Fallout Underwhelmed by Fallout :(

[Infinitron]

Okay, then explain how FO2 fit locations into the mainplot better

It didn't, not really. The relative separation of the Enclave main plot and the whole NCR-New Reno-Vault City subplot (though is it really correct to call it "sub" when it's such a major part of the game?) might be considered a weakness, I don't deny that. You get the Salvatores dealing with the Enclave and not much else. Fallout: New Vegas certainly improved on this set-up.

I'm not saying Fallout 2's main plot is great. I'm just saying I'm not sure why I should be impressed by Fallout 1's, so to me it's a weird thing to bring up when defending Fallout 1 vs Fallout 2. Tonality, setting consistency, atmosphere, I get. Plot? Eh.

and less "indie"-like

What's indie-like about Fallout is the sparseness of its quest design, not its main plot or the way its locations are integrated into it. I was using your mention of the Children of the Cathedral to make a comment on that sparseness, not to criticize Fallout's plot. If the main plot had been well-integrated into Fallout's locations, that'd be cool. If it wasn't integrated but there were other things to do that made up for that, like in Fallout 2, that would also be cool.

 

[roshan]

I doubt most people would agree with you that art, dialogue and plot are frills in rpg's and that only sidequests counts as game content.

Fallout 1 Dialogue:

VD: "Why would there be a locked door in a vault?"
Officer: "To keep the weapons away from those who don't have access to them"
VD: "Who has access?"
Officer: "The overseer, myself and my security team. That's it."
VD: "It sounds like only people with need have access."
Officer: "Yes, only people with need can get in."
VD: "Well I have a need. Please open the door."
Officer: "Hmm now that you mention it, it sounds like you do. Here, let me get the door for you."



Robotic and functional, which is basically Fallout 1 at it's best...

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

roshan, what are we discussing exactly? I argued Fallout 2 was better in terms of side content than Fallout 1 in my first post, but found the main plot far more engaging and polished. If you want to argue the dialogue of the President is better than the Master be my guest.

 

[hiver]

It sounds like we experienced the game in much the same way, but I've always attributed that to my own character failings -- having been raised on jRPGs, with my only PC RPGs prior to Fallout being Daggerfall (which I never completed), Might and Magic 2 (which I never completed), various Unlimited Adventures modules, and Dark Sun: Shattered Lands.

Ive been raised on Fallout and F.E.V.
Got dipped went mutie, opened my eyes.

One thing Fallout failed to do was educate a useless person like me

Yeah, lets blame the game, not the playa...

Truth be told, I can't even begin to tell you how half the stuff in Fallout worked -- like the aimed shot system, all I ever did was shoot at the eyes

I never used eye shots. Felt like cheesing. Never raised skills over 100, instead - broadened my char talents.

By FO2, I "got it," but the game left very little impression on me, other than that I recall a sequence where you can steal a Mafioso's drugs, ingest them out of his wife's mouth while sleeping with her, sleep with his daughter, then kill him, which probably is the best mustache-twirling villainy this side of force-compelling Zalbaar to kill Mission. I mean, I remember the endless series of zany jokes and I remember thinking they they squandered great graphics, engine, quest design, and preexisting setting. But it's not like I have any "feeling" from the game the way I do from Fallout, or PS:T, or Dark Sun or the other games I played in the same era.

The thing is - humans are hard wired to notice bad stuff much more then anything else. Its a biological survival imperative that causes all kinds of problems in modern world and interacting with or through any media at all.

Thats why comedies now are just shit flinging escapades, why most movies are violent, thats why there is the whole "horror" genre, thats why the news and journalism is full of most horrifying and horrible things but almost never reports on the good stuff. Thats why without care and effort, a forum made to fight the good fight turns into shitposters paradise.

Thats why you see a few fedora wearing gangsters and some jokes (i consider Fallouts the only games truly worthy of Monthy Python comedic genius, btw - because they are both works of geniuses and products made with love) and that ruins the whole game for you.

Truly, some games have nothing better to offer besides those crappy things that stand out, but some do, in spades.
It pays dividends to be aware of that.

