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FO3 is not nearly as bad as you hystronic nerds make it out to be
- Thread starter ThatsRightImInIt
- Start date
Beastro
Arcane
World?
What world?
You mean the theme park of random areas thrown together that amount to one?
That is a world in the strictest sense of the term, which stands in contrast with NV's earnest attempts to create a little slice of an actual one.
The whole center of the map annoyed me the most. The Vault you leave is right by Megaton, then a short way off is the school, Big Town and Arefu. Then off over the river are a cemtetary and the minefield with a sniper, the latter two oriented expending you to approch from the south like a player typically would. All stuffed by one another.
Big Town and Arefu annoy me the most being so close together, yet they don't act in concert with one another. There is no connection, especially given how one is somewhat under siege while the latter strains to show how people could live on a bridge like they do. IIRC they have a single Brahmin standing around on the pavement.
Oh, and glancing at the map I notice Vault 106 is right over a hill next to 101 at that.
Now with that said, I had some fond memories playing that game, but like Oblivion and Skyrim, they felt like enjoying cotton candy or some other treat from your childhood you wince at thinking you once ate more than once or twice. A nice, sweet treat, but completely empty of anything of substance.
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MWaser
Cipher
People in here sure like to extrapolate the worst examples of this forum onto everyone, and then joyfully try to act up themselves as somewhat totally objective just because they "don't hate everything", as a separate camp of PRO-[company] codexers, or something.
Only the insecure losers legitimately enjoy something but are way too conformist to dare and try going against the status quo. But on the other side of the road, you have the complete opposite group of people who are intentionally forcing themselves to like things that are commonly hated on this forum, just so that they can show off how proud and non-conformist they are, as if they're swinging their massive manhood right in your face with their superior and unbiased opinion, as if it was impossible to share a common opinion without intentionally trying to fit into the hivemind.
If you pay attention, many people are completely sincere about admitting that either they tried Skyrim and didn't particularly enjoy it, or they enjoyed it when heavily modded in particular. If you only consider a game playable once heavily modded, then I wouldn't say this invalidates criticism against it as a released product, with specific complaints about particular aspects that you know make it bad. After all, it's part of the discussion, and not everyone in here is constantly shitposting.
As for Skyrim (base game), I think I find it equally as bad as Arena when it comes to the series, particularly due to aspects of boredom and extreme UI jank. But while Arena's problems stem from being old and from a time when good controls weren't yet invented by video game scientists, Skyrim tries to do I don't know god what for it to end up with such an unintuitive and awkward to use menu. And the boredom was such that after beating the game once with a few mods, mostly to see how it ends up being, but finding most of it pretty lifeless, when I tried it again (with even more mods, trying to see if I can actually make it significantly fun) I got quickly bored anyway because I simply don't think the game has enough to offer (at least not with the amount of effort I'm willing to put into modding it).
Only the insecure losers legitimately enjoy something but are way too conformist to dare and try going against the status quo. But on the other side of the road, you have the complete opposite group of people who are intentionally forcing themselves to like things that are commonly hated on this forum, just so that they can show off how proud and non-conformist they are, as if they're swinging their massive manhood right in your face with their superior and unbiased opinion, as if it was impossible to share a common opinion without intentionally trying to fit into the hivemind.
If you pay attention, many people are completely sincere about admitting that either they tried Skyrim and didn't particularly enjoy it, or they enjoyed it when heavily modded in particular. If you only consider a game playable once heavily modded, then I wouldn't say this invalidates criticism against it as a released product, with specific complaints about particular aspects that you know make it bad. After all, it's part of the discussion, and not everyone in here is constantly shitposting.
As for Skyrim (base game), I think I find it equally as bad as Arena when it comes to the series, particularly due to aspects of boredom and extreme UI jank. But while Arena's problems stem from being old and from a time when good controls weren't yet invented by video game scientists, Skyrim tries to do I don't know god what for it to end up with such an unintuitive and awkward to use menu. And the boredom was such that after beating the game once with a few mods, mostly to see how it ends up being, but finding most of it pretty lifeless, when I tried it again (with even more mods, trying to see if I can actually make it significantly fun) I got quickly bored anyway because I simply don't think the game has enough to offer (at least not with the amount of effort I'm willing to put into modding it).
