I guess this must be the infamous post that impressed young Dark Matter so much. Let's see:
1eyedking said:
Eldritch said:
See, when you put aside all the mandatory crpg elements expected to be there like the C&C, non-linearity, meaningful choices, decent combat and some rich quality of writing...... it all boils down to taste.
There must be a monocle factory somewhere nearby...
It's a great counter-argument, but let's ignore it and dig deeper.
Eldritch said:
It all boils down to how much lameness you can endure/ignore to enjoy something in its entirety. When the game breaks that threshold of tolerance, it cripples your enjoyment in a way you just can't appreciate the whole atmosphere, it just doesn't get to you.
I quoted this because there is that arftul element of randomness presented with a meaningful background like stuff happening in a plane of existence where mortal belief shapes the very fabric of reality... There is also the randomness for the sake of randomness, the infamous "lol so randum!!1! >__ ^", presented with no meaningful background serving as nothing but lame, disjointed, out-of-place lulz elements intruding an irrelevant setting in a "lookatme I'm lulzy!" fashion.
Out-of-place, huh? So I guess the slavers in The Den doing slave runs and beating the shit out of tribals and selling them to VC does nothing for coherence, eh?
Did he say "nothing, absolutely nothing in the Fallout 2 world makes sense!"? No, he didn't. Then a few non-retarded examples serve no purpose, do they?
Do you deny that there is a lot of stupid shit in Fallout 2? Yes or no, please. If yes, examples will be provided. If no, what's your point?
How much better, actually? Fallout 2 politics, economics and intrigue are done well and provide a rich enough background to the quests you undertake which further overarchs the game's main message (which people such as VD seem to have missed): humanity is shit and is bound to repeat its same mistakes, be it worshiping computers as Emperors, committing genocide, being racist, building organized crime, practicing slavery, cult religions, etc. All of these were issues the first one didn't raise, so you see, FO2 builds upon FO1.
These issues don't belong in the world Fallout 1 presented. That's the problem. New Reno is a good example. It's a superbly designed location with great role-playing opportunities, but ... it doesn't fit. Why? Keep reading.
And polarized evil antagonistic factions? Vault City wasn't evil, it just condoned slavery. Good? Bad? It's a fucking raider-filled wasteland, you be the judge; New Reno was as selfish as a drug-dealing scum-hive can be; Broken Hills had the whole Mutants vs. humans thing going which raised some interesting questions. Modoc was morally boring unless you take the whole same-sex marriage thing into account.
Your point? Did anyone say that Fallout 2 is a bad game?
Eldritch said:
The bleak post-apoc atmosphere of the original Fallout had the feeling just right with the stylized retro-sci / EC comics art direction in a way softening the blow, preventing the whole thing from becoming just another EXTREME in-your-face seriousbizness grimdark post-nucular gritporn setting. It sure had its own few obvious humor but it was mostly subtle, and knew its place. That crashed UFO was not that lame and you only got something like that once, whereas in FO2 much worse took over the entire atmosphere. You have that one nod to the extremely prevalent American bubble-headed grey "lil'green man" 50's retro sci-fi element that could be stumbled upon with a retardedly high luck stat. That one little thing that was in perfect agreement with the art direction disconnected from the rest of the game against an endless wave after wave of out-of context pop-cult crap. Scientologists, "republicans", bullshit tribals, skinny guinea gangster putz, FFFFFUUUUUUU, R00fles, Volourn, southernmost Baltic state persons available for contract hire, decline of the codex, forced humor, half-assed references............................................. :<
The bleak atmosphere is still there, or was The Den just a green circle on the world map? Gecko? Broken Hills? New Reno?
What people are trying to tell you is that Fallout 1 was consistent and serious, while Fallout 2 was inconsistent and lulzy. Nobody is saying that Fallout 2 sucked completely, so your examples with Den and Broken Hill prove nothing, while places like NCR, SF, the Vault City prove the inconsistency and the point you tried to dodge.
Your blind rage only demonstrates your brain doesn't quite grasp the concept of culture references (be them kung-fu movies, american literature, or historical figures), and further misses the point of the game I cited above.
An excellent argument. I see why you win this thread.
And what's with the idiotic VD-style "lolz-r00fles-FFUUU-EXTREME-butthurt" thing?
A mandatory "I hate VD" reference. +1 to argument.
Eldritch said:
Why would anyone want to invade a setting with an insane potential with all the BORING "real world" crap in a most stunted, forced manner like a dog shitting in the middle of the carpet kind of way? I get sick of that crap right here, I wanted you faggots to give me more stuff in the spirit of the awesome PIPE RIFLE instead of the DESERT EAGLE. I would have expected to see even more creativity from the far future setting of a world devastated by nuclear fire than the classical survivor/scavenger culture of the immediate post-apoc circumstances. They should have fucking bested the Fallout 1 in creativity with that potentially awesome premises yet all I got was this lousy, retarded theme park with aaallll ur favorite pop-cult refuhranceez...
First you ask for no "real world crap", and then you ask for more Desert Eagles?
Reading is teh hard?
You got the Bozar, you self-contradicting dumbass, as you did get the Magnum. And the Pancor Jackhammer. And the H&K Caws. And the FAL.
