great Fallout game.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

It's actually a shit Fallout game with... well, decent gameplay.
Nobody would have cared about it if it didn't have the Fallout name, though.

Pretty much, fairly certain for the story they just took a Wasteland 1 plot synopsis and ran it through find and replace to fit in the universe (Evil AI makes evil robots to kill humans oh noes!!!)

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I suppose I was just grateful for a non-Bethesda Fallout game. Maybe it wasn't as good as I remember.

The combat wasn't my cup of tea.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Well, I'd definitely take more Tactics over Bethesturd's abortions if I had to choose. But that's not saying much.

 

[Bigg Boss]

People that shit on Tactics make me sick. Sick I tell you.

 

[Dustin542]

Also, both fallout and fallout 2 showed humanity 's efforts to get back on its feet. The second game had places that looked...nice even, like vault city and shady sands 2.0.

In nu-fallout everyone turned into a lazy hobo that can't even be bothered to patch crumbling walls. For some reason.

Yeah, Fallout 3 is just ruins and rubble everywhere, 200 years after the war. Realistically, most of the safe-to-visit areas would be cleared of rubble by now, new buildings would have been erected with salvaged old bricks or concrete blocks rather than the simple wooden boards and sheet metal shacks we find in Megaton, and there'd be plenty more farming than we see in that game (is there even any farming at all? How do the communities in Fallout 3 produce food?).

Fallout 3's terrible assets are also the greatest weakness of New Vegas. NV built up proper societies and settlements, but most of the buildings still look like they haven't been maintained for a century due to Fallout 3's terrible textures. The city of Vegas should look a lot cleaner and more well-maintained than it does. It's a fucking tourist trap, after all.

Just compare how New Reno looks:

To New Vegas which has a huge fucking hole in the main road, in the middle of the strip, the city's main attraction:

Guess House used up all his concrete filling up Vault 21.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

 

[Hace El Oso]

Ahh, good old Sawyer before he lost his edge.

 

[DalekFlay]

Bethesda knew the Fallout story and setting would fit very well with their hiking sim game design, giving them a second IP with a much different vibe from Elder Scrolls. They were obviously right, given their success with it. Any debate about whether they "got" something about it is irrelevant to their corporate interests. They laugh at the idea anyone cares.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Bethesda did not "not understood Fallout". For that, there would have to be an effort, which they clearly didn't make. They just made another nu-tes game and slapped some crude paint job and Fallout memes on it.

Oh, and Fallout Tactics is a very average game that's nowhere near as good as tactical squad combat game in a Fallout universe (which is an absolutely awesome idea in theory) should be.

 

[Funposter]

Bethesda knew the Fallout story and setting would fit very well with their hiking sim game design, giving them a second IP with a much different vibe from Elder Scrolls. They were obviously right, given their success with it. Any debate about whether they "got" something about it is irrelevant to their corporate interests. They laugh at the idea anyone cares.

The problem is that New Vegas demonstrates that you can make a Fallout hiking sim that still respects the series' setting and tone instead of transforming it into something else entirely. Obviously there are a variety of reasons why Bethesda will never make a real RPG ever again, but that doesn't stop people from rightly wanting to see them do it. Then again, Bethesda don't even seem to respect their own setting (TES) so asking them to respect someone else's is probably a foolish endeavour.

 

[Infinitron]

Here's a comment from Shamus' blog: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=49123#comment-1245091

I take the point that it’s a poor sequel, but I don’t think Bethesda changed it to be set in the 50’s because they misunderstood the franchise. I think it was a deliberate (wildly successful) creative choice to soft reboot the series in a way they that would connect with a mass audience.

Bethesda are really good at capturing a cultural zeitgeist. It’s not a logical thing, and it’s not easy to explain, so it gets overlooked, but it works. The marketing for Fallout 3 was stuffed full of 50’s and people are it up – you still see people referring to it as some of their favourite trailers ever. You see it in the enthusiasm amongst cosplayers and the crazy popularity of fallout merchandise.

It was the same for Skyrim. They didn’t do a great job at world building but they did an AMAZING job at capturing the theme of ‘Vikings’ in a way that penetrated deeply into pop culture.

It’s something which studios which are better at world building suck at. Obsidian didn’t manage it in New Vegas, and they didn’t manage it in Outer Worlds. One reason (of many) why the Outer Worlds has been a bit of a flash in the pan is they failed to capture the cultural zeitgeist with their mad science vibe in the same way Bethesda did with their 50’s theme.

But your video made me see that Bethesda can’t evolve the themes they create. With the Elder Scrolls they can do a different theme each time. But with Fallout they’re locked into one theme, and with no ability to evolve, the series is going to bleed dry.

 

[DalekFlay]

The problem is that New Vegas demonstrates that you can make a Fallout hiking sim that still respects the series' setting and tone instead of transforming it into something else entirely. Obviously there are a variety of reasons why Bethesda will never make a real RPG ever again, but that doesn't stop people from rightly wanting to see them do it. Then again, Bethesda don't even seem to respect their own setting (TES) so asking them to respect someone else's is probably a foolish endeavour.

I guess my point was more that fan videos asking "did Bethesda really GET Fallout?" are researching a fallacy. They "got" exactly what they wanted to get out of it, and nothing more. They didn't fail in any way, or misunderstand anything. They captured the IP for a specific purpose and executed on that purpose very effectively, so they "got" exactly what they wanted. I just don't see the point of endless examination/debate over whether a tiger eating a zebra could technically eat a giraffe.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I guess this hasn't been talked about as much on Codex as NMA but I can't help but think...

None of you should even be attempting to still explain this. I didn't expect the thread to carry on for over 4 pages (at first it was amusing) but any of you still debating this should really look at the picture above.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Let's all clap and cheer that the random Youtube Man made a video about a topic we all know, agree with, and have discussed a thousand times over with more depth than any moron on youtube could muster.

It's sad how on one hand real Fallout fans hate pro-Bethesda propaganda cheered by marketing people and casuals, but also dislike someone trying to dismantle that propaganda for wide audience. People making videos like this one is a win for us, it's win fo those who care about proper game design. The guy didn't say anything original or revolutionary, but he didn't has to.

I scrolled comments and I saw some people saying that after watching that video they had understood what was bothering them at the back of their heads when playing Bethesda abominations. Those people could potentially be Bethesda critics, if not for a massive pushback to comply with marketers messages.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I dunno, but Romans and medieval people managed to build with bricks and considering many books and computers survive in Fallout, the techniques of creating adhesives wouldn't be lost in post-apoc America.

Yeah I am looking for some alternative adhesive used in history as well.

But in case of cement, even with the knowledge, it would be very hard to produce in Fallout like world. I've worked in a cement plant and it requires incredibly high temperature to make. I think the one I worked at have operating temperature of 800 - 1200 degree Celcius which is impossible in post-apocalyptic world of fallout. I guess you would have plasma cells, but producing cement without the proper industrial equipment would be hard.

Have your heard about bloomeries ? It's an iron age invention used for smelting iron. I am sure that it's possible to recreate them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I think the one I worked at have operating temperature of 800 - 1200 degree Celcius which is impossible in post-apocalyptic world of fallout.

A coal forge can reach ~1,900°C.

 

[Roguey]

Obsidian didn’t manage it in New Vegas

uh what