Preview Yet another Fallout 3 preview

[Brother None]

Why would people not want goodness of sandbox rpg which ALSO has good elements of FO?? Infact isnt that the best combination?

Sandbox and choice and consequence are inherently contradictory, so you can't combine the concept of sandbox with what made Fallout great. "Sandbox" precludes a focus on interactivity, choices and consequences.

 

[Aditya]

Short term C&C, like in various quests and exploration aspect of sandbox...it still can be combined, I think. But I agree that sandbox would limit number of consequences [of major impact] in main storyline. They did relatively good job in Daggerfall, after all.

 

[DefJam101]

Can someone actually (preferably VD) sum up what exactly it *is* that makes FO great?

I've played the games and loved them, but still can't pick out the little details that make them l33t... I just know that they are great games. I know it's kinda tough to do this, but a general idea of what a FO game requires (besides effort, of course) would be sweet.




Care to make rough list of "You need this to be a Fallout game:" points, anyone?

 

[sqeecoo]

Why would people not want goodness of sandbox rpg which ALSO has good elements of FO?? Infact isnt that the best combination? And I certainly hope Bethsoft is working with this aim....yeah, they are fucking up on somethings, though *hopefully* not on all.

Which good elements of FO have been retained?

The only C&C that has been shown is a shitty black and white quest with an idiotic plot.

Hence, people conclude FO3 will suck in the C&C department, even if it's marginally better than oblivion (even oblivion had a few quests with 2 solutions though).

So what exactly are you arguing against?

Care to make rough list of "You need this to be a Fallout game:" points, anyone?

I don't put much stock in definitions or such lists. If I had to, I'd say atmospheric and gritty setting, choices and consequences, character creation, overall design quality (art, interface, writing, quests, ideas, combat - some of these are less than stellar, but all of them are at least of solid quality).

There is no need to enumerate ALL the core elements that make up FO. It's quite easy to point out where FO3 is shaping up to be much WORSE than FO.

 

[Brother None]

Can someone actually (preferably VD) sum up what exactly it *is* that makes FO great?

Why not ask the devs themselves?

Fallout retrospective interview

1. Define Fallout in one sentence.

Leonard Boyarsky
It’s fun-tastic RPG goodness.

Chris Taylor
The spiritual sequel to Wasteland.

Feargus Urquhart
A post apocalyptic wild west adventure where you have a real impact on the world around you and the people within it.

Chris Avellone
A post-apocalyptic role-playing game set in a future envisioned by someone in the 1950s.

J.E. Sawyer
Fallout is a mature-themed post-apocalyptic RPG setting with a Raygun Gothic art style.

2. Name one thing you can't remove from Fallout without it ceasing to be Fallout.

Leonard Boyarsky
Radioactive decay. And the darkly ironic setting. Or perhaps radioactively decaying dark irony in a fifties post apocalyptic future setting...

Chris Taylor
The Vault Boy graphics are purely Fallout and add a good chunk of the humor. I'm convinced that Fallout would not be Fallout without the Vault Boy.

Feargus Urquhart
There are so many things that come together to make Fallout what it is that it's hard to pick one that would destroy the overall feeling of the game and the world. However, I think that if you removed the idea of the Vaults then that would really change Fallout - they are the tie to the previous "world" and Vault 13 was the home and safety that you were trying to return to in the end. I'm going to cheat and actually pick another key element that would really change how Fallout feels and that's the Vault Boy. It's probably an easy answer, but the Vault Boy turned out to not just explain attributes, feats and skills, but a way to really give that retro happy 50's feel to things.

Chris Avellone
The name.

And maybe Power Armor.

And the rabid fanbase.

J.E. Sawyer
The art style. It permeates all aspects of the game, from the interface to how characters, weapons, and vehicles are designed. It's the one thing you can look at and immediately say, "That's Fallout." Music and audio are very close behind art style.

A history of Fallout focuses on the design process and by doing so kind of covers what the Fallout RPGs are.

