Editorial Some thoughts on the Fallout 3 article

[Kingston]

Its the "I love old games so I'm not a blubbering beth fanboy" tactic.

 

[ricolikesrice]

How about you learn to read , punk ?

He s working for gamestar which is the german equivalent of insert_your_countries_most_sold gaming magazine. Unless you believe that german press is any more honest than other countries…do you really expect
anything from him that wont be the same shit as he did for oblivion ?
(posted in this thread in parts) Do you still believe in santa clause ?
Its one of the Todd/Carsten/Pete/Iraqi Propaganda Minister model.

And no matter how much you suck up to him, he even stated he cant tell anything until a certain point in time (2 weeks?), so I guess if you really care, make a countdown

I m just trying to help you Kamerad, its not too late!

 

[Punck_D]

How about you learn to read , punk ?

He s working for gamestar which is the german equivalent of insert_your_countries_most_sold gaming magazine. Unless you believe that german press is any more honest than other countries…

The point was as I already stated that I usually don't buy any game magazines, it seems for the same reasons as yours. Unless I see one with a good full game for a good price, which is an exceptional case.

do you really expect anything from him that wont be the same shit as he did for oblivion ?

No, and I never said that.

And no matter how much you suck up to him, he even stated he cant tell anything until a certain point in time (2 weeks?), so I guess if you really care, make a countdown

I m just trying to help you Kamerad, its not too late!

I just formulated some kind of controling question for fun. Would I read scans? Yes. Would I read a transcription? Yes. But I won't buy the magazine unless it would have some pearl as full game to offer.

 

[Hazelnut]

Welcome to the Codex robur. (not all is as it first seems here)

And while some people hate level scaling, I'm still ambivalent about it to a certain point.

Alright, but didn't it bother you that the level scaling (coupled with randomization) basically made the entire "16 square miles" obsolete due to massive "sameness feeling"?

Just have to wonder, especially since "exploring the world" was one of the things you said would be exciting.

I'm a big fan of exploring game worlds. And while some might hate me for it, I'm also a fan of exploring good looking game worlds. My eyes are built to see color, why should I be alright with just black and white? At the same time, just running through a game world without a challenge isn't really that exciting. Does that answer your question?

Me too. I love exploring, and I'm not alone here. I don't think anyone is gonna hate you for liking to explore good looking gameworlds, but it has to be about more than awesome shiny graphics and pretty vista's. I enjoyed DF and MW, but hated Oblivion after a fairly short time. I wanted TES4 to be the best bits of the previous two games plus some development. Unfortunately they destroyed the best bit of MW (the exploration aspect, since it wasn't great RPG-wise) in OB with the level scaling and generic blandness. Level scaling as a concept is almost essential to games like this, but it has to be used with care and designed into the game.

As an introduction to the Codex and some of the discussions we've had here, please feel free to peruse this thread

 

[ricolikesrice]

Me too. I love exploring, and I'm not alone here. I don't think anyone is gonna hate you for liking to explore good looking gameworlds, but it has to be about more than awesome shiny graphics and pretty vista's. I enjoyed DF and MW, but hated Oblivion after a fairly short time. I wanted TES4 to be the best bits of the previous two games plus some development. Unfortunately they destroyed the best bit of MW (the exploration aspect, since it wasn't great RPG-wise) in OB with the level scaling and generic blandness. Level scaling as a concept is almost essential to games like this, but it has to be used with care and designed into the game.

You will love Fallout 3 then, i spoke a lot with Todd and Pete and they promised me they wont lie again like they did before with morrowind and oblivion. I wish i could tell you more right now, but trust me: you must buy the next Gamestar for it will include all the reasons why you also must buy Fallout 3. No kidding, with Fallout 3 a new age of cRPG has begun (like before with oblivion) and Bethesda does their very best to please both hardcore fallout fans and the oblivion fans.
Dont overreact to the stupidity of US journalists like GI, germans are so much better, just look at how we rated gothic 3 skyhigh where everyone else mentioned bugs that we never got - but then again just like german journalists > U.S journalists, german computers > U.S. computers. They only got bugs in gothic 3 because of that.
Like any gamestar review we wont bore you with writing 7 pages about how a game looks and half a page about how it plays, no we ll go as deep into detail as we did with oblivion or galactic civilizations 2 (which that ricolikesrice seems to think of as a cRPG.... what a wookie if i may say so my young padawan).
www.gamestar.de ... the review for oblivion is free, just get a translation
We from Gamestar take gaming journalism seriously.

ok

 

[Morol]

with Fallout 3 a new age of cRPG has begun (like before with oblivion)

Shit, now I’m worried.