Beastro
Arcane
Wow Fluent's really dropping downthe shit ratings. I'd call that a very un-Fluent thing to do.
Was a nerve touched?
I never played it several times, just the one time after release. I beat the main quest but gave up with a good 25% or so left over. Haven't touched it since. With FO3 it was worse as I just dicked around with the hiking simulator aspect exploring and did a smattering to quests, tried Operation Anchorage, then gave up with Lookout point after I began to add more and more mods.
For Oblivion, I was psyched to played it after MW, and my old computer added to the desire to play it in that my video card couldn't handle the game and required some weird file editing to downgrade the graphics to MW level even if it didn't look much different. It was slow through most of it, very slow in Oblivion itself, which made me hate those portals even more than others have. I finished it, then a year later stuck at my cousins for a month's visit the only game they had that appealed at all to me was it, so I decided to try it out again with a proper flow and dropped it after the MQ moving into the Knights of the Nine DLC never getting to Shivering Isles.
A couple years ago I realized it had been over ten years since its release and felt like trying it again. I dropped it struggling to get mods to work together. Then last year tried again with a fixed amount and wound up dropping it about 10 hours in as it felt so numb and bland without the newness or anything else (like the improved FPS) to make it feel fresh.
That's the thing. I have fond memories of Oblivion, FO3 and Skyrim but so much of that came from dicking around with them before I really knew too much about the Bethesda style of games. By Skyrim I did and struggled to find places to enjoy, largely finding only The Reach and ascending the mountain settlements the interesting part given they were different from the same cookie cutter dungeons, but once that had been expended I was through and knew everything I needed to know about Bethesda's game style.
That's where FONV comes in, where it has the same trouble with the engine and look of the games, but the story, the world and how it was all integrated together gave it something more substantial to appreciate. If Bethesda's style is that sweet, emptiness like cotten candy, then what Obsidian did with FONV trying to be an earnest successor to the previous games in complete keeping with the spirit was a good solid meal, even if it wasn't a fancy one nor perfect.
Was a nerve touched?
I never played it several times, just the one time after release. I beat the main quest but gave up with a good 25% or so left over. Haven't touched it since. With FO3 it was worse as I just dicked around with the hiking simulator aspect exploring and did a smattering to quests, tried Operation Anchorage, then gave up with Lookout point after I began to add more and more mods.
For Oblivion, I was psyched to played it after MW, and my old computer added to the desire to play it in that my video card couldn't handle the game and required some weird file editing to downgrade the graphics to MW level even if it didn't look much different. It was slow through most of it, very slow in Oblivion itself, which made me hate those portals even more than others have. I finished it, then a year later stuck at my cousins for a month's visit the only game they had that appealed at all to me was it, so I decided to try it out again with a proper flow and dropped it after the MQ moving into the Knights of the Nine DLC never getting to Shivering Isles.
A couple years ago I realized it had been over ten years since its release and felt like trying it again. I dropped it struggling to get mods to work together. Then last year tried again with a fixed amount and wound up dropping it about 10 hours in as it felt so numb and bland without the newness or anything else (like the improved FPS) to make it feel fresh.
That's the thing. I have fond memories of Oblivion, FO3 and Skyrim but so much of that came from dicking around with them before I really knew too much about the Bethesda style of games. By Skyrim I did and struggled to find places to enjoy, largely finding only The Reach and ascending the mountain settlements the interesting part given they were different from the same cookie cutter dungeons, but once that had been expended I was through and knew everything I needed to know about Bethesda's game style.
