Fallout Fallout 4 Thread

[CthuluIsSpy]

Isn't that a random encounter that has a very low chance of occurring? I don't think I've seen that one.

 

[markec]

Yes Fallout 2 had silly moments, silly quests, silly dialogs and characters and silly easter eggs.

Why do people pretend it was just Fallout 2? Fallout was loaded with pop references, it was just a shorter game.

As someone who is not American and really much into American culture, especially at the time the F1 was released, I missed out on most of them.

Also Fallout 2 has really silly easter eggs and location like New Reno being far more inconsistent then anything in F1.

But majority of world locations are internally consistent and realistic.

Thats a random encounter/easter egg that I think you can find only with very high luck. I replayed F2 countless time I dont think I ever actually saw it.

Yet again we are not talking about a random single npc or encounter but the world and the settlements in the world.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I replayed F2 countless time I dont think I ever actually saw it.

Probably because it's not in Fallout 2.

 

[markec]

I replayed F2 countless time I dont think I ever actually saw it.

Probably because it's not in Fallout 2.

Same thing, I replayed F1 many times (less then F2) but I never saw it.

Point is that the silliness of the old games are compensated by good design and writing. F3/4 has very few things going for it to compensate for its faults.

 

[Grunker]

The Danish playwrite Ludwig Holberg once wrote this satire about logic fallacies:

"A stone cannot fly, my dear mother cannot fly, ergo, my mother is a stone!"

The same fallacy applies to those who cannot see the difference between referencial humor clearly outside the fiction contract and referencial humor used as a baseline for the entire universe, existing in-universe and clearly ackknowledged as such by the characters of said universe.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The Danish playwrite Ludwig Holberg once wrote this satire about logic fallacies:

"A stone cannot fly, my dear mother cannot fly, ergo, my mother is a stone!"

The same fallacy applies to those who cannot see the difference between referencial humor clearly outside the fiction contract and referencial humor used as a baseline for the entire universe, existing in-universe and clearly ackknowledged as such by the characters of said universe.

Seems like a cope for people who want to exclude things they don't like from their SUPER SERIOUS post-apoc simulator about turning people into goo with laser weapons.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yeah, I wonder why Bethesda seems to take the Fallout world less seriously

It's quite possible that they observed, correctly I might add, that Fallout never took itself seriously. From Godzilla to Dr. Who's Tardis to UFOs and ray guns, the first game had no qualms about throwing in wackadoo claptrap - and the first game doesn't even scratch the surface of the easter egg atrocities of Fallout 2. What were Bethesda supposed to do? Suddenly change it to a setting that made any fucking sense? Now THAT would have been disrespectful to the series.

F2 has a tight world design that is also, very important part, closely tied to the story and gameplay in a very satisfying manner (the entire VC/NCR/NR/Redding power struggle). Comparing it to F3/4 just because the former has stupid humor and, admittedly often very lame, rl references is p weird.

 

[Zombra]

F2 has a tight world design that is also, very important part, closely tied to the story and gameplay in a very satisfying manner (the entire VC/NCR/NR/Redding power struggle). Comparing it to F3/4 just because the former has stupid humor and, admittedly often very lame, rl references is p weird.

I'm not making general comparisons, just responding to a specific criticism.

Bethesda takes Elder Scrolls seriously but not Fallout. Why?
Because Fallout was never serious.

If we're going to change the conversation to worldbuilding, we can do that, but it's a very different question. So here goes!

Is Elder Scrolls worldbuilding (not lore, but worldbuilding) substantially better, and less "theme parky", than Bethesda Fallouts?

 

[Robotigan]

F2 has a tight world design that is also, very important part, closely tied to the story and gameplay in a very satisfying manner (the entire VC/NCR/NR/Redding power struggle). Comparing it to F3/4 just because the former has stupid humor and, admittedly often very lame, rl references is p weird.

There are two kinds of critiques.

1) The people who endlessly complain about Kid in a Fridge. This is just insufferable nonsense. Fallout has always had funny nods like this.

