Fallout 3 - Details Emerge

[xSamhainx]

It's a little too early to be that defeatist about the game!

I can understand the iso crowd moping around, but what can possibly be known about the actual game's quests? Too much is being assumed here

Reminds me of the people terribly disappointed with Starcraft II, the day after it was announced!

 

[curiously undead]

while i have no faith in bethesda whatsoever, i don't see how an isometric fallout game could be made at this day an age. obsidian (home of some fallout devs) haven't made an isometric game 0-2 and troika's last game (creators of fallout) was a rpg and a fps. so i don't really see how anyone else would be necessarily making it isometric either (though they would surely make a better game). so those people really need to let go i think of well established ips. to me it shows some promise, which is shocking in itself, but i really think the graphics suck.

 

[Brother None]

Isometric has always been a peripheral demand even within the hardcore fanbase. Van Buren wasn't isometric, by its strictest definition. Still, the camera angle should support turn-based since the game should be turn-based, is the most common series of thoughts

 

[Corwin]

Amen Brother!!

 

[Dhruin]

I don't think anyone was really asking for a locked iso view. I would have thought a floating overhead camera that could be positioned for an orthagonal view would be close enough - say, like NWN2 and countless strat type titles.

Anyway, I didn't think for a minute that Bethsoft would do that. What I read was reasonably positive and I look forward to seeing more but there are far to many sticking points to embrace it with enthusiasm yet. I just don't get the VATS combat thing, the whole father thing sounds funny to me, the mutants do look like orcs (and what's with the fantasy warhammer?) and Bethsoft needs to prove they can do good branching gameplay and characters.

I did find the quest variety in Oblivion better than MW but still arrow-linear and without choice, so perhaps their writing shows some signs. We'll see.

First, I want full details on this VATS thing.

 

[Morbus]

It's a little too early to be that defeatist about the game!

I can understand the iso crowd moping around, but what can possibly be known about the actual game's quests? Too much is being assumed here

Reminds me of the people terribly disappointed with Starcraft II, the day after it was announced!

It's not only the combat. For me, at least, there's still a slim hope about that. It's about the setting too: the tickets bot "joke" was just retard and a way too forced. The nuclear cars are just STUPID and uncanon... The hand-held nuclear device is not particularly brilliant either. Mindless killing of city is just stupid. Mutants everywhere... 200 years after the war?! Brotherhood of Steel in the east? One can also complain about there being only 14 skills (there should be 40!!! it's next-generation right?!) or the dumbed down small gameworld... All in all, it's not JUST the combat... Unfortunately but not surprisingly...

 

[xSamhainx]

Have you played the game? Read the review of someone who's beaten the game? a beta, maybe? We're like a year away from release here. That's what I'm sayin.

 

[Brother None]

Have you played the game? Read the review of someone who's beaten the game? a beta, maybe? We're like a year away from release here. That's what I'm sayin.

Yip, that's why it's nice that people are showing Bethesda how much they dislike some of these ideas (VATS doesn't sound good, but it might be better than it sounds, the supermutants and strange usage of nukular explosions are odd), time enough from them to change it, then.

 

[BillSeurer]

The nuclear cars are just STUPID and uncanon.

So it was OK for them to have nuclear powered powered armor but no one ever figured out "Gee, we could power OTHER things with the same tech!"

 

[bjon045]

Fallout 2 had nuclear powered cars i.e. your car took fusion cells.

 

[Prime Junta]

It's not only the combat. For me, at least, there's still a slim hope about that. It's about the setting too: the tickets bot "joke" was just retard and a way too forced.

Unlike the refined, subtle humor about Brahmin balls and exploding loos, I suppose? Seriously, did you like *every* joke in FO and FO2?

The nuclear cars are just STUPID and uncanon...

Stupid is a matter of opinion, but they're canon -- your car in FO2 was nuclear.

The hand-held nuclear device is not particularly brilliant either.

A bit early to say. If you have one and unlimited ammunition for it, yeah, it's kinda dumb. OTOH if it's a plot device, it might work. Depends on the plot.

Mindless killing of city is just stupid.

I agree. How do you know there will be mindless killing of city?

Mutants everywhere... 200 years after the war?! Brotherhood of Steel in the east?

A lot can happen in 200 years. Mutants can die out, be revived, be further mutated, spread, whatever. The BoS could die out, split into a number of factions, expand, restore civilization, be taken over by mutants, or whatever. To my recollection, FO2 did not end with the earth exploding (again). Having the game set in California 200 years later with nothing changed would have been even dumber.

Speaking of dumb, what are your thoughts on New Reno?

One can also complain about there being only 14 skills (there should be 40!!! it's next-generation right?!)

Yah, more is always better.

or the dumbed down small gameworld...

(1) You know it's "dumbed down" because...?

(2) Most of FO's and FO2's world was empty. There was nothing in the wasteland but random encounters. The traveling minigame was cute, but it would really have made no significant difference to the gameplay if it had been a vanilla fast travel system. If FO3's world is "only slightly smaller than Oblivion's" your definition of "small" must be pretty stretchy.

All in all, it's not JUST the combat... Unfortunately but not surprisingly...

All in all, you're foaming at the mouth. Unfortunately but not surprisingly.

I have my doubts about FO3 too, but so far Bethsoft has been making (mostly) the right noises: branching, mutually exclusive questlines, multiple solutions, moral choices with consequences, NPC's that are actually written up as characters instead of quest-o-mats, 1950's retro-futurist design. I don't know if they have the taste and skill to pull it off. However, your slagging off on the few scraps of information we have is just as juvenile as some fanboi drooling "teh best game evar!" on the Bethsoft boards.

