Editorial Some thoughts on the Fallout 3 article

[Punck_D]

As far as I remember from the ending of Fallout 1, male super-mutants are fertile. It's only the females that are sterile.
Could anyone confirm this?

FEV causes sterility on every subject, see one of Vree's holodisks. Though you had the speech option (on high speech level) to ask the master about female mutants, so he will give up his insane plans.

 

[Vault Dweller]

P.S. VD's article was good... until he mad eup lies.. last I checked, you have the option in FO3 for 1st person or 3rd person.

Who gives a fuck? The difference between first person and 3rd person is mostly cosmetic.

 

[Alexander_]

When I first read of VATS in the leaked summary, I thought, "well, ok the combat will be horrible, but I can live with that; after all, I did play through PS:T and it was great in spite of the combat. Hopefully, the story will compensate for the failiure of the combat."

Then came the scans of the actual article and I saw the mutants, read the discription of the quests, etc. and realised: we are fucked. Will the Fallout licence ever recover?

P.S.

Oww... my balls hurt.

 

[Zomg]

When you put up articles like this, roly poly hype bitches read it. I'd say some shit to try to remind them about how they hated Deus Ex 2 on the basis of much more trivial differences because they're too callow to form an independent opinion and got caught up in a meme.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

You sure have a knack for painting Bethesda the worst way possible. It' s a fine antidote for Hype, but ultimately just as indigestible as the former.

It certainly tickles my old instincts to defend them because the style is still outrageous... but what for, you may turn out to be right or maybe not. If they actually live up to their own claims on quest design, NPCs and branching story, that would be more than we get from most RPGs. If.

Other than that, have fun on your crusade, but don't get yourself an ulcer, and don't forget to finish your own game.

 

[no]

As noble as your goal might be, the most this kind of criticism is going to achieve is to attract the attention of the bored and gullible nerd mob who are craving to rebel their way out of their disenchanment but are going to give their money to Bethesda anyway because the only things not lacking from their lives are excess cash and spare time which to fill with meaningless surrogate activities.

That being said, stop giving a rats arse about your already wasted mainstream industry. Convert all that spare energy into crafting the potential shiny gem which has the capability to bring the blind back into the fold.

 

[Balor]

Btw, don't you all think that that preposterous nuke lobber is, in fact, a smoke screen to distract our attention from really glaring flaws like BoS going PoS again, super mutant further mutating into orcs and suddely taking over whole east coast, as though they not just sterile, but reproduce as fast as rabbits, etc?
Implications of latter much more dire then simply having a stupid and cheesy weapon... Stuff like Bozar was not all that smart anyway.
However, since we might be into PoS-style lore rape, anything will go - after all, it will positively not be Fallout, so why care? We might as well argue realism of a hand-cannot in Serious Sam...

And if we are to look at the picture at an other angle… we have evil orcs or demons (super mutants) and paladins fighting them (Brotherhood of Nine… oh, I mean Steel).
And what does remind you? Right, Oblivion with Guns, here we go!

 

[Vault Dweller]

You sure have a knack for painting Bethesda the worst way possible.

I can't take all the credit. Bethesda helped a lot.

Anyway, I simply described what I read/saw in the article, asking the right questions. I didn't make any claims like "the game will suck" or "the dialogues will be awful, you'll see". It's not my article that created your negative impression, Ghan, it's the Game Informer article that did it. I simply drew your attention away from the shiny stuff and empty words, and showed you what the article actually revealed.

 

[Kingston]

I think its possible that Fallout 3 will fuck up canon more than tactics or FOPOS.

 

[Volourn]

"Who gives a fuck? The difference between first person and 3rd person is mostly cosmetic."

Irrelevant. If you aren't going to be intellectually honest in your articles; it's gonna be hard to take your opinions on an issue seriously.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Then don't take it seriously. It's not a legal document, it's an opinion piece to be argued with, agreed or disagreed. If someone wants to dismiss the entire article because I didn't mention the third person mode or didn't count that sad screen with some text as a dialogue screen, be my guest and dismiss it.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

You sure have a knack for painting Bethesda the worst way possible.

I can't take all the credit. Bethesda helped a lot.

Anyway, I simply described what I read/saw in the article, asking the right questions. I didn't make any claims like "the game will suck" or "the dialogues will be awful, you'll see". It's not my article that created your negative impression, Ghan, it's the Game Informer article that did it. I simply drew your attention away from the shiny stuff and empty words, and showed you what the article actually revealed.

