Where are you on the FEV vs radiation debate

[Luzur]

That seems wrong somehow... that should have killed them rather than turn them into ghouls. A subway couldn't be as good as a vault when it comes to protection from radiation right?

well, you see, radiation in Fallout universe dont work as radiation in our world.

if you get exposed to it at a massive rate (like being caught in the open during a nuclear blast and survive the blastwave etc) you get ghoulified, also the same result if you get exposed to high doses of it slowly during a long time (as in trapped in a leaky vault/subway/cave/museum basement.).

all of the ghouls in the wasteland are the original survivors of the war, since they dont grow old as fast as normal humans.

so in FO3 the ghouls you see are some 200 years old.

 

[Zomg]

How can anyone not hate FEV, they went from '50s magic radiation to '90s magic evolution in a late grab at "realism" because they were retardonerds.

 

[Melcar]

I really did not like FEV, but by that point I didn't give a fuck.

 

[Dragula]

Eh, FEV is alright and fairly consistent with the 50's sci-fi and experimantion.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

To be honest I never even got the whole 50s vibe from Fallout 1/2. I played it and thought the intro cinematics and tutorials were just a stylistic thing. I felt really out of place in the F3 50s inspired wasteland, as I always thought Fallout 1/2 environments were pretty much current day apocalypse. Anyone else feel that way?

As for the FEV, weird scientific chemicals causing mutation was hardly out of place in any timeframe of the past 60 years. The only 'newish' thing about FEV is that the player is presented with indepth information about how it works that corresponds to newer-age knowledge. This is hardly out of place though, it would be stupid if the scientific information the player was presented was absurd 50s mumbo-jumbo instead of far-fetched but plausible.

 

[Melcar]

The first time I played Fallout, the whole 50's SCIENCE! thing only stuck with me while I was in V13. The rest of the game I just though I was in some cheeky Mad Max world. I was no stranger to American 50's fiction and pop culture back then (it's one of my fetishes), but that was one of the last things that would come into my mind while playing FO. In fact, the more I read the FO Bible and Wiki (and the in-game lore) the less of that vibe I had.

 

[Zomg]

More like Max Max apocalypse with desert wasteland and the football pad armor and shit, which was pretty iron-clad iconic in the mid-'90s. FO was schizophrenic that way with the half-Mad Max half-retrofuturistic thing. I never played FO3 so I don't know if they kept it more coherent.

 

[Phelot]

To be honest I never even got the whole 50s vibe from Fallout 1/2. I played it and thought the intro cinematics and tutorials were just a stylistic thing. I felt really out of place in the F3 50s inspired wasteland, as I always thought Fallout 1/2 environments were pretty much current day apocalypse. Anyone else feel that way?

Yeah, the whole FO3 50's vibe was WAAY over done.

There really wasn't much to reinforce stereotypical 50's in the previous games. The sprites didn't look like they were wearing 50's clothing and no one talked in mock Leave it to Beaver language, nor were any of the buildings 50's like as far as I recall. Hell, even the car was more Mad Max then anything. I suppose the laser pistol looked 50's but the rifle didn't.

 

[Zomg]

Uh the vault jumpsuits and shiny silver power armor were hella '50s.

 

[Talonfire]

To be honest I never even got the whole 50s vibe from Fallout 1/2. I played it and thought the intro cinematics and tutorials were just a stylistic thing. I felt really out of place in the F3 50s inspired wasteland, as I always thought Fallout 1/2 environments were pretty much current day apocalypse. Anyone else feel that way?

I do. I always found the introductions of Fallout and Fallout 2 odd since the rest of the game did not match their style or tone. Honestly I got more of an 80s or 90s vibe from the wasteland than I did 50s.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Me too. The main 50s things were the cars, Art Deco buildings, Power Armour, Vault Suits, some of the clothing and stuff like Vault Boy and the intro. Some of that stuff was probably even pre-50s.

 

[Luzur]

why they choose the 50's as a background is beyond me, sure The Inkspots and Maybe was good mood setters, but a future that experienced a 80's style comeback and then got nuked would have fitted better with how things looked ingame.