Fallout: A Role-playing-game

It had been clear from the beginning that Fallout was a game strongly rooted in the pen-and-paper tradition. To the Fallout team, this meant giving the player as many choices as possible, each with its own clear consequence. Tim Cain summarized his view of a good RPG in the following passage:

“In a good RPG, you should be able to make a good variety of starting characters and then develop them in very different ways. Your choices should affect the game in meaningful ways, both in the ongoing game and in the ending you get. Of course, the game should be fun to play and easy to interact with, but that’s true for every genre of game.” (ref)

Chris Taylor and Leonard Boyarsky both give similar criteria. (ref), (ref)

Furthermore, Tim Cain wanted to emphasis role-playing by having the player control a single character in Fallout. It would force the player to make choices in character development, balancing positive and negative attributes. Cain felt that parties detached a player, and a single character would draw the player into his or her character. (ref) This vision of consequential role-playing would feature strongly in the finished game.

 

[elander_]

You know, I am really tired of stating the same things. Fallout 3, in its current form is obviously not 'Oblivion with guns'.

Right, so you can go on stating that anyone who disagrees with you is biased because to you Fallout 3 is obviously not Oblivion with guns.

Anyway Oblivion with guns is a figure of speech. You know what that is don't you? The little improvements they have added to the game still doesn't make it more than a Oblivion variant in a different scenario and different ways to kill things.

And how it is not so can only be said by comparing it to Oblivion, not to Fallout. Dont go on telling me again n again how FO3 is flop compared to FO, coz thats NOT the thing that I am even arguing upon. That ways you are only proving yourself as dumbfuck.

Except that i was never talking about game design, i was talking about PR and the way Bethesda advertises their games.

elander_
"If it is like in Oblivion you will have to trust them and buy the game to see these amazing choices and consequences. Are you that dumb?"

Aditya
"The C&C indicated in the above example clearly surpasses anything presented in Oblivion. Surely you are not dumb to realize that?"

So perhaps you should read better next time so that you don't look like a dumbfuck.

Yes. For you, 'Oblivion with Guns' means the game plays like Oblivion, only with guns, but WITH all its flaws. For me, FO3 is improvement upon core Oblivion and so its unfair to call it mere 'Oblivion with guns'. That’s the context on which we differ.

Why should the game improve upon core Oblivion and not core Fallout? Oblivion is a crappy game with tons of faults. Fallout has some faults but it's a great game.

Why would people not want goodness of sandbox rpg which ALSO has good elements of FO??

There is no sandbox in Fallout. There is a world map and local maps which is very different. Bloodlines and Baldurs Gate work the same way.

They did relatively good job in Daggerfall, after all.

I wouldn't call Daggerfall a sandbox either and exploration doesn't work in any way like in a typical sandbox like Ultima 7 or Gothic. Daggerfall simulates a real scale terrain. You don't explore by walking aimless in the wilderness because you never find anything. Just like exploring a realistic landscape without someone giving you a map or buying one you never get anywhere.

And also they (actual Bethesda staff) didn't made Daggerfall. The guys who made Daggerfall, except for Todd Howard who did only a few dungeons, don't work for Bethesda anymore.

Infact isnt that the best combination? And I certainly hope Bethsoft is working with this aim....yeah, they are fucking up on somethings, though *hopefully* not on all.

No it isn't the best combination. Abandoning game features that worked in Fallout just because these devs are not familiar with the game design is not a good solution.

If they were Fallout fans as their bullshit hype claims they would be working on the core Fallout design and improve on it.

They could add 3d graphics, a first person camera or anything they wanted as long as it is an improvement of Fallout core. That would be the right decision to take or don't call it a Fallout game and work on your own post-apocalyptic setting.

 

[Lurkar]

Sandbox

Oblivion wasn't a sandbox game. It was the very fucking definition of linear. If it is a sandbox, it's one with no sand in it, but it lets you PRETEND there's sand in there for you to play with.

Also, do people still claim FO3 isn't "Oblivion with guns?" The actual CREATORS of the game called it that.

Honestly, as listed previously, the biggest flaw I see in FO3 isn't that it might be a bad game, but that it's the very fucking opposite of everything Fallout is supposed to be. It could end up being a great game. But it's a horrible Fallout.

 

[DefJam101]

Sandbox

Oblivion wasn't a sandbox game. It was the very fucking definition of linear. If it is a sandbox, it's one with no sand in it, but it lets you PRETEND there's sand in there for you to play with.

I'd call it a magical rockbox:


Unlike most sandboxes, this one only contains a few pieces of sand; the ones it does have are large, sharp, and uninviting.