Ermm.. No. Thank you, but unlike some, I am able to think and conclude for myself. And I have no issue with you pointing out that hype is hype. It's a difference in style. You may not say "this game will suck", but that is still the message people will take home from reading it. If I wrote it, it would be "be weary!". You choose to cite the linear narrative in the article as semi evidence that there are no choices. I would point to their claims, e.g.:

"We don't want to be rewarding twitch play," Howard says. "It's not an action game. It's a role-playing game."

Most of your experience points in the game come from complete quests - grinding for experience just isn't that useful.

However, unlike Oblivion, a single character can't be all things to all people.

"Even within the quests we're trying to be careful to not just have the good path and the evil path, because a big part of Fallout is shades of gray,"

you'll always have choices about how to proceed, or whether you want to participate in the event at all. "It's more about how you handle these different situations, and less which ones did you do and in what order," Howard explains.

.. and say: OK, you listened, you say the right things, now you better make sure that you can live up to that - because RAI couldn't nor was dialogue "better" in Mw than in Oblivion.

... but then I am too lazy to have my own website and write my own tutorial, so more power to you.

 

[aries202]

VD - in your outstanding editorial you ask a very pertinent and salient (hey I'm at the codex - I can use these words and should learn how to spell properly, too ) question: "Was it really necessary to pay all those millions for the Fallout license?"

And no, I don't think that it was - really. Unless Beth wanted to make their own survival-horror game using the artwork and assets from Fallout, like the Vaults, the BoS, the Supermutants, and the whole Fallout setting in which they could do their own post apoc game the way they wanted it to.

Im guessing for the next part: It is as if Beth saw Mass Effect, Gears of War, STALKER and Lost Planet, and possibly Bioshock, too, and thought to themselves: 'cool, a post apoc game, hey we need to do game like this.But we can't really come up with a decent setting, so hey, let's buy the Fallout IP, and make the game into a STALKER like thingie, but with combat like in Gears of War and with something that reminds people of TB combat, but really isn't (that'll shut the TB crowd up, won't it??).'

And then this line of thought: 'hey, at least we have the vaults, the vault dweller, not at least the Vault Dweller's Father, and then we have these quests, where unlike Oblivion, you can't become head of every guild or do every questline in the game'. 'oh, and you get to wear BoS armor and fight Super Mutants from the start of the game, very cool...'. As said, this is only a guess on my part, but I think it is very good & qualified guess. What we are left with is game that in its coreplay pretty much is similar to STALKER's which still, imo, from Mike's (txa??) review will be the better game, even when FO3 is released in about 1½ year or so.

As for VD's article, I will say that VD's thoughts exactly matches my own thoughts based on reading the GI informer article+scans at NMA.
Especially when it comes to arming the disarmed nuclear bomb. There seems to be NO option to turn down this quest, no option to go to the town's leader to tell him what Mr. Burke is up to, no option to tell Mr. Burke to go shoot a nuclear f.... up his own ass, no option to go tell the Sheriff and have Mr. Burke arrested, Of course, as VD mentioned, all these options, or some of them, may be in the game, but it wasn't presented to GI people that way.

The BoS shouldn't be the good guys uphelding the law nor should there be any supermutants at all?? on the East Coast. [In this case Beth has got some serious explaining to d - on why and how the BoS and the Supermutants suddenly appear on the East Coast??].

 

[Vault Dweller]

Ermm.. No. Thank you, but unlike some, I am able to think and conclude for myself.

I didn't tell anyone what to think, I showed them what to look at, in case they missed it.

You choose to cite the linear narrative in the article as semi evidence that there are no choices.

Really? I did?

"Anyway, did you notice that the article does not mention any option to do something differently? One would think that Todd would have illustrated or at least mentioned all the options while playing through this quest. Something like "of course, you can blow a hole in Mister Burke's head instead" or "you can talk to the sheriff", etc. So, either these options are not present and the game railroads you or Todd doesn't think that these options are interesting / have consequences / worth mentioning. Either scenario is alarming."

I would point to their claims, e.g.:

Claims are meaningless, especially those coming from Bethesda. You should know it. Anyway, here is what I said:

"...the article insists that the game will be loaded with choices & consequences, branching quests, and other role-playing goodness, but, sadly, no examples are given. Considering Bethesda's fondness to make shit up in order to sell more copies, caution would be strongly advised."