 

[Darkzone]

Truth be told, I can't even begin to tell you how half the stuff in Fallout worked -- like the aimed shot system, all I ever did was shoot at the eyes like some BG2 familiar; never tried the stat-boosting drugs (since I assumed they were the classic "short term upside, longterm downside" trap that you want to avoid, even though I suspect they could make the game quite interesting); and I believe that I may have been unaware of the existence of followers my first time through the game, as impossible as that seems in hindsight. For all that incompetence on my part, the game is an unshakable experience.

While i have read this thread, i was playing FO:1 too refresh my memory. Always shooting for the eyes, is not always the best tactical move. I play a talk char with Int 9. For freeing Tandi i was fighting in a fist fight with the boss of the khans. I have kicked his legs to slow him down, but i did kick him to the ground. (chance to hit in the eyes while standing 14%) (chance to hit the legs while standing 54% or so) Then on the ground i had 84% to hit him in the eyes. To be honest i remember every important fight in FO:1. In FO:2 only the fight against Frank.

By FO2, I "got it," but the game left very little impression on me, other than that I recall a sequence where you can steal a Mafioso's drugs, ingest them out of his wife's mouth while sleeping with her, sleep with his daughter, then kill him, which probably is the best mustache-twirling villainy this side of force-compelling Zalbaar to kill Mission. I mean, I remember the endless series of zany jokes and I remember thinknig they they squandered great graphics, engine, quest design, and preexisting setting. But it's not like I have any "feeling" from the game the way I do from Fallout, or PS:T, or Dark Sun or the other games I played in the same era.

Yes i fully agree with this statement.

roshan
Did you help with the irrigation or did you healed the brother in Shand Sands?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Uh, I don't see why I should be particularly impressed by Fallout's plot or dialogue.

Because they are good. The dialogue in particular has this subtle quality to it. Little touches here and there that shows that the person who wrote it was neither a retard nor did he have a low opinion of the player, despite the fact the design principle of the game was to keep things simple and fun.

Too bad there's no such thing as Brutal Fallout right? lelll. Seems clear to me that many Codexers are so hung up in their own artificial constructs of what a great game is supposed to contain (tactics! C&C! Innovashun! Deeyp story!) that they keep missing it in the simpler things. Basically, the brilliance of a game like Fallout is too quaint to fit any of our grandiose conceptions. So unless you were there to experience it back in the days when we had no preconceived idea of any kind and simply allowed ourselves to enjoy a game for what it was you are always going to be disappointed.

 

[DeepOcean]

First, the issue isn't the unexplained paranormal but the indefensible retardedness like the yakuza, the gansters from the 30s, the kung-fu town, the straight out of fantasy ghost, the scientologists with celebrities, etc.

As for ghost in the modern world, it's one thing to portray them in a pseudo-realistic fashion (i.e. an unexplained phenomenon, assuming it is a phenomenon in the first place). It's quite another to use a typical fantasy design - ghost need itam, get item, ghost happy, ghost friend with human, xp++.

On this question of ghosts, after playing Metro 2033, supernatural can be really done well on a post apocalipse setting but it needs to be included on the backstory and explained. I think the problem with Fallout 2 isn't even the lulz as doesn't matter how ridiculous something is, if properly explained, it is acceptable the problem of Fallout 2 is that the lulz was thrown on the face of the player without backstory and explanation, I don't know what they were thinking, if they expected the player to not take the setting seriously or what, I agree, this indefensible retardness without explanation and context indeed fucked with Fallout 2 atmosphere that was one of the strong point of Fallout 1 and gave the "brilliant" ideas Betheda had on their shooter.

 

[4too]

Time Marches ON






Pardon, permission to play through.

Possible 4th wall popping, a META moment, but may be easier to focus on the real drama of the machinations, if I propose a ‘given’.


Assuming this thread is not, more about personna roshan and less about comparative aesthetic experiences.

Is it possible for roshan to have the same FO experience as many here?

Obvious from my drive way, whether by design or accident, revisionist hero roshan missed the Fallout Moment.