That's where FONV comes in, where it has the same trouble with the engine and look of the games, but the story, the world and how it was all integrated together gave it something more substantial to appreciate. If Bethesda's style is that sweet, emptiness like cotten candy, then what Obsidian did with FONV trying to be an earnest successor to the previous games in complete keeping with the spirit was a good solid meal, even if it wasn't a fancy one nor perfect.
Beastro
Arcane
More shits, minutes after I put that up?
Very, very un-Fluent of you.
I thought you were too laid back to be that way, man~
Very, very un-Fluent of you.
I thought you were too laid back to be that way, man~
Deleted Member 16721
Guest
I'm just playing around with the ratings. It's all love. 
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2009
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- 2,389
No. I don't even dislike hiking simulators and I didn't really like the original fallouts but even I recognize a steaming pile of shit when I see it.
FeelTheRads
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2008
- Messages
- 13,716
That there are way too many Bethestards around, and many of them hidden, so Bethestards end up preaching to other Bethestards in threads like these is probably very true.
That everybody likes Bethesda's games but they don't admit it is just another coping mechanism Bethestards use to soothe their severe insecurity and butthurt. Because how could it be that somebody doesn't like the awesome stuff they like!!!!
Cool story, bro, but I iterate every day.
Of course you didn't. Or rather you did, like all butthurt retards do, but you have no argument other than the usual boring shit of the retarded Bethestard: durr I'm so much mature and I enjoy more things than you guise if you were mature like me you'd be so much more happy hurrr
And then you think people here just repeat themselves. Sorry, bro, but you're just another NPC.
How unexpected that your taste is utter, complete shit. Newfag starting with shit games, butthurt that some people on a forum don't like his favorite games.
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Darth Canoli
Arcane
Time for revelations, i ended up on RPgWatch (you never know where these search engines will lead you ...) on a thread full of drama and a banned account insulting and raging, turns out someone quoting this banned dude gave up a nickname ... Fluent ...
So much for the friendly happy dude, it's just a facade.
Best post ITT
Sigourn
uooh afficionado
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- Feb 6, 2016
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- 5,735
And? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean Fallout 3 fans will follow suit. Let's spin the argument around:
And I've got to hand it to Fallout 3 fans: at least they use "fun" as an argument. New Vegas autists, including myself, are too concerned with muh worldbuilding to even pay attention to the fact these are videogames. If it's not fun, it's shit. New Vegas has a shit videogame world, something you can't mod out of the game.
There's only one genuinely butthurt person in this thread and I'm replying to him at the moment.
Lemming42
Arcane
Of course plenty of people dislike these games - I hate Oblivion and really hate Fallout 4, so I share the same feelings. But my posts in the Fallout 4 thread were limited to my experience playing it on release and the immediate discussion after that. I'm not still there half a decade later constantly reminding everyone what a load of shit the game is while simultaneously begging for the latest mod reccomendations, as has been happening with some posters in the long-running Skyrim threads.
Those empty houses scattered over the map with a bed and a few iguana bits are there for hardcore mode, where the exploration is actually pretty satisfying because you’re looking for totally different things.
But this is all a really simple dispute to settle. If you want to wander in any random direction and find bite sized pieces of content every three minutes, if you find that fun, then you should absolutely play a Bethesda game. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. It’s what they do best.
If you want to feel like a (wo)man on a mission, or several missions, where your decisions have real weight and the game gives you good reason to care about the world, you should play New Vegas. That’s fun for me. Stuff like good worldbuilding isn’t abstract, it gives your experience a sense of meaning, and that makes the game more enjoyable. To borrow my favorite misquote from Miller’s Crossing, “it helps to have a reason.”
Personally, I don’t enjoy Bethesda style open worlds. I get nothing from their bite-sized content spaced at convenient intervals. They’re not good at creating the illusion of meaning, to the point where playing their games gives me an existential crisis—why am I even doing this? Why do anything!?
Plus, the sense that I’m being spoonfed a slow drip of content ruins my immersion. And immersion is supposed to be a huge selling point for these games.