Close enough to your "be weary!"?

 

[Vault Dweller]

VD - in your outstanding editorial ...

Thanks, aries.

 

[Excrément]

Considering Bethesda's fondness to make shit up in order to sell more copies, caution would be strongly advised."

don't forget to precise some facts :
there are less NPCs than in Oblivion, so the radiant AI could only be better (quality over quantity) even if it will suck according to your standards
the lead designer Emil is maybe the only guy who input some choices and consequenecs and quest storyline in Oblivion
multiple endings, multiple paths, the credibility of these pledeges are reinforced because of the 20 level cap.
I think you should at least recognize Beth did take a "courageous" decisoin to not prpose their usual successful open endless RPG.
with those restrictions, with the fact they devloped the game for a long time and the game will only be relase in fall 2008, you can reasonnably hope some good suprises.
the water/radiation double system could be interesting even If I am afraid it's just a fucking elaborate heal system of any FPS (think Duke Nukem)

now, I admit you were right about the VATS : it sucks on the paper.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

there are less NPCs than in Oblivion, so the radiant AI could only be better (quality over quantity) even if it will suck according to your standards

That is if you actually believe Radiant AI ever worked as intended, which I for one don't. Maybe it's because I have a little experience with coding, but Bethesda's "Oh whoops everybody started killing each other so it worked too well and we had to tone it down" screams bullshit.

the lead designer Emil is maybe the only guy who input some choices and consequenecs and quest storyline in Oblivion

He was the guy who did the Dark Brotherhood quests, right? I didn't see any huge leap in quality from this guy. Nothing even on the level of a typical Bioware quest. So I'm not particularly optimistic.

multiple endings, multiple paths, the credibility of these pledeges are reinforced because of the 20 level cap.

What the hell?

I think you should at least recognize Beth did take a "courageous" decisoin to not prpose their usual successful open endless RPG.

They basically did. It's a huge area a little smaller than Oblivion's landmass and you can wander around.

 

[Vault Dweller]

there are less NPCs than in Oblivion, so the radiant AI could only be better (quality over quantity) even if it will suck according to your standards

That would imply that the reason that RAI sucked was because there were too many NPCs. Any facts to back it up?

multiple endings, multiple paths, the credibility of these pledeges are reinforced because of the 20 level cap.

How so?

 

[Volourn]

It's nott hat you didn't mention it VD, it's that you flat out lied.

"Three years later we are presented with a first person", and it goes on.

You (and others)go on, and on about how Betehsda lies or mis represents thinsg yet that's exactly what you did. Right at the start of the article. If youa re so sure about your opinion being corretc' then you should feel no need to lie yet to do.

And, please don't say it was just a mistake. Consisdeirng how you went through the article with a fine comb; I doubt you would miss that.

It's too bad, 'cause I agree with some of your points and I'm no Bethesda fan to begin with; but why misinform people?

Anyways, I'll let you be. I don't want to get in the way of your hypocrisy of bashing Bethesda for lies and mistruths yet be guilty of it too.

L0L

 

[Fez]

Seems that you're generating a lot of drama out of such a small nitpick, Vollie. Is that one omission your only problem with it? Saying it's FP isn't really a lie if it is mostly a FP game and in the end it's still the same game with the same problems so I don't see why you are so upset. Oblivion didn't seem totally different changing it from first to third person. What about the rest of the article then? Was that all lies?

I think you're being more of a hypocrite than anyone else after all your complaints about D R A M A and over the top bashing.

 

[mister lamat]

when did homo blogs on your feelings become 'content'? oh well. crusade on i guess.

complete supposition, but the mutants could be sourced from the original vault dweller actually joining with the master. great thing about canon when it lacks a single author.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

complete supposition, but the mutants could be sourced from the original vault dweller actually joining with the master. great thing about canon when it lacks a single author.

Fallout 2 pretty much demolishes that scenario.

 

[mister lamat]

perfect answer.

you bitches line up so easy.

 

[Kingston]

Perhaps it does give off the impression that its exclusively First-Person, which it isn't. Sure, both perspectives are silly as fuck for this game, but still its important to mention unless you want to give off a biased vibe.

 

[psycojester]

multiple endings, multiple paths, the credibility of these pledeges are reinforced because of the 20 level cap.

Please explain that one, i'm fascinated by the possibility that logic actually went into reaching that conclusion.