Every piece of sand feels shoved into the sandbox, as if none of them belong there or wish to be in this particular box of sand. Each piece of sand does not contribute to the box as a whole, and the box would probably be better off without them.

None of the pieces of 'sand' touch eachother, you can move each individual grain of sand and it will not effect any other grain of sand in the box. Since no grains of sand ever get mixed up, and each piece of sand you move will always move in the exact same way; there is nothing intriguing about this box of rocks, because it is nothing more than a short sequence of shallow physical interactions between man & stone.

It doesn't matter if you're a 3 year-old jailbait or a 50 year-old Khajiit yiffy fur who weighs 600 pounds, everyone who enters this sandbox will displace the sand in exactly the same way.

This sandbox is so bad that you cannot even remove certain pieces of sand from it; it won't allow you to do so! How can one enjoy a sandbox if they do not have the freedom to fully exercise their sand-throwing abilities?


There are no surprises in this sandbox, no unexpected happenings, no 20 dollar-bills to be discovered, no old shoes to be unearthed.. only about 20-30 other identical rocks, sitting in the same place they were last week, and the month before that.

 

[Joe Krow]

If Fallout 3 is a sandbox game with a branching story line it may be decent. So far that seems to be what they are promising.

What more are we asking for?

 

[sqeecoo]

We are asking for a company we can trust, promises that don't sound like stupid hype (innovation! VATS!), promises that actually sound promising (silly black and white choices in a stupid quest? no thanks), and that they show a few things that actually *look* promising. It would also be nice if they didn't promise idiotic stuff, like nuclear catapults.

So far we have none of the above.

EDIT: Note that I didn't even mention the "a worthy sequel to FO1" thing, capturing the atmosphere and setting and whatnot. I'd be quite happy with just a good FPS-ish RPG.

 

[Lingwe]

"Once at the bomb, he tries to use it and a big warning flashes that his skills are insufficient to even interact with it, and has to take some Mentats that he found in the mailbox earlier to boost his intelligence and thus his technical skills (no negative effects from using these drugs are seen)."

Knowing Bethesda someone will have conveniently left a whole bunch of Mentats in a box right next to the bomb. Remember that Mages Guild quest in Oblivion that required you to cast some spells at a statue? Rather than requiring you to go out and find the spell types yourself they left the exact type of scroll needed for you to cast the spells in a chest in the very same room.

Wouldn't want to deny all the Xboys who neglect their intelligence stat the ability to blow up Megaton after all would they.

 

[Vault Dweller]

....lotsa quotes...

I prefer this quote:

"My idea is explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun." Tim Cain

 

[Vault Dweller]

Can someone actually (preferably VD) sum up what exactly it *is* that makes FO great?

Great design. Everything - the setting, main quest, characters, communities, character system, art, animations, atmosphere, quest design, the main villain, and even the endings - is well designed and thought through. Such quality in practically every aspect of the game is very rare.

To understand the greatness of Fallout one must compare it to Arcanum. Now, Arcanum is one of the finest RPGs ever made, but it doesn't have the same overall quality. Too many game elements and features are flawed or poorly designed. It doesn't make the game less amazing overall, but that's what separates it from Fallout.

Care to make rough list of "You need this to be a Fallout game:" points, anyone?

In the spirit of open-mindedness I'm willing to throw out isometric and turn-based from the list. After all, that's not what made Fallout great. Now, here is the rest:

- the Fallout setting. Don't fuck with what aint broken. The Fallout setting was dark and serious. The "let's do it for teh lulz" design doesn't work here. From another post:

"Fallout 2 is a "mix of everything" game. It's a game designed by a bunch of 13-year olds following the unbeatable "won't it be cool if the game had...." principle. It has huge gangsters with tommy guns running casinos, it has yakuza with samurai swords, it has so many weapons that you can switch to a new gun every 5 min, it has more lulz than the Codex, it has a king-fu fighting town, it has scientologists with celebrities, it has tribals, aliens, drug dealers, talking deathclaws, and even real GHOSTS. The game's a joke.

The main villain is a stereotypical "I kill everyone for the lulz" villain who looks like a giant robot. (the 13 year olds strike again!) You can't reason with him. The only way to beat the game is to fight him."