Doubt that roshan qualifies for playing FO in the actual historical time frame. A specific time t.

Doubt that roshan had to upgrade an AMD socket 7 mb to accept an ATI video card on a Win 95 OS teetering with a patch to 98.

Comparisons to IWD are all about burdening the self with experience inhibiting baggage, and nothing about just playing the game.

Yes where were we in 1998 / 1999, when Icewind Dale was still only a gleam in Interplay’s eye?

Likely not losing the spirit of the moment in the revisionist forest, (that comes later in this brave new millennial).



Maybe it’s a congenital issue, a unique form of red green color blindness, … or are nature or natural inhibitors still out of fashion, and hand holding nurturing still the vogue?


Maybe, can just admit, the given … roshan missed the Fallout bus.

The given, ... our industrious OP will never get IT.



With due respect / sympathy for the ongoing autopsy, this joyous / visceral slicing and dicing, do not dispair roshan is on ‘A’ vehicle.

The Revisionist Train.

Propaganda or not. This train of thought, an informative / instructive counter narrative to our (possible) ideal experiences.

From the sheer number of seats required to accommodate the posteriors on the ‘rales’ of AGREEMENT,

this thread is not a ‘short’ bus.

Postulate the on rolling of pages and pages of virtual ‘back to the future’.


Example of temporal linked aesthetics, …

one had to experience this, … in the moment …


to fully appreciate this …





Play on!





4too

 

[hiver]

/thread.


lock and make sticky.

 

[SCO]

 

[MasPingon]

Aside from roshan posts, which are just stupid.

Good thoughts.

1. Preparation - An example is The Glow, principally: how radiation works. I never figured it out and died while at the Glow. Some players here tell me I should have known. Thing is, I never had any preparation BEFORE I hit the Glow to introdice m to how radiation works and how to resolve it. This same probelm can apply to everything else: dynamite, brute strength, lockpicks, etc. The game needs to introduce you to these mechanics so when you're confronted by a problem you're more prepared. The game can make these introductions much easier than the rest of the game. The point is to introduce.

I see it the other way, as a strength of Fallout. You want a learning curve similar to the one presented in Wasteland 2, where devs tell you exactly what can you do with specific skill or item. It doesn't work for me, it kills all the fun with exploring and learning the game. Going out to the surface after exploring The Glow and then dying, because of radiation( it took me a while before it enlightened me that was a real reason) is one of the best memories I have had with computer games. Because it wasn't so obvious. Fallout doesn't thread you like an idiot - you knew you are going to a dangerous place, you knew Brotherhood of steel just fucks with you, sending you to that place. You saw a giant crater at the entrance, yet you went in unprepared and died a terrible death. That's brilliant! This approach makes you believe that you, as a player, are not limited to do things exactly the way the game want you to. This makes Fallout special, the game surprises you many times at how the mechanics work.

As for a dialog, sure it's not on par with P:T, but that's not the case. All the fun with FO dialog lies in experimenting with INT/ speech. I really miss the way Fallout doesn't show you how specific mechanic of a game works. I hate retarded "pass the skillcheck threshhold" visible in about every modern crpg.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Time Marches ON

Pardon, permission to play through.

Permission denied. Something is good because it is inherently good and not because it was good "for the time". There's a reason we still read Homer to this day. Time can only affect certain relative aspects of a masterwork which, being relative, are ultimately not where greatness or brilliance is to be found.

BTW, yes, i didn't read the rest of your post lol but i thought this was a good point to make.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

As I said before, people doing some shit and an organized effort to do it on a large scale are two different things. For example, why Las Vegas was developed? Because it provided legitimacy to the mobsters - a way to operate openly, launder money on a large scale, etc. These reasons don't exist in a post-apoc world. Armed groups don't need cover to operate openly, don't need the pretense of legitimacy, don't need cash businesses to launder money, etc.

Gambling would exist, of course, but it won't grow into a Vegas-like enterprise. Again, there was a reason why it was a low-key thing in the wild west. Those who had the power didn't need the casinos. They seized land and towns becoming cattle barons, land owners, building rail roads, fighting for political power, etc - simpler, old-school ways of becoming rich and powerful. Basically, becoming local lords.