 

[Volourn]

Fuck the bible shit. if it's not in the game it fuckin' doesn't fuckin' count. FFS

 

[Clockwork Knight]

To be honest I never even got the whole 50s vibe from Fallout 1/2. I played it and thought the intro cinematics and tutorials were just a stylistic thing. I felt really out of place in the F3 50s inspired wasteland, as I always thought Fallout 1/2 environments were pretty much current day apocalypse. Anyone else feel that way?

Not really. In Klamath, for example, you have those ye olde posters advertising shaving razors like it's a new thing.

About the vibe in 3 being overdone, I don't know...if things "stopped" on the 50's, surely there will be traces of it everywhere? It would be the same for any other period, I think.

 

[Bruticis]

Fuck the bible shit. if it's not in the game it fuckin' doesn't fuckin' count. FFS

I kind of agree with you on that. Everything was just fine when we didn't have someone trying to explain and rationalize every concept in the game. The bible almost takes away some of the magic that is the Fallout universe.

 

[Coyote]

About the vibe in 3 being overdone, I don't know...if things "stopped" on the 50's, surely there will be traces of it everywhere? It would be the same for any other period, I think.

It wasn't that bad for the most part, but it did feel overdone. I didn't mind the music or billboards everywhere, but it was jarring to walk fifty meters from an outpost full of vicious, bloodthirsty raiders who hang human parts everywhere and find some woman who talked and acted like a 1950s Stepford wife with 1950s American "family values" morality. It made sense - somewhat - in that simulation, but not in the middle of the wasteland. All in all, though, it wasn't nearly as out-of-place as Bethesda's other attempts at humor, such as the superhero city, Little Lamplight, or the Republic of Dave.

 

[Helton]

I think FEV did the radscorpians and such. I mean, fuck, that's pretty much what FEV does. Giantifies shit. Giant ants? Giant scorpians? FEV.

 

[Secretninja]

That seems wrong somehow... that should have killed them rather than turn them into ghouls. A subway couldn't be as good as a vault when it comes to protection from radiation right?

IIRC from my jrotc classes, 3 or 4 feet of concrete, dirt, or pretty much anything would protect you from any radiation, unless you were at pretty much ground zero. All the windborn fallout would be gone within 2 weeks and it would be mostly safe to come outside. So, you could feasibly survive in a subway, but you would have to gtfo very quickly after about 2 weeks.

 

[Jim Cojones]

How can anyone not hate FEV, they went from '50s magic radiation to '90s magic evolution in a late grab at "realism" because they were retardonerds.

I didn't have any idea that Captain America and his super soldier serum is a concept from the 90s.

About the vibe in 3 being overdone, I don't know...if things "stopped" on the 50's, surely there will be traces of it everywhere? It would be the same for any other period, I think.

That's a popular misconception. In Fallout universe things didn't stopped in the 50s. The world has changed but it was different than in our world. That's why the weapons are different (10mm and .223 are more common than 9mm and 5,56mm), new technology was created (laser, plasma, fusion, robots), world has changed (USA was divided in commonwealths, we run out of most oil sources, the nuclear war occurred between USA and China instead of USSR).

There is no word of god on the subject

That's a lie. Tim Cain has shared his vision. FEV - supermutants, floaters and centaurs. Radiation - radscorpions, mutated rats, deathclaws and other shit. The idea of FEV being released into air was present in the early concepts of the game but was later abandoned.

 

[Azrael the cat]

More like Max Max apocalypse with desert wasteland and the football pad armor and shit, which was pretty iron-clad iconic in the mid-'90s. FO was schizophrenic that way with the half-Mad Max half-retrofuturistic thing. I never played FO3 so I don't know if they kept it more coherent.

Exactly. I don't think that FO1 had a 'pure' source of 50s SCIENCE!, and frankly that's a compliment to it. There's little creativitiy in simply taking a pre-existing cultural theme and imposing it upon a game. Far more interesting to create your own lore, with prior INFLUENCES, among them 50s SCIENCE!.

I agree that I thought Mad Max was a much bigger influence, as well. Actually, more specifically Mad Max 2 - that's the one with the leather/metal armour, the combination of new handcrafted and old pre-apoc guns and the dog being important.