Looks like Bethesda decided to go with FO2 absurdity mixed with FOBOS stupidity. See this article for details:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=157

- The PA communities. Fallout showed what happens with the modern society when things go boom. Each community - raiders, the Brotherhood, Shady Sands, Junktown, the Hub, even the Master and the super mutants - represents a different way to deal with, adapt, and survive in that new world.

- Different ways to handle quests; meaningful choices & consequences.

- Dialogues are important; you explore the game world through dialogues more than you explore it by walking around. Also, dialogue trees; being able to beat the game without combat.

- It should never, ever be referred to as "a shooter". When someone tells you "wow, that looks like a shooter to me", that's your clue that you are doing it wrong.

- There is no good or evil in the wasteland. There are different, well supported beliefs that can and will clash. That's what you make the main quest and main "villain" from.

- Stats and skills matter. Everything else isn't.

 

[Section8]

Sandbox

Oblivion wasn't a sandbox game. It was the very fucking definition of linear. If it is a sandbox, it's one with no sand in it, but it lets you PRETEND there's sand in there for you to play with.

I like that little summation. The whole "sandbox" metaphor comes from the fact that the "sand" is a substance the player's ideas and imagination can shape into a form that exists outside of their imagination. Compare that basic concept to Oblivion, where the only thing that actually has any effect is the idiotic level scaling, which can't possibly be considered a tangible effect of the player projecting their imagination.

Something I noticed a few pages back:

You can choose to detonate the bomb
- You can choose to detonate the bomb BUT would be unable to do so if you lack certain skill
You can choose NOT to detonate the bomb
- You can choose NOT to detonate the bomb AND inform sheriff about it

That basically boils down to two choices. Detonating the bomb, or telling the sheriff. There's nothing "neutral" about not detonating it, because like (nearly) every other CRPG, the seedy guy in the bar is going to sit there until you do something, and the sheriff is going to have the "I have a crime to report!" dialogue option indefinitely after you've had the conversation with the "baddie". Not making a choice doesn't count as a choice, and not being skilled enoguh to execute your choice doesn't count either.

For either to be interesting, there needs to be a consequence. For inaction, there needs to be other agents at work - for instance, the bad guy hires the next chump who wanders into town. He's a clown and gets caught trying to blow the town up. So now, the sheriff posts more guards, builds barricades, etc, making it harder if the player decides to give it a go, maybe it also means the guy giving the quest offers more money.

For a lack of skill, you still need some form of time pressure/other agents but there should also be alternatives and costs. Don't have the skill? Find someone who does, and persuade them to do it. A better system of drug-use/addiction to Fallout's non-CRPG friendly implementation could make it more interesting.

And just for the record, Oblivion does have some stuff that is better developed than this in terms of quests with choice and consequence. For instance, in the main quest line, you're required to sacrifice one of the most powerful items in the game, but you get to choose which. It'd be a tough choice if half the artifacts weren't useless to any given character build.

 

[MetalCraze]

@Aditya

what?
they fucked up everything.
this is gay emo game that looks like shooter with lots of dump stats

INT - that you can boost using mentats and it's irrelevant in dialogues, apparently reflecting the INT of the players who will enjoy this shit
CHA - like why do you need it at all if the dialogue will be shit because to date there is only one screenshot with shitty "follo me/wait here" "dialogue", while there are shitloads of battle screenshots at the same time. you also can't have more than 1 follower no matter how much CHA you have
PE - you don't need perception - you see ork - you shoot him. as previews are saying - it's a shooter.
also dexterity (forgot FO's name for it) oh really? you will cover from enemy bullets yourself - so why do you need it?
so really - the only useful stats will be strength and FO's version of constitution - just to carry more bullets and take more damage.

they fucked up special
they fucked up atmosphere with stupid shit like megaton and crying babies

they fucked up the whole lore with bad stupid muties and super good paladins.

how can it be a good game?

 

[Aditya]

And how it is not so can only be said by comparing it to Oblivion, not to Fallout. Dont go on telling me again n again how FO3 is flop compared to FO, coz thats NOT the thing that I am even arguing upon. That ways you are only proving yourself as dumbfuck.

Except that i was never talking about game design, i was talking about PR and the way Bethesda advertises their games.

elander_
"If it is like in Oblivion you will have to trust them and buy the game to see these amazing choices and consequences. Are you that dumb?"