Awesome. You didn't read his post, assumed that he wants more Desert Eagle, called him a dumbass, and posted more "Desert Eagle" examples. Who is the dumbass?
And actually FO1 was the disconnected theme-park:
Rat cave. Check.
Quiet peaceful village town. Check
Raider town. Check
A town made of junk. Check.
Trader town. Check.
Zombie town. Check.
Gang warfare town. Check.
Military town. Check.
Religion town. Check.
How is that a theme park? That's the PA core right there: caves with animals, small peaceful places, raiders, towns made out of containers and old cars (makes a lot of sense, actually), a dead town with a handful of greatly mutated survivors (Necropolis), trading hub (what exactly is wrong with it), etc. Every location makes sense and fits. They are not connected, but they don't have to be.
The reason people called Fallout 2 and 3 a theme-park games is because locations don't fit the setting. Neither the Vault City, nor New Reno, nor San-Francisco, no the tribals, no many other locations fit the setting. Why? Because they are either too developed, too regressed, or revolve around concepts like organized crime that don't belong in PA.
I made my arguments here:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=125
2. Let's go briefly through your career-defining moments. Fallout 2, New Reno. It's a well done town, especially from a role-playing point of view. There is only one problem, it doesn't fit into the setting. Why did you decide to do it that way?
MCA: Why doesn't it fit with the setting? Maybe you're right.
VD: It's a gangster town. I feel that organized crime and "families" are too much for a post-apoc setting. Organized crime, in my opinion, requires a much more developed social infrastructure. In a less developed one, there is no reason for bandits and raiders to form anything higher than a gang.
MCA: Okay, well that's no fun. I completely disagree with that. I think if you have the organized structure for towns, cities, caravans, religious cults, water merchants, then you can either have some structure that equates to that or a predator that feeds on those structures (like Decker was in the Hub, and he was many, many years before New Reno). I was going off a one-page design outline for the area that Tim Cain had done, but I agreed with it, and I am sure Tim would still agree with it on principle, if not on execution.
VD: The reasons and needs for creation and development of organized settlements (towns) and religion are different than those for creation and development of organized crime. Without turning it into an essay, there is a good reason why the Sicilian Mafia, the first of the organized crime models, was developed only in 19th century due to industrialization & trade.
As for Decker, again, there is a difference between a criminal operating in a bar and mobsters running casinos and drug labs.
MCA: Secondly, I (and Tom French, now a rockstar at Pandemic) had a lot of fun working on New Reno. I think it presents a lot of fun role-playing opportunities and things to do, no matter what "type" of character you are,
but does it fit in the setting? No, probably not. It's too sexually over the top, too much profanity, and the look and attitude of some of the characters is too modern-day to complement the feel of the Fallout world (the Mordino family, the fedora hats, the porn studio, the tommy guns, shivs).
In that respect, I would consider it an immature design, and while I had fun with it, I don't think it was the best rendition of a section of the Fallout world. It also had horrible load times because I crammed too much stuff in there.
....
Any questions, one-eye? Is MCA stating the underlined parts enough for you? Let me do a quick summary in nice big letters for you:
Chris Avellone: Does New Reno fit in the setting? No, probably not. It's too sexually over the top, too much profanity, and the look and attitude of some of the characters is too modern-day to complement the feel of the Fallout world (the Mordino family, the fedora hats, the porn studio, the tommy guns, shivs). In that respect, I would consider it an immature design, and while I had fun with it, I don't think it was the best rendition of a section of the Fallout world.
Eldritch said:
I'll have to finish this masturbatory rant with my favorite mindfuck from Fallout 2, the "bullshit tribals"... Sweet crotch-grabbing Christ suffering on a diamond-studded pogo stick... This is like that thing I was talking about when saying: "retardedly caricaturized". I guess people could use the hunter-gatherer methods in order to survive and develop small, tightly-knit tribal relationships that would protect them in a harsh post-apoc world BUT(that's a big butt right there)------ would it really look like THAT? Did the people adopt some generic neolithic culture that is entirely irrelevant to the few generations before them because it would be liek... totally awesome and cool if they liek... dressed in these totally tribal looking indian leather straps, had these tribal tats and grampy bones liek pierced in their noses, spoke in a forced english accent containing all sorts of pseudo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo and gave their children names like Kaga, TORRR, Narogggg, Kaganargtorggggg because they decided to become effective hunter-gatherers they should adopt this caricaturized t-t-t-tribal fashion?????? Hey honey, we should totally name our boy Toragg cuz' you know what? It sounds totally TRIBAL that way. He would make for a better member of our forced hunter-gatherer society with a name like Toragg because that name is giving me some major tribal vibes here. WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF we enriched our new tribal lifestyle with the whole shebang. Let's show them how it's done, let's go tribal on their asses. Neolithic tribal style is cool but I'm thinking of a more Native American fashion with a Jamaican accent for our tribe, we would be cooler that way. WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF...
I won't even waste effort in answering such banal, diarrheic self-indulgence.
Yeah, let's ignore the very valid points about the tribals and call them "banal, diarrheic self-indulgence" instead. I can see now that you're a great master of arguments.
No wonder VD supports it.
Another mandatory VD reference.