 

[Amasius]

ricolikesrice, nice try, but as far as I know Robur isn't working for Gamestar anymore. Like I wrote above: former US correspondent for the biggest german game magazin Gamestar.

 

[Atrokkus]

You take the charge and head back outside. ... "It's about time," Mister Burke says, and hands you the detonator. In the distance, you can see the town. There's no turning back after this. The money's not really that good, now that you think about it. You press the button anyway...

Well, you must also understand that this was a retelling of one particular game story, with the author's choices, without listing all the possible ones. I could be wrong, but so could you in your quick assumption.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm tired of pointing it out, but considering the growing illiteracy epidemic...

"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."

However, I'd like to point out that the above mentioned story contains at least two scripted events: BoS saving you from the mutants, and the mutant Boss encounter (and it looks like you can't sneak or talk your way through here). Well, we all know that scripted events and options don't go together.

 

[elander_]

That's probably not the best way to put it since every quest in Fallout is done with a script which detects certain conditions and fires other scripts if the conditions are met. Even Fallout quests are nothing more than huge lists of IF-THEN-ELSE instructions. Making quests that play like a movie where the player feels like whatever the outcome the important stuff is always the same is horrible for every game but mostly to rpgs and games with dialog interaction. If the only purpose of the dialog is to advance the story then screw it. Give me some text or movie logs like in System Shock. No point in having dialog in this case.

 

[mister lamat]

scripted events in a tech demo a year and a half from when the game is supposed to go gold...

'this is an axe and lo, i shall grind it verily'.

 

[Elhoim]

scripted events in a tech demo a year and a half from when the game is supposed to go gold...

That´s right, they might not even make it to the game. Do you remember the scripted video of Oblivion with the bookseller and the dog? Was that in the game?

 

[sqeecoo]

funnily enough even at the codex there are retards who buy it like punck_D and sceeqo above.

"sceeqo?" Um, I was being sarcastic, mate. It seems you underestimate the level of cynicism at the codex. No problem though, we live to learn.

 

[Atrokkus]

However, I'd like to point out that the above mentioned story contains at least two scripted events: BoS saving you from the mutants, and the mutant Boss encounter (and it looks like you can't sneak or talk your way through here). Well, we all know that scripted events and options don't go together.

You can't really do anything other than just gawk in that first Harrigan encounter (where he kills the innocent people).

 

[Brother None]

You can't really do anything other than just gawk in that first Harrigan encounter (where he kills the innocent people).

Yes, which sucked. It also didn't influence anything, in any way, it was pretty much the same as the Hakunin visions or the "water running low" shorts you'd get to see.

 

[elander_]

That´s right, they might not even make it to the game. Do you remember the scripted video of Oblivion with the bookseller and the dog? Was that in the game?

That scene with the dog was so sad. But the worst of all this is that the quests they made for Oblivion were not much better. See the girls gang quest for example: "i decided there was no other choice but to kick these lovely girls ass" or something similar. Then the door that was NOT locked 10 seconds ago suddenly becomes impossible to unlock by magic or any other so that the two guard stooges can come up when the party is over to confess to the player he was a decoy. I doubt someone from the writer staff ever had such a stupid idea. I bet some asshole from the publisher side has order them to have epic moments like this, without any clue about how things work in rpgs.

 

[Futile Rhetoric]

I bet some asshole from the publisher side has order them to have epic moments like this.

I'll take that bet. You'll lose.

 

[Punck_D]

That´s right, they might not even make it to the game. Do you remember the scripted video of Oblivion with the bookseller and the dog? Was that in the game?

I can't stop laughing when I watch this video. Toddler saying "These NPCs are NOOOOT scripted!" makes my day, everytime.

 

[Section8]

scripted events in a tech demo a year and a half from when the game is supposed to go gold...

That´s right, they might not even make it to the game. Do you remember the scripted video of Oblivion with the bookseller and the dog? Was that in the game?

There are some glaring differences here. The set piece with the dog was clearly thrown together as a quick way to demo the systems of the game, without placing them in any real narrative context. It's slightly nicer to have a little series of events to show each one off in turn than to simply cut to specific examples.

However, does anyone really believe the Megaton situation is a simple demo of engine/script features? First of all, there is a clear narrative context (evil path, Megaton resolution). Secondly, there's clearly a lot of effort vested in this. There's tons more specific content evident in displaying the passage of play described. Thirdly, this is clearly a segment of gameplay. There's the initiation of a quest, departure from the safety of the settlement into conflict, a progressive narrative through the conflict and ultimately, a boss fight. Big difference between watching the scripted actions of an NPC and a dog.