Your idea of a good video game world is cotton candy to me. Maybe it tastes sweet to some people, but it quickly dissolves in my mouth, leaving nothing behind except a weird aftertaste.
New Vegas tries to do something very different. I have no problem admitting that FO3 and F:NV both achieve what they set out to do. But from my perspective, FO3 set out to do something profoundly unsatisfying and thus un-fun.
I need one of two things in a video game. Either give me great gameplay, or give me a reason to care about the game world. None of the new Fallouts have great gameplay, and New Vegas alone makes me give a fuck.
You have two separate, though overlapping, fanbases searching for two separate experiences. Some people apparently like both. But those of us who prefer the New Vegas approach have a strong suspicion that Bethesda’s games are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator and I don’t think that’s an entirely unfair assessment.
Sigourn
uooh afficionado
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My idea of a good videogame world is not incompatible with either Obsidian or Bethesda's goals. The problem is that, in trying to fulfill their goals, they either forget what makes a videogame fun or what makes a world interesting.
Nifft Batuff
Prophet
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Exactly! You nailed it. Now I recognize it. This happened to me playing FO4. I had to stop playing it, it was the strongest existential crisis I had in my life playing games... I suspect that FO76 is even worse... i have never played it, but the thought is dreadful.
Okagron
Prophet
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2018
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- 753
I'm not ashamed to admit that i liked Oblivion after playing it when the GOTY edition was released but that's because i didn't knew how much better RPGs can actually be. It was years after that i actually started to play some of the older RPGs like Fallout 1 and 2 and even just last year i tried and really enjoyed VTMB. Going back to any of the Bethesda games since Oblivion after all that just made me realize just show shallow, souless and pointless they are. I can't back go to them after seeing the heights this genre can reach. New Vegas just made me extra pissed off because it shows that a 3D Fallout game can actually work, albeit flawed.
I don't trash Bethesda games because it's "the cool thing to do" or for "Codex brownie points" or any of the other variants. I don't give a fuck about appeasing some crowd or try to fit in with the cool kids. I do it because i genuinely believe they are terrible. Even if this was the unpopular stance to have here, i would still have it. I have been criticizing Bethesda games far before i knew what a RPGCodex even was.
And if anything, people modding the game should tell you what a lot of those people think of the vanilla version. That argument just makes itself. I'm sure there are people that like the vanilla version and then mod it, but people modding the game because they hate the vanilla version is a pretty common occurrence. So when those people get excited for mods in Skyrim, they don't get excited because they are gonna play Skyrim, they get excited because they are gonna play content that is much better than vanilla Skyrim.
Lemming42
Arcane
Almost no RPGs are as all-around good as Fallout 1/2, but I don't understand how a game you enjoyed necessarily becomes retroactively bad just because Fallout or VTMB are better - especially when Oblivion isn't even attempting to create the same experience as either of those games. It'd be like saying nobody should be playing any FPS games other than Doom, Quake and Half-Life, because most subsequently released FPS games are often weaker in various ways.
Hating a game is obviously all well and good, but your stuff earlier in the thread about how you prefer to spend time on The True Deep RPGs is confusing because this is RPGCodex. Virtually everyone here has already played Fallout, Planescape, Ultima, Deus Ex, VTMB, and all the rest. Most of us played them years ago. People aren't just playing Skyrim because they've somehow never heard of Fallout and haven't realised the true potential of RPGs yet, and just because outstanding games exist doesn't mean there's no reason to play anything else - especially when there's like maybe ten outstanding RPGs ever released and the vast majority of the genre is various shades of mediocre-to-shit.
Enjoy playing the classics while it lasts, you'll be knee-deep in shitty Diablo knockoffs and awful Steam Greenlight ARPG bullshit like the rest of us before too long, muahahahaha.
Sailor Woedica
Cipher
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Beastro
Arcane
And?..... I don't expect them too.