Aditya
"The C&C indicated in the above example clearly surpasses anything presented in Oblivion. Surely you are not dumb to realize that?"

So perhaps you should read better next time so that you don't look like a dumbfuck.

Gosh, you are so inconsistent.
1. You complained about non-availability of info on quests to know whether they provide any role-playing.
2. Then when I gave that info, you said its not in the league of FO. And since then you are trying to drag me into debating about how FO3 is fucked up
3. Now you are saying you actually wasn’t talking about game design but have problem with PR of Bethesda??

About what exactly are you arguing upon or against?

Why should the game improve upon core Oblivion and not core Fallout? Oblivion is a crappy game with tons of faults. Fallout has some faults but it's a great game.

Why? As you answered it yourself, Since Oblivion is a crappy game with tons of faults and thats the base on which they are building FO3. And what improvements are you speaking of? You oppose VATS, you oppose inclusion of sandbox. Even if they do 'improvements', chances are you wont agree to it. You are going to blame them for fucking up things either way just coz its not similar to FO.

Anyways, you think FO3 sucks? Kudos to you. Tell me something that I didnt hear before or else we dont have any point to discuss further.

I wouldn't call Daggerfall a sandbox either

Thats news!! At this point, I dont think you even need to be given a dumbfuck tag...your posts are doing the obvious calling themselves.

That basically boils down to two choices. Detonating the bomb, or telling the sheriff.

Umm, you forgot the part about 'becoming' the Sheriff yourself. I would like to see how things turn differently [if at all], when you blow the town *being* the sheriff.

Don't have the skill? Find someone who does, and persuade them to do it.

For some reason, I think FO3 would have such option. Its too simple to implement, after all.

@skyway

Hey, I understand that you are an emo kid. But are yoy gay too? If yes, do PM me!

 

[Suchy]

"Fallout 2 is a "mix of everything" game. It's a game designed by a bunch of 13-year olds following the unbeatable "won't it be cool if the game had...." principle. It has huge gangsters with tommy guns running casinos, it has yakuza with samurai swords, it has so many weapons that you can switch to a new gun every 5 min, it has more lulz than the Codex, it has a king-fu fighting town, it has scientologists with celebrities, it has tribals, aliens, drug dealers, talking deathclaws, and even real GHOSTS. The game's a joke.

For exactly these reasons Bethesda aims to make FO3 more similiar to FO1 instead of FO2. They said it a couple of times in some interviews, but can't recall which ones and where, so no link.

There are some design choices I like (first person exploration), and some I don't, ie. limited companions, nuclear catapult, cars going nuke. Though I have to admit that as much as that catapult and nuclear cars seem stupid, they perfectly fit into 50's sci-fi.
I don't really care about combat system, as long as it's stat dependent. Original FO combat wasn't exactly perfect, so I don't have high expectations here. Story and dialogues are way more important for me, but these remain to be seen. That Megaton quest example is not enough. And it's hyped because blowing up the nuke is pretty extreme action, not because there are many choices. I'll save "Fallout 3 will suck cos Bethesda makes it" untill it's out and I see it myself. Bashing a game that wasn't released yet, based on very limited info and pure assumptions is kinda meh...

 

[GeneralSamov]

Yeah, I finally see it. They really made such shallow games like Morowind and Oblivion only because they knew that would bring them the audiences, and now that they gained their trust they're going to make and release a good game for a change, so that they may redeem those <s>dumb masses</s> followers to the right path and true spirit of RPGs with depth. What a honorable purpose! Our saviors!

[/]

 

[Astromarine]

you know, I was never a great fallout fanatic, but I just noticed after reading suchy's post about nuclear cars: If cars are nuclear, and there's so much of the glowing stuff around to even waste as smallish ammo, then what was the war for resources fought for originally?

Most things about FO are fuzzy for me, so if you guys could crarify that for me that's be awesome. Is it really just a Beth fuckup (huge one)?

 

[elander_]

Gosh, you are so inconsistent.

Ok i try to make it simple for you.

1. You complained about non-availability of info on quests to know whether they provide any role-playing.

And we don't have enough info to judge the role-playing qualities of Fallout 3 for a Fallout game. The info we have shows a very weak game that pales in comparison to Fallout. This is what i said explicitly and i also said i knew about the quest they have shown us, before you posted that Desslock quote.