 

[bjon045]

If he didn't know the car in FO2 was nuclear powered then it makes me wonder if he has even played FO2. I suspect we have a troll here.

 

[aries100]

My main concern right now is the VATS combat system which, according to the GI-article, sounds optional, meaning that the RT crowd just can click away with the A-button, while the TB crowd gets a kind of 'dumbed down?' TB option, much like CTB combat option in Tactics??

When I say 'dumbed down' I mean that it is neither a real RT system nor a real TB system, but sort a hybrid thingie. It could work, though, but then, it lies in how it's done, in the execution of this VATS-system.

I like the mutually exclusive questlines, but so far, from the GI article all we have seen is that we will get a quest to arm a disarmed nuclear bomb This could of course, just be an example, but there still doesn't seem to be any way to turn down quests - at all, at least according to the GI article.

If the moral choices limits themselves to 'hey, if I take this questline, my karma will be 'good' but if I take this questline my karma might be 'bad', then, to me, this isn't a moral choice at all. It is just choosing a different questline that will lead to different karma standing (such as TES fame & infamy rating) within the game.

I don't like there's supermutants everywhere (apparently) nor do I like that the BoS seems integral to the main quest, since according to the GI article, the BoS collects you, the main character, at a subway station What's up with that?? (the BoS in the role of heroes?? or something like that).

As for the nuclear powered car, and the remade PIPBOY 3000, I have no problem with this. I have a problem with Fallout 3 trying to compete with tactical shooters like Gears of War and STALKER which I think it does.

I can't tell you exactly why I have this feeling, it is just something I do - especially after seeing the screenshots and reading the GI-article. It seems to that Bethsoft also is continuing their tradition started with Oblivion for making an interactive simulated world. I want a game - not FALLOUT 3: The GTA version.

Don't get me wrong, though. I would love to see a post-apoc game from Bethesda a la STALKER. By this I mean an independent IP that they have developed themselves, not them buying a game IP like Fallout, and then making a Fallout game exactly like STALKER, calling it Fallout 3...

In short, I want a Fallout game, not STALKER 2 - from Bethesda...

 

[Asbjoern]

Yip, that's why it's nice that people are showing Bethesda how much they dislike some of these ideas (VATS doesn't sound good, but it might be better than it sounds, the supermutants and strange usage of nukular explosions are odd), time enough from them to change it, then.

And how can we judge the quality of their design decisions from some vague descriptions and a couple of screenshots?
And should Bethesda listen to fans during development? Doesn't that undermine the artistic process?

 

[bjon045]

I don't like there's supermutants everywhere (apparently)

I think there has always been a lot of supermutants as you could fight unlimited amounts of them in both Fallout 1 and 2. Fallout tactics already had supermutants making it to the east of the USA.

 

[Unre]

And how can we judge the quality of their design decisions from some vague descriptions and a couple of screenshots?
And should Bethesda listen to fans during development? Doesn't that undermine the artistic process?

I agree it's too early but they are odd, which makes some fanboys wonder if they are for showy graphical effect: Time will tell.

What disturbs me is that they use the name "fatman". The name is not a joke for the perished and the survivors at Nagasaki.

 

[Prime Junta]

I don't think the entire premise of Fallout is very funny to the survivors of Nagasaki.

Or perhaps it is: laughter isn't a bad way to deal with death and destruction. I certainly do.

 

[Brother None]

Fallout 2 had nuclear powered cars i.e. your car took fusion cells.

Indeed. And do you imagine the pre-war Fallout world was full of car crashes resulting in cataclysmic nuclear explosions in the middle of a city? No? Then explain to me exactly why he make a 200-year old car "mushroom" into a very limited (?) nuclear explosion. It makes no sense.

And how can we judge the quality of their design decisions from some vague descriptions and a couple of screenshots?
And should Bethesda listen to fans during development? Doesn't that undermine the artistic process?

You judge from what you have. We can't play this "we don't know enough" game ad infinitum because then we'd have to withhold comments until release, and you can't change anything anymore after release.

And a good artist is smart and sure enough to listen to fans without undermining the artistic process.

 

[Unre]

I don't think the entire premise of Fallout is very funny to the survivors of Nagasaki.

Or perhaps it is: laughter isn't a bad way to deal with death and destruction. I certainly do.

I don't like to make this thread too political but can you say it at the nose of survivors?

I can fully agree with you about Dr.Strange Love, for example. However, I feel uneasy with the reference to the factual name.

 

[curiously undead]

i think the travelling minigame is an asset to the fallouts and probably why it was used/refined in arcanum. maps have always been vital to travel whether in a post-apocalyptical setting or not. many people are visual and the having a traveling mini-game not only helps to show routes of travel that help the player visualize/imagine their journey ala indiana jones style but the waiting for you arrival and any unknown encounters surely adds a tension that would exist in a vast, barren, and fierce setting of the fallouts. many of the locales featured in the fallouts anyhow are all ready "premade" barren and while the southeastern half of california and its nevada/arizona brothers can have some beautiful and unique settings its very spread out and wouldn't cater to a 1st/3rd person freeroaming game. i liked the way stalker worked with the different zones that nixed only a few uninteresting paths/places between areas. this style could work well for the east coast. i have a feeling this game will have a survival/horror feel to it much like parts of stalker, or a resident evil game instead of a madmax feeling. the east coast decision though will make it even more difficult though to please fallout fans in the long run, but if it allows them to succeed in making a game decent within their capabilities then its all good.

many hurdles do you have
at the reigns of such a game
focus not on the micro-machine
for the pc is its hallowed home
where the fans have red hats
and will put you to the flame