2) The more substantive one about the world design itself. I think it's fair to say Fallout 3/4 feel like one big combat zone with a bunch of squatters that are too dumb to leave whereas 1/2/NV feel more like a cohesive worlds. At least part of this is a gameplay concession. Apparently Bethesda thought there was too much dead time between exploring locations and decided to condense the map in the middle of development. But it's clear that locations were not aesthetically/narratively directed to support how close these places are to one another. Look at the promotional art for another clue. Interestingly, in 76 they did make the map bigger/sparser and the world does feel more natural for it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

NV feel more like a cohesive worlds.

Strongly disagree. FNV would have been better with FO1/FO2 style areas.

And really, that's what fast travel is already approximating anyways. If your game has fast travel, it probably shouldn't be open world.

 

[Bad Sector]

it probably shouldn't be open world.

It could be open world but without a seamless world ala Fallout 1/2.

 

[Robotigan]

Strongly disagree. FNV would have been better with FO1/FO2 style areas.

Okay, less so for NV but it's a lot tougher to get it done in 3d first-person.

And really, that's what fast travel is already approximating anyways. If your game has fast travel, it probably shouldn't be open world.

I think people are fairly good at compartmentalizing instantaneous travel as a convenience feature not how the world works. That's what happens when you boot up a game anyway, you're instantaneously teleported somewhere else. So I think you've got it backwards. Navigating through the maze of a Metroidvania is actually fairly quick once you've got a mental map of the place. It is open worlds where backtracking becomes a tedious trek across miles of terrain that is no longer new to you. Specifically open worlds like Elder Scrolls which are more often gameplay rather than narratively driven. You go to a location, do some dungeon-crawling, and then go back to town to sell your loot, repeat many many times. These are exactly the sort of scenarios that any reasonable DM would let the party fast travel through, they might invent a narrative conceit or surprise the party with a random encounter along the way but mechanically it almost completely the same experience.

In a narratively driven open world, the devs can obviously just design the game so the player is hardly ever backtracking.

 

[Robotigan]

Now that I'm thinking about it, Gloomhaven is a really good comparison. The entire game is designed around fast traveling back and forth between the city and dungeons with just a single road event card to remind you you are technically traveling somewhere.

 

[Modron]

Codexers unironically shilling for brotherhood of steel 2

I would have played Fallout Tactics Brotherhood of Steel 2, Section8 sounded like he would have made a better game than the first one.

 

[Zombra]

fast travel is kool and it is good to design a game that way if done smartly

Ugh.

 

[Robotigan]

fast travel is kool and it is good to design a game that way if done smartly

Ugh.

Part of the appeal of exploration is making it a difficult journey to get there. This is initially very fun. But the more times you need to retread that ground, the more annoying it becomes. Especially so if you're making a crazy build that relies on a lot of a resource found exclusively in that location. At that point, you're not really adventuring. You're really commuting. And it is exactly those kinds of monotonous chores that games try to abstract away to keep the core experience fun and engaging. Now for Metroidvanias or hub-based worlds the initially difficult trek can be trivialized through unlocks and plain old figuring out the level. But in an open world, a lot of the difficulty is conveyed through sheer distance, it can't be expedited. Daggerfall wouldn't even be playable without fast travel.

If you're just playing through the main quest and some of the faction quests, yeah I can absolutely see why you'd forgo fast travel. If you're trying to grind up to a power fantasy, fast travel is pretty vital.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Yeah, fast travel is just useful especially when you tinker with many mods around.

 

[Zombra]

fast travel is kool and it is good to design a game that way if done smartly

Ugh.

Part of the appeal of exploration is making it a difficult journey to get there. This is initially very fun. But the more times you need to retread that ground, the more annoying it becomes. Especially so if you're making a crazy build that relies on a lot of a resource found exclusively in that location. At that point, you're not really adventuring. You're really commuting. And it is exactly those kinds of monotonous chores that games try to abstract away to keep the core experience fun and engaging. Now for Metroidvanias or hub-based worlds the initially difficult trek can be trivialized through unlocks and plain old figuring out the level. But in an open world, a lot of the difficulty is conveyed through sheer distance, it can't be expedited. Daggerfall wouldn't even be playable without fast travel.
If you're just playing through the main quest and some of the faction quests, yeah I can absolutely see why you'd forgo fast travel. If you're trying to grind up to a power fantasy, fast travel is pretty vital.

