Fallout 3 - Headed to Xbox 360?

The previous Fallouts had excellent stories

Main plot? Nope, definitely not Fallout's strength, something amusingly repeated by Cain-Anderson-Boyarsky in Arcanum. Great setting, great characters, hella weak main plot.

I mean, Fallout 1's fed-ex-quest followed by the find-and-kill-baddy quest are not exactly points of originality or great writing, and the fact that it was duplicated for Fallout 2 is even more stupid.

I always view Fallout's main storylines as intentionally one-dimensional, though, it allows for a lot more development of characters, a LOT more branching as the main line is not as involved and cooler side-quests.
 
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I include all the side quests in my comments on 'story', not just the main quest. Someone has to plot and write them as well, and each could be considered a short story in itself!!
 
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I am having trouble thinking of previous games whom used solving water supply problems for your isolated community which would qualify Fallout's MS unoriginal, not sure how if your implying something about Wasteland which even the Devs point out was a peer.

Also it's kinda of an easy cheap shot to say an fairly original idea like a water shortage or broken water system is Fed-Ex.
Well yeah, duh you don't have water, your community needs it to survive, so you need to go somewhere do something and/or bring something back. :p

Additionally your not providing any basis for comparison other than generalizations to generic terms, so give us the/an original concept/story your comparing this to. :)

Not to mention having a character whom has lived in complete seclusion and then being forced to deal with the harsh realities of a Post Apocalyptic Wasteland.
I couldn't agree more about every encounter being part of the MS, since the story is about the PC's development which is much more complex to achieve than a purely action style in a different setting like Mad Max. :)
 
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Fallout's story was nearly nonexistent. It had a great setting, but setting does not mean story. "Get the water chip" and "kill all the mutants" pretty much sums up Fallout's story. And Fallout 2's story was retarded. So was the amateurish pop culture reference dialog that was seemingly written by 16 year olds.

And then there's the dialog. Compared to Deus Ex, Anachronox, Baldurs Gate, Baldurs Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Kotor, Kotor 2, Jade Empire, and NWN2, the dialog and quests in Fallout were exceedingly simple. Fallout's dialog is filled with "choices" that generally involve you being a nice guy or being mean and provoking a huge fight that makes everyone in the area your enemy. Provoke a fight with one guy in Junktown and you nerf every single quest in that town. Even NWN had more writing and dialog choices than Fallout. A lot more. Fallout deserves a lot of credit for having multiple outcomes to some situations and multiple ways to approach problems, but let's not kid ourselves, folks. That game was not a masterpiece of writing by a long stretch.

In both Fallouts, you spend about 10 times more time in combat than you do in conversation. Turn-based combat was a much larger part of the game than dialog.

Edit: Add Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines in the list of games whose story and dialog are far superior to Fallout's.
 
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Fallout's story was nearly nonexistent. It had a great setting, but setting does not mean story. "Get the water chip" and "kill all the mutants" pretty much sums up Fallout's story. And Fallout 2's story was retarded. So was the amateurish pop culture reference dialog that was seemingly written by 16 year olds.

And then there's the dialog. Compared to Baldurs Gate, Baldurs Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Kotor, Kotor 2, Jade Empire, and NWN2, the dialog and quests in Fallout were exceedingly simple. Fallout's dialog is filled with "choices" that generally involve you being a nice guy or being mean and provoking a huge fight that makes everyone in the area your enemy. Provoke a fight with one guy in Junktown and you nerf every single quest in that town. Even NWN had more writing and dialog choices than Fallout. A lot more. Fallout deserves a lot of credit for having multiple outcomes to some situations and multiple ways to approach problems, but let's not kid ourselves, folks. That game was not a masterpiece of writing by a long stretch.