All of this reminds me of watching movies at my cousins years ago when his kids were still kids. They kept picking out new horror movies, and yet when watching them they spent more time looking at their phones than at the screen. When they didn't had the same spaceout look in their eyes when they'd watch their kids show; they were simply looking at the movies and not watching them. Then my cousin told me I'm the guest, pick a movie. So I picked Alien. Immediately suspicious mutterings come from the kids. Isn't that an old movie? If it's old how can it be scary? They settle in wary as the movie plays.
The beginning sucked them in and by the time the chestburster happened they weren't simply scared but impressed asking again how old the movie way intensely.
Now I didn't sit there rolling my eyes sneering at their choice in movies, but I have to admit I was damn pleased to see in their reactions confirming everything I knew about the movie Alien, it's a quality movie. While it didn't have the kids throwing up like it did with audiences back when it came out, it grabbed their attention and had them wide eyed on the edges of their seats, things movies like the Babadook completely failed to accomplish.
In the matter of FONV, enough of the old Fallouts survived for many Bethesda fans to enjoy in the same way, and I'm pleased to see that when that's appreciated. FONV is far from perfect, but it's of the same spirit as the originals and allowed that spirit to be enjoyed by others who'd otherwise dismiss the older games as unplayable because they don't like the UI or isometric perspective or something else.
The problem is how Bethesda approaches fun. Were it a straight up matter then I Win Button, no effort explosions wouldn't be derided but praised as the pinnacle of game design since they deliver straight up fun without anything else behind them. They're not, because fun needs something solid to give it some context, and that is what FO3 fans who praise NV recognize in that it scratches that itch in people for more.
Do note that this matter always comes up over Fallout 3s map and not other Beth games. It's hardly because they don't follow the same "new local every five feet" issue, and yet, they do not annoy as much. I haven't heard of any talk about Skyrim's map, and the only thing about Oblivion's that keeps coming up is that it betrayed the aforementioned "Venice in a jungle" setting that books in Morrowind described the Imperial City and Cyrodiil as.
Looking over Fallout 4 it's not much different and I've never heard of it's map criticized before, but I haven't played the game so I can't say how it differs either way. It and Skyrim, it might be said, have slightly more spaced out locations, but not by much. FONVs are far more spaced out with the area around the Colorado River especially sparse on locations.
So, I ask the question why only FO3 annoys people so much? I think the issue there is how different many of the locations are that clearly seemed designed to be cool and interesting in and of themselves and are inserted without bothering to fit much into the greater world they're in that would add to the verisimilitude of the experience. Some do, like Paradise Falls being the slave trade center and the abandoned trade caravan network that was to be centered around Canterbury Commons, but most simply live in their own universe, like the Republic of Dave and Little Lamplight.
Yes, I know first off many are a laugh (certainly not Little Lamplight though, it made me install the killable kids mod) that add to the fun experience you describe, but there's nothing more to that that adds to the experience, which is what others recognize in NV and why the other TES games are at least non-offensive: Finding a ruined fort or cave entrance every five feet fits the setting, as do the kinds of towns cities seen in them. Note that Canterbury Commons went from bring a trade hub into the center of a battle between two guys playing it up as superheroes....? It doesn't fit, while the ant colony breaking loose and destroying a town doesn't offend, because it's something that fits with the world of Fallout.
That is the thing, the first Fallout game really went to establish its setting. You can roll your eyes about "meh worldbuilding", but it gave us something more and it left an impact. Fallout 3 didn't have to go full on Sawyer autistic creating as accurate a map of locations about Las Vegas or going all the way creating tons of farms around NV that serve little purpose to the gameplay showing how the city feeds itself (I admit those could have been cut in half, if only to allow ease around - all that kind of world building needs to do is establish enough of a feel that is at least beyond the town living off a single Brahmin).
Note the most often praise area of FO3 is the DC area. It's not my thing, I hated that they were a trashed mess of concrete and are just largely linear pathways rather than a free roaming city to go through, but I can see why people would like them: The game is set in Washington DC and it gave people Washington DC as well as Fallout things expected in such a place, like ghouls and the ruins of civilization to pick through.