I don't disagree with any of this, but it's all band-aids for the root assumption that a game has to be open world in the first place.

Our game is going to be open world.
Did we design dynamic content to ensure that the open world is constantly engaging?
No, we just made normal static content. But there is a lot of it!
So to get from POI to POI, you're asking players to backtrack across a lot of ground that's essentially empty.
No problem. We'll just make it so the player can skip over the world if they want to.
Ah, a 'skip the game' button. Perfect solution.

Our game is going to be open world.
Did we design dynamic content to ensure that the open world is constantly engaging?
No, we just made normal static content. But there is a lot of it!
Why is this game open world then?
You just blew my mind. Maybe thoughtful boundaries will make this more enjoyable.
You're welcome. Let's think things through a little better next time.

 

[Robotigan]

Why is this game open world then?

The simplest answer is the best. Games are going open world for the same reason games went 3d. It's truer to life and adds a whole new dimension for game design. Even if many developers struggle to make use of it in practice, it's not difficult to see why it's so compelling conceptually. "See that mountain, you can climb it!" struck a chord with audiences for a reason. An open world offers an experience that feels more organic. I've gone on guided tours while visiting cities. Those provide much more cool stuff to see per minute, but my most memorable vacations or even just weekend adventures are still the ones where we just piled in a car with a loose idea of going from A to B and pulled off whenever we discovered something interesting. Exploration and discovery is an extremely innate human desire.

Do I want to travel through Tillamook State Forest every time I visit the West Coast? No, I'll fly for the convenience. But randomly bumping into that place is still one of my favorite travel experiences of all time. It wasn't like our tour bus led us there. Some friends and I took a road trip in college and stopped at a grocery store to pick up food. Some older hippie we met suggested it'd be a cool experience to camp out by the Oregon beach. So we just drove out there on a whim and it was one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been. That is the EXACT kind of experience Bethesda and other developers are hoping to cultivate with their open worlds.

Fast travel is helps maximize these kinds of experiences by skipping past areas we've already visited so many times. They're basically just an even faster plane ticket inside the video game. And it's not like these conceits of convenience don't already exist all over video games. No one's backpack actually looks like a spreadsheet (and Ultima 7 even introduced a more "immersive" alternative).

Did we design dynamic content to ensure that the open world is constantly engaging?

All games sort of butt up against this, no? Processing power and AI is only so sophisticated right now. You play a lot of a singleplayer game, and you're gonna start to notice the repetitiveness. Besides, sometimes it's those quiet moments between the action that make the action feel all the more important. I'm not gonna be constantly bombarded with crazy events when I go out to run an errand, but that makes the rare experiences I do encounter seem all the more novel. It's a balance, I'll give you that.

Ah, a 'skip the game' button. Perfect solution.

Seems just like a "select track/stage/level" to me. Sometimes the player wants a particular part of the game without having to revisit everywhere they've already been.

 

[Zombra]

Why is this game open world then?

The simplest answer is the best. Games are going open world for the same reason games went 3d. It's truer to life and adds a whole new dimension for game design. Even if many developers struggle to make use of it in practice, it's not difficult to see why it's so compelling conceptually.

Blech.

First of all, "because realism" fucking sucks. This concept that "game more like real life = better" is a disease that needs to be purged from our species. AND I AM THE CURE MOTHERFUCKERS
Why is pixel art making a huge resurgence? In part because folks are getting bored with hyper realistic graphics. People are realizing that higher resolution doesn't necessarily mean better art. It's time y'all learned the same thing about colossal but boring game worlds.

As for the rest of the quoted bit above, sure, there are some game design beats that are compelling and fun in an open world structure; however, my important point still stands: not every game needs to be a goddamn open world game, and if the rest of your design doesn't complement that concept but you stick with it anyway, the game is going to be trash.

And it's not like these conceits of convenience don't already exist all over video games. No one's backpack actually looks like a spreadsheet (and Ultima 7 even introduced a more "immersive" alternative).

Eh. You're arguing for more realism and less realism at the same time. I understand both arguments presented and they're both valid, but it's weird. You'll do a better job convincing me if you pick one and commit to it.