Again, the issue isn't the activity but the scale.


See above.


Nothing local whores can't satisfy.

Sure, maybe there is a dozen of really weird guys who'd rather watch porn and jerk off than have sex, but that's not enough of a demand to open a porn studio. The reason porn is doing so well today is because the number of people who want to have sex but can't at the moment (too young, too old, too geeky, too afraid to cheat even on a girlfriend not mention visit a whore, plus the fear of catching something) is infinitely greater than the number of people who can pay for sex.

The thing with New Reno is that it was a pre-war relic, not a new settlement.
It wasn't something that was set up out of nothing.

The casinos are merely one floor of headquarters of the ruling families, no larger than Gizmo's or Decker's place.
So, casinos aren't bad.

The problem is how under-developed New Reno, is though. It wouldn't work well with tourism with NCR and Vault City because they are so far.

(By the way, I just realised how stupid the concept of the car is in Fallout 2. How the fuck does that thing function driving hundreds of miles without roads?)

Compare New Reno to the Hub with its entrance with fields and brahmin pens and the description mentions it being surrounded by outlying farms. These things are immediately justifying the existence and level of development of the town.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Aside from roshan posts, which are just stupid.



I see it the other way, as a strength of Fallout. You want a learning curve similar to the one presented in Wasteland 2, where devs tell you exactly what can you do with specific skill or item. It doesn't work for me, it kills all the fun with exploring and learning the game. Going out to the surface after exploring The Glow and then dying, because of radiation( it took me a while before it enlightened me that was a real reason) is one of the best memories I have had with computer games. Because it wasn't so obvious. Fallout doesn't thread you like an idiot - you knew you are going to a dangerous place, you knew Brotherhood of steel just fucks with you, sending you to that place. You saw a giant crater at the entrance, yet you went in unprepared and died a terrible death. That's brilliant! This approach makes you believe that you, as a player, are not limited to do things exactly the way the game want you to. This makes Fallout special, the game surprises you many times at how the mechanics work.

Actually, no. You missed the warning by the second Paladin by entrance. He talks about the Glow quest in a floating text and you should have started a conversation with him and learn about radiation and how to prevent it.

 

[Jaesun]

Can anyone even refute anything that has been said about Fallout 1?

Did it years ago http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/so-fallout-1-im-raging-so-hard-now.83405/

 

[pippin]

But New Reno wasn't really intended to be a tourism center, but a crime town, through and through. New Vegas was different in that sense, more civilized, but that's because mr House was there to keep a tight control on it all. See: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/NVDLC02Stella.txt

-What was that like to grow up in New Reno?
-Imagine New Vegas if there was no Mr. House-type fella keeping the peace, then give everybody a gun and a Jet addiction.

 

[hiver]

Permission denied. Something is good because it is inherently good and not because it was good "for the time". There's a reason we still read Homer to this day. Time can only affect certain relative aspects of a masterwork which, being relative, are ultimately not where greatness or brilliance is to be found.

BTW, yes, i didn't read the rest of your post lol but i thought this was a good point to make.

If you did you might have understood he did not say that. And you are not entirely correct.

Fallouts are good as they are, certainly better in their cRPG-esness , quality of art design and numerous smaller things, or mechanics overall then any of the cRPGs that came after them, to this day. Therefore masterworks in on themselves.
But, the true sense of something new being born and unfolding in front of your eyes and pointing into heavens is a specific kind of gestalt that could have been properly felt and lived only in those times. It was the very important ingredient in that gestalt of perceived perfection.

Today you have mass market drones like infinitron, JC or the cheap troll from OP trying to find it by dissembling it all into parts.
And as we can all see that is certainly not the path to wisdom.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Fallouts are good as they are, certainly better in their cRPG-esness , quality of art design and numerous smaller things, or mechanics overall then any of the cRPGs that came after them, to this day. Therefore masterworks in on themselves.
But, the true sense of something new being born and unfolding in front of your eyes and pointing into heavens is a specific kind of gestalt that could have been properly felt and lived only in those times. It was the very important ingredient in that gestalt of perceived perfection.