Mind you, I'm a huge fan of the Mad Max series, so I'd recognise that a lot more quickly. Well, not Mad Max 3 obviously. Actually, come to think of it, maybe FO3 really was a true continuation of the series - Todd looked at the source material, thought 'ok, so we ought to be tributing Mad Max 3 here...hmm..what made that entry distinctive...I KNOW IT RAPED THE LORE AND RUINED THE FRANCHISE!!!...damn, that seems like a crap game. But, got to stay true to the source material regardless, a lore-raping franchise-ruining entry it has to be.'

At least the end of MM3 nailed the tone of the first films - Max wandering off into the desert to (presumably) die, as the helicopter-guy from MM2 (who you find has been searching for Max for weeks) flies over him, having given up his search. My god the feral child town was a piece of shit, though. FUCK - I was joking, above, but I'm part right! That's where Bethesda probably got the child town in FO3 from! Fuck. That's just too close to be a coincidence.

 

[Azrael the cat]

all of the ghouls in the wasteland are the original survivors of the war, since they dont grow old as fast as normal humans.

so in FO3 the ghouls you see are some 200 years old.

Lol. That really puts the battle parts where you're killing off the feral ghouls in a whole different, fucking hilarious, light.

So we're basically killing off centuries-old creatures of a finite and hence perilously endangered race, because we're tresspassing into THEIR natural environment (I don't remember any parts where towns complained of raids by feral ghouls - just being told to go into feral ghoul territory and fight my way to the macguffins). Why don't we just get a fucking quest to take a dump on the remains of the Greenpeace headquarters while simultaneously eating the flesh of the world's last baby seal.

 

[roll-a-die]

I always thought Ghouls were made by low to mid amounts of radiation over a long time(IE near where the bombs fell but not within range of the actual explosion/heat wave), or FEV(And Harold was unique.)

 

[Clockwork Knight]

About the vibe in 3 being overdone, I don't know...if things "stopped" on the 50's, surely there will be traces of it everywhere? It would be the same for any other period, I think.

That's a popular misconception. In Fallout universe things didn't stopped in the 50s. The world has changed but it was different than in our world. That's why the weapons are different (10mm and .223 are more common than 9mm and 5,56mm), new technology was created (laser, plasma, fusion, robots), world has changed (USA was divided in commonwealths, we run out of most oil sources, the nuclear war occurred between USA and China instead of USSR).

Hmm. To clarify, I thought things had stopped during the 50's, but up to that point things were already different from our universe. Like, the general feel is similar to our own 50's, enough to say that things "stopped in the 50's".

So we're basically killing off centuries-old creatures of a finite and hence perilously endangered race, because we're tresspassing into THEIR natural environment (I don't remember any parts where towns complained of raids by feral ghouls - just being told to go into feral ghoul territory and fight my way to the macguffins). Why don't we just get a fucking quest to take a dump on the remains of the Greenpeace headquarters while simultaneously eating the flesh of the world's last baby seal.

Not that different from killing dragons...it would be funny to see a dragonslayer being reprimanded by a druid guild for killing the local ancient fauna.

Btw, I think the guys at Tenpenny Tower complain about attacks from the feral ones...ironically, they can end up massacred by the civilized ones, that they thought were just a icky bother.

 

[StrangeCase]

The Fallout setting isn't supposed to be about the 50's. It draws from some elements of the 50's- popular notions of science, aesthetics, politics, culture- to lend a particular flavor to the setting, but it's distributed somewhat unevenly. That's why some areas feel more retro than others, and some aspects (e.g. dialogue) aren't very retro at all. I think the devs didn't want to overdo it, and it worked out fine for the games.

FO3 is a different story. Bethesda's trademark lack of subtlety worked the setting over pretty much how you'd expect, to the point of feeling overdone and gimmicky.

Oh, and Moira Brown's ghoul-ification is neither FEV nor radiation, it's just a plot hole made for the sake of gameplay. Undoubtedly, most FO3 players didn't notice, and if they did, they didn't care.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Oh, and Moira Brown's ghoul-ification is neither FEV nor radiation, it's just a plot hole made for the sake of gameplay. Undoubtedly, most FO3 players didn't notice, and if they did, they didn't care.

Dunno, a girl at the Underworld makes a point of telling you that the process usually takes a long time. Given that Moira will go there after the explosion (unless she bugs and stays beside Megaton), it would be a little too noticeable.