After all, if it's OK for a backpack to be completely unrealistic because it eliminates busy work, why isn't it OK for world density to be completely unrealistic because it eliminates travel time?

Did we design dynamic content to ensure that the open world is constantly engaging?

All games sort of butt up against this, no? Processing power and AI is only so sophisticated right now. You play a lot of a singleplayer game, and you're gonna start to notice the repetitiveness.

That's loser talk. "Well if a lot of games are repetitive garbage, then it's OK to intentionally make your game repetitive garbage." Thousands of games out there are fresh, quality experiences from beginning to end, and this should be the goal with any attempt at a quality product.

Besides, sometimes it's those quiet moments between the action that make the action feel all the more important. I'm not gonna be constantly bombarded with crazy events when I go out to run an errand, but that makes the rare experiences I do encounter seem all the more novel. It's a balance, I'll give you that.

Of course. Negative space is of paramount importance in controlling the pace of a game. That has nothing to do with whether any game should be open world or not. Look at any horror game ever, none of which are open world ... you'll always find those quiet safe moments to build the tension for the scary parts. The word "dynamic" was not invented for open world games.

 

[Robotigan]

First of all, "because realism" fucking sucks. This concept that "game more like real life = better" is a disease that needs to be purged from our species. AND I AM THE CURE MOTHERFUCKERS

So you agree? Fast travel is a worthwhile convenience even if it's not totally immersive.

 

[Zombra]

So you agree? Fast travel is a worthwhile convenience even if it's not totally immersive.

Nice try.

 

[JDR13]

You'd have to be completely autistic to be against having fast travel in a game.

If you don't like it then just don't use it, but don't claim that it shouldn't be there.

 

[Robotigan]

Why is pixel art making a huge resurgence? In part because folks are getting bored with hyper realistic graphics. People are realizing that higher resolution doesn't necessarily mean better art. It's time y'all learned the same thing about colossal but boring game worlds.

There's a quote from Miyamoto. "Reality over realism." There's plenty of room for various styles and art direction, but having a game world that conforms to some kind of intuition is a good thing. Most games want to have its tone/reality that it convinces the player of. Being able to explore everywhere you can see facilitates this.

As for the rest of the quoted bit above, sure, there are some game design beats that are compelling and fun in an open world structure; however, my important point still stands: not every game needs to be a goddamn open world game, and if the rest of your design doesn't complement that concept but you stick with it anyway, the game is going to be trash.

Perhaps I've misrepresented myself. While games with an open world are in vogue, I still think there's very few good open world games. It takes a very bespoke engine, talented developers, and a fast iteration process to pull off. And I'll agree with you here. Since most developers can't pull it off, I'd much rather they focus their efforts on something more modest that they can achieve.

Eh. You're arguing for more realism and less realism at the same time. I understand both arguments presented and they're both valid, but it's weird. You'll do a better job convincing me if you pick one and commit to it.

Get this, realism when good not when bad. I want developers to replicate the experience of discovering a campground not the experience of shitting in the woods.

After all, if it's OK for a backpack to be completely unrealistic because it eliminates busy work, why isn't it OK for world density to be completely unrealistic because it eliminates travel time?

People can only process so many distinct things at once. You know what a backpack full of stuff and a dense game space have in common? A lot of anxiety-inducing clutter. I think consumer research has found that people like having up to 13 options and much more than that starts to overwhelm them.

That's loser talk. "Well if a lot of games are repetitive garbage, then it's OK to intentionally make your game repetitive garbage." Thousands of games out there are fresh, quality experiences from beginning to end, and this should be the goal with any attempt at a quality product.

Much easier to accomplish with a smaller game. Less about them having so much more to offer and more about them having the decent sense to end the game when they've run out of things to say. I'm okay with games being super ambitious at the cost of starting to drag towards the end. Just so long as not every game is like that.

Of course. Negative space is of paramount importance in controlling the pace of a game. That has nothing to do with whether any game should be open world or not.

I'm not entirely sure of this, but I think players prefer more negative space when they have more freedom and control. Maybe cause they need a little bit more pause to figure out what they're gonna do next.

 

[Zombra]

Solid post Robotigan. Thanks for the discussion. Maybe more later