Of course it's likely to change between now and the final version, but I highly doubt this is a PR demo with no context within the final game.

You can't really do anything other than just gawk in that first Harrigan encounter (where he kills the innocent people).

I love it when people try to justify something by saying "but Fallout 2 had this!" Fallout 2 had a lot of dumb shit. It's only saving grace was that it was more Fallout. It had the same core gameplay, a lot of well scripted quests, and some interesting places to explore. But it also shat on Fallout's setting a great deal, and exhibited a lot of poorly thought out design.

The Horrigan encounter is just one of those. It's more or less aping of the JRPG standard of introducing the "big baddie" early in the piece and showing you how awesomely powerful they are.

 

[Atrokkus]

Okay, fine, bad comparison. Fallout 2 is indeed quite full of shit when it comes to story coherency and nonlinearity.

 

[Elhoim]

scripted events in a tech demo a year and a half from when the game is supposed to go gold...

That´s right, they might not even make it to the game. Do you remember the scripted video of Oblivion with the bookseller and the dog? Was that in the game?

There are some glaring differences here. The set piece with the dog was clearly thrown together as a quick way to demo the systems of the game, without placing them in any real narrative context. It's slightly nicer to have a little series of events to show each one off in turn than to simply cut to specific examples.

However, does anyone really believe the Megaton situation is a simple demo of engine/script features? First of all, there is a clear narrative context (evil path, Megaton resolution). Secondly, there's clearly a lot of effort vested in this. There's tons more specific content evident in displaying the passage of play described. Thirdly, this is clearly a segment of gameplay. There's the initiation of a quest, departure from the safety of the settlement into conflict, a progressive narrative through the conflict and ultimately, a boss fight. Big difference between watching the scripted actions of an NPC and a dog.

Of course it's likely to change between now and the final version, but I highly doubt this is a PR demo with no context within the final game.

I know they are different, I wasn´t talking seriously, I just took the chance to kick the dead horse once more.

FTR: I´m pretty sure this quest will be in the final game, along with mini-nuclear explosions and the nuclear catapult. "Fallout 3: A NUCLEAR Action-RPG".

 

[elander_]

The nuclear catapult as a grenade launcher to attack personal is another retarded idea. They could have given the player nuclear farting pills it would not sound so retarded. Even the ESF fanboys are against it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

That's probably not the best way to put it since every quest in Fallout is done with a script which detects certain conditions and fires other scripts if the conditions are met. Even Fallout quests are nothing more than huge lists of IF-THEN-ELSE instructions.

Scripts and scripted events are two different things.

scripted events in a tech demo a year and a half from when the game is supposed to go gold...

I "reviewed" the article's info, not the game or the demo.

However, I'd like to point out that the above mentioned story contains at least two scripted events: BoS saving you from the mutants, and the mutant Boss encounter (and it looks like you can't sneak or talk your way through here). Well, we all know that scripted events and options don't go together.

You can't really do anything other than just gawk in that first Harrigan encounter (where he kills the innocent people).

Sure, but this encounter doesn't affect you at all. It's a cutscene that's designed to show you one of the game's villains in action. FO3 cutscenes, as presented in the article, interfere into your "business" and force you to do certain things in order to progress. See the difference?

 

[robur]

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Magic_%28Mastertronic%29">Master of Magic</a>, yep. Really liked that RPG. Bit linear, though. But it had a great soundtrack.

Good one.

I usually don't buy any game magazine, so how would you, in case you want to, convince me to buy the next Gamestar considering I could be one of those "Beth will fuck it up"-geeks for particular reasons?

I wouldn't try to convince you as I'm now working for their competitors.

Honestly, the only gaming magazine I still read cover to cover is EDGE, the original UK version. I actually dig their ratings, they gave Final Fantasy 10 a 6/10 rating, calling it "sequential software that labels itself next-gen" without providing a next generation gaming experience, instead repeating "the mistakes ... made on the last version." But I'm not reading it for the reviews. I'm reading it for the articles about gaming culture and offbeat things such as a feature on the walkthrough writing scene.

 

[Pegultagol]

Still 'wait and see' for me. If the game admits as much that it is action RPG, then I would like to see how the gameplay all comes into place within that framework / context. Aside from the Megaton scenario which I recall reading about in 'Canticle for Leibowitz', it seems we are treading the same old ground here.