I strongly have to disagree. I admit however that it is a matter of personal taste what exactely you consider to be a "good" story. Personally I perfer things like "get the water chip or we will all die" over "find out about your heritage." Stories about a heroe's individual past have become a dominant cliché in modern fantasy (and to a certain extent in Sifi as well). You can hardly touch a fantasy book nowadays in which the protagonist is not something special. Usually he has special abilities that are keyed to his past or heritage. Boring, I say.
What made Fallout's story special to me was that it wasn't presented to you on a silver plate. You were essentially free in a great gameworld and could actively search for clues. The game was extremly non-linear which made it harder to follow the main storyline, but for me it made it all the way more interesting. You could go wherever you wanted to go and you could "indulge" into the story as deep as you wanted. True the main plot "find a new waterchip" does not sound like much, but in a post-nuclear world it is a believable one.
And if you really think that Fallout featured only dialogues that offered you being either the good or the bad one... well, then you can't possibly have played the game for very long. Usually the dialogues in Fallout gave you quite a lot of coice. Very often for example you could use information that you recieved during the dialogue with one person in dialogues with other persons. That made it possible to play one faction off against another. I also think that most people enjoyed the dialogues in Fallout. Of course there was strong language in it, and yes, to a certain extent it was overly cool, but for me that's all part of the Fallout world.
 
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Non-linear gameplay is not story. If it were, then Morrowind and Oblivion's stories would be masterpieces. Setting is not story either. Fallout had a great setting, no doubt. But the story was nonexistent. It can literally be summed up in seven words. "Get the water chip. Kill the mutants". I can't blame you for not being enamored with RPG cliche stories, but that doesn't make Fallout's any good.

As far as dialog "choices" go, Fallout's true choices were extremely few and far between. I don't remember having the chance to parlay with rad scorpions and mole rats during the game's numerous cave and underground sequences. If you had a high enough speech skill, you could solve a few situations, but the game is so combat heavy that it's extremely hard to finish the game on your first run through without tagging at least two combat skils. 95% of the dialog trees in the game are extremely short and simplistic, even with a high speech skill and high intelligence.
 
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Non-linear gameplay is not story. If it were, then Morrowind and Oblivion's stories would be masterpieces. Setting is not story either. Fallout had a great setting, no doubt. But the story was nonexistent. It can literally be summed up in seven words. "Get the water chip. Kill the mutants". I can't blame you for not being enamored with RPG cliche stories, but that doesn't make Fallout's any good.

Sorry, but I never said that. I said that Fallout's non-linear gameplay made it harder to follow the main storyline. But it was clearly there. You like a certain type of storyline - the epic one as it is featured in BG and similar games and that is something that Fallout does not offer. Fallouts story is very simplistic but that does not make it bad. Actually it is quite fitting for the genre - just think about the Mad Max movies... they all have a very simple story. The main storyline of Fallout is something that you discover as you go along and discover many other interesting stories. There is a lot to do and to see in Fallout, and I never felt bored because of a "non-existing" story. With Oblivion that is quite different - here I felt very bored.

As far as dialog "choices" go, Fallout's true choices were extremely few and far between. I don't remember having the chance to parlay with rad scorpions and mole rats during the game's numerous cave and underground sequences. If you had a high enough speech skill, you could solve a few situations, but the game is so combat heavy that it's extremely hard to finish the game on your first run through without tagging at least two combat skils. 95% of the dialog trees in the game are extremely short and simplistic, even with a high speech skill and high intelligence.

Well, it's a harsh world and not "Pony-Paradise". You seem to have your very own ideas, how a rpg should be structured, but there is no rule that every situation in a rpg has to be solvable through dialogue options - not that talking to rad scorpions would be possible anyway. It's Fallout - a postnuclear world that is full of nasties and assholes that want your stuff and a high diplomacy skill won't keep that brainless thug from beating the crap out of you to get the few bottlecaps you're carrying around.

In the end it all comes down to personal taste. You say that Fallout's dialogues were simple and short. But for me they were just right. I never really liked the endless dialogues in BG2 for example, but that doesn't make it a bad game... other people like you obviously greatly enjoyed them.
Same with combat - for me, Fallout had just the right amount of combat. I really enjoyed the turn based combat system and all the nifty weapons you could play with. And it's the same with the story also. Did Fallout have a very original story? Nope, not really. Did it not have one at all? It had one - and a very realistic one at that.
 
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Fallout's story was nearly nonexistent. It had a great setting, but setting does not mean story. "Get the water chip" and "kill all the mutants" pretty much sums up Fallout's story.

You have defined story = plot, and it isn't that simple. Yes, Fallout had a simple overarching plot but the narrative was much more complex, as was the character development and so on.
 
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