Today you have mass market drones like infinitron, JC or the cheap troll from OP trying to find it by dissembling it all into parts.
And as we can all see that is certainly not the path to wisdom.

Agreed on all counts.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Actually, that argument could be expanded to PC gaming as a whole. It was the "spirit" of the age that made those games special and possible in the first place. The decline begun when that spirit was snuffed out by the gaming business becoming mainstream.

 

[haraw]

Fallout 1 Dialogue:

VD: "Why would there be a locked door in a vault?"
Officer: "To keep the weapons away from those who don't have access to them"
VD: "Who has access?"
Officer: "The overseer, myself and my security team. That's it."
VD: "It sounds like only people with need have access."
Officer: "Yes, only people with need can get in."
VD: "Well I have a need. Please open the door."
Officer: "Hmm now that you mention it, it sounds like you do. Here, let me get the door for you."



Robotic and functional, which is basically Fallout 1 at it's best...

Just to say that, there are intelligence and speech checks involved in that dialoque.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Judging by what roshan said, it should be easy to create a Fallout-level cRPG. Why isn't it happening?

 

[laclongquan]

While i have read this thread, i was playing FO:1 too refresh my memory. Always shooting for the eyes, is not always the best tactical move. I play a talk char with Int 9. For freeing Tandi i was fighting in a fist fight with the boss of the khans. I have kicked his legs to slow him down, but i did kick him to the ground. (chance to hit in the eyes while standing 14%) (chance to hit the legs while standing 54% or so) Then on the ground i had 84% to hit him in the eyes. To be honest i remember every important fight in FO:1. In FO:2 only the fight against Frank.

It is just you. I remember lots of fights in F2

- The Den: around the Church. Assault Tyler gang is a stone cold bitch because we usually dont have enough equipments. Also, fight in the dark.
- The Den: revenge on Mertzer. Usually in one of two period: barely enough equipment from Modoc back, or well equipped from farther towns. Barely equipment usually is just some dynamites on Merzger, and SMGs, or that Assault Rifle from Modoc. The wandering slavers outside can potshot through the holes and could be random lucky. Well equipped is well equipped, from combat shotgun to bozar and stuffs.
- Redding: fighting the wannamingos in the mines. then fighting the bandit brothers. Early game they are the first chance to get an Energy gun (flamer)

etc and etc. There's a lot of memorable fights in Fallout 2.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Did it years ago http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/so-fallout-1-im-raging-so-hard-now.83405/

You link to a 35 page thread and expect us to search through it to find what you're talking about instead of just linking to the post(s) where you (allegedly) refuted all of roshan's points? Yeah okay.

 

[Infinitron]

That thread was really about completely different things. More about technical aspects of the game

 

[Davaris]

If you did you might have understood he did not say that. And you are not entirely correct.

Fallouts are good as they are, certainly better in their cRPG-esness , quality of art design and numerous smaller things, or mechanics overall then any of the cRPGs that came after them, to this day. Therefore masterworks in on themselves.
But, the true sense of something new being born and unfolding in front of your eyes and pointing into heavens is a specific kind of gestalt that could have been properly felt and lived only in those times. It was the very important ingredient in that gestalt of perceived perfection.

Today you have mass market drones like infinitron, JC or the cheap troll from OP trying to find it by dissembling it all into parts.
And as we can all see that is certainly not the path to wisdom.

Even back in 1997, there were two kinds of people. Those that got Fallout and those that didn't. I came to the conclusion the others had a jigsaw piece missing from their brain, that made them unable to get it. They seemed as alien to me, as the weird majority that thinks football is interesting.

And something I have noticed about these guys. I have not seen them describe a "hit by a ton of bricks" experience like we had with Fallout. What they describe with their "better games", sounds sad and stale by comparison. Must be awful to go through life, never having experienced love at first sight. Don't give up hope guys, its gonna happen!