So how do you conclude i said we don't have enough info on quests? Because it's better for you to ignore parts of what people say instead of trying to have an intelligent discussion.

Why? As you answered it yourself, Since Oblivion is a crappy game with tons of faults and thats the base on which they are building FO3.

So now you are dodging the question, how convenient. Yes i know that's what they are basing. Why Oblivion core and not Fallout core?

And what improvements are you speaking of? You oppose VATS, you oppose inclusion of sandbox. Even if they do 'improvements', chances are you wont agree to it.

I already mentioned a few examples that you ignored.

You are going to blame them for fucking up things either way just coz its not similar to FO.

The typical fanboy troll acusation. Don't listen to anyone who disagrees with Bethesda choices and accuse them of wanting an exact same game, even when i already mentioned i would not mind changes and gave a few examples.

Anyways, you think FO3 sucks? Kudos to you. Tell me something that I didnt hear before or else we dont have any point to discuss further.

Why am i hurting your illusions that Fallout 3 is going to be a great Fallout game or you simply don't give a shit if Fallout 3 is a Fallout game?

Do you actually care if Fallout 3 even compares to a Fallout game?

Thats news!! At this point, I dont think you even need to be given a dumbfuck tag...your posts are doing the obvious calling themselves.

Yes Daggerfall isn't a conventional sandbox or even a sandbox at all and exploration is completely different than any other sandbox. If you can't argue against this don't make retarded posts like that.

 

[elander_]

If Fallout 3 is a sandbox game with a branching story line it may be decent. So far that seems to be what they are promising.

What more are we asking for?

A Fallout game?

 

[elander_]

In the spirit of open-mindedness I'm willing to throw out isometric and turn-based from the list. After all, that's not what made Fallout great.

I used to think that way, but Gizmo, who posts in the ESF used a very convincing argument. A game is both a vision and a system. A vision is of course essential but the system (GURPS iso and TB in the case of Fallout) and the efforts game designers do to understand and master the system greatly influences the final result. The guys who made Fallout were all masters or PnP role-playing and GURPS. Bethesda guys aren't masters of anything unfortunately.

 

[Brother None]

In the spirit of open-mindedness I'm willing to throw out isometric and turn-based from the list. After all, that's not what made Fallout great.

I used to think that way, but Gizmo, who posts in the ESF used a very convincing argument. A game is both a vision and a system. A vision is of course essential but the system (GURPS iso and TB in the case of Fallout) and the efforts game designers do to understand and master the system greatly influences the final result. The guys who made Fallout were all masters or PnP role-playing and GURPS. Bethesda guys aren't masters of anything unfortunately.

If I were to grab and run with VD's argument, I'd agree that the viewpoint and combat mode weren't what made Fallout 3 great. It's not the decision to go with turn-based that made Fallout great, it was the decision to make the gameplay an emulation of pen and paper roleplaying. Choice and consequence is a part of that, and so is turn-based combat.

They're two parts of the same equation. If you consistently follow Fallout's philosophy, you'll inevitably end with the same conclusion that you need C&C, turn-based combat, etc.etc.

If you do not come to that conclusion by default, then it's not the decision to cut turn-based combat that's at fault, it's somewhere earlier down the line. You got something wrong right at the start.

Hello, Bethesda.

 

[Vault Dweller]

That basically boils down to two choices. Detonating the bomb, or telling the sheriff.

Umm, you forgot the part about 'becoming' the Sheriff yourself. I would like to see how things turn differently [if at all], when you blow the town *being* the sheriff.

You would like to see that, Aditya? You weren't satisfied with how things turned when you became the top guy in all guilds in MW? Or the archmage in Oblivion?

Besides, you don't become the sheriff. You can put on the sheriff's clothes and some people say "howdy, sheriff", but knowing Bethesda, that's pretty much it. I mean, you don't expect Bethesda to change their design dramatically just to help you win an argument, do you?

For some reason, I think FO3 would have such option. Its too simple to implement, after all.

Good point. I guess that explains why Oblivion was loaded with options.

 

[MetalCraze]

the shit with Nerevarin also shows that.
people are saying "Omg you're Nerevarin" and that's it. nothing more. you can't even tell the bitch "oh yes I am - now give me all your money".