I disagree NV's world is shit, even if Sawyer went a bit too far in places like I said. It's not shit if only for the fact that it balances the weird aspects of Fallout with the "stark reality" of the world. This is where Bethesda missed the point on what made it oddly appealing. It wasn't just the 50s motif's mixed with Mad Max or the off whacky, 50s Sci-Fi things or the violence, but how they were placed against one another. The result was creating something subtly incongruous. The world was odd and different, but it was normal enough in a lot of ways most of the time to make those strange things even stranger. You didn't find a robobrain, or any robot for that matter, around every corner. When you did though, you knew you were in a special place, one left untouched since the war that gave a glimpse at how weird things had become by the time the nukes fell. The same with the serious, mature aspects of the world and story that contrasted with over the top violence and how many of those mature things were conveyed, like the Master being a silly pile of 50s Sci-Fi goo talking about fixing mankind and the human condition by turning them into super mutants.
The strangeness wasn't just restrained, you're encountering rad scorps early and other things considered largely mundane and everyday for the people above ground now. All of that comes together to get across one thing: No matter how well people have recovered or will recover, the world of Fallout was, is and will be a fucked up placed given what had happened in WWIII. Everything in the first game (and to a lesser extent in the second) conveys this unnerving sense of something wrong in how the world has changed from what you encounter and deal with directly, to the music, to how Vault Boy is used in the menus, everything right down to the map and what's encountered on it.
Fallout 2 expanded on that rightly and wrongly to show things developing and recovering as did FONV while both still remained "off" and unnerving in tone. The interesting thing about FO1,2 and NV is that the world is changing, always changing, even if mankind never does. Something which stands in contrast to how FO3 handled things.
There's only one genuinely butthurt person in this thread and I'm replying to him at the moment.
If there's anything I'm annoyed at it's when the juvenile way this forum often operates under detract from a good discussion. In this case it's those which dislike the Bethesda haters doing their own round of smacktalk that misses the matter. That isn't me saying that's exactly what you may be doing here by and large, Sig, but comments like that show you're not just wanting to debate matter.
Everyone may tl;dr this now.
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DJOGamer PT
Arcane
Breaks the flow of combat and is essentially a popmole feature for people who suck at shooters.
Systems that are completely unbalanced, broken, poorly designed and the worst of all boring to play. Because betheseda doesn't even know how to make full use of their own game mechanics to deliver engaging and challenging content.
All of which are for the most part ripoffs of Fallout's 1/2 quests, world events and ideas, rather than actual new stuff that beth themselvs created.
Pretty much just renamed 'Stamina' to 'AP'.
Just because Fallout 3 isn't as horrible as 4 or 76, doesn't make it a decent game. It's at most a middling game and stood out in it's time because of great markting and not being utter shit like most of it's contemporaries.
Beastro
Arcane
I don't see it in Bethesda (or rather, Todd) to even think deeply enough to make it something like that.
IMO, it was first and foremost a cool fun adaption of VATS from the originals, especially to show off the gibs physics in slow mo that otherwise might not be easily seen and appreciated. From that then came the trouble of fixing the player in one spot which made them a target, which then resulted in the invincibility being put in to see the cool funness from being ruined.
That players would then use it as a crutch I think wasn't considered before hand and prolly dismissed once it arose afterwards as the matter became too complex for something that was just meant to be enjoyable.
The same issue comes up in Skyrim with the shouts and how you get one of the most useful and broken ones right off the bat with Unrelenting Force. It's too cool to allow it to be buried deeper in the game (especially where reviewers will never have time to find it) even if it disables enemies too easily and can allow one shots if you knock them off of high ground.
They needed it in early to be the "Whoa, this is awesome!!!" thing which is why it's not just the first shout you learn, but tied to the main quest so you can't really avoid it unless you forego the MQ almost entirely.
That's easy to say...now. We didn't know what was coming.
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