Fallout 3 discussion

[TinCow]

I'll just say this once, because it seems to be a pretty common theme in your responses to me. Just because YOU don't like it or want it, doesn't mean there aren't a very large number of others who do. That's an extremely arrogant attitude to take. You will note that in almost all of my previous posts regarding modding in games is to make it so that everyone can find an acceptable solution. That pointless "Take it out because I don't like it" or "I don't care if it's not moddable because it's fine to me" is both selfish and not constructive.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I have tried to make it very clear in every single one of my posts that I am talking about my personal opinion. I am not you, so I cannot see the world the way you do. I know what I like so I speak about that and I try to constantly say "in my opinion" or "personally" to make that clear. I am sorry if that comes across as selfish or non-constructive to you. That is not my intention, I simply and expressing my opinion about what I like and don't like about the games I play.

Scripting a few events around the core mechanics is one thing. Changing them back to Morrowind-style "Merchant runs out of cash", "barter skill can eventually cause you to buy items for less than the merchant will pay for them" etc is another thing entirely. If you know of something like this, please point it out.

I just did. It's called the Living Economy mod. Merchants have fixed amounts of cash and the run out. The more of an item a merchant has, the less money he will buy it for and vice versa (supply and demand). I don't have a link for it because I'm at work, but it should be very easy to find at any Oblivion modding website. It's even built-in to OOO.

I am certainly not aware of any along the lines that you mentioned, by all means please educate me if you know of some.

I don't know the name of them off the top of my head, but there are several built-in to OOO as well. Flora and Fauna something or other? There's a ton of alchemy stuff out there that will mimic any and all game effects.

I already said this, did you read my post? I said it's very noticable and also pretty lame since they won't jive with the rest of the game. You are talking with an NPC who has a number of things to say, then you go into extended dialogue branches that were added by fans, and he's got nothing to say at all. (non-specific example)

So what's the alternative, removing all voicing from the game? While I certainly wish there was a great deal more text and speech options, I personally think that the text sounds good when it is spoken. I really, really, really want them to add far more text than they did in Oblivion, but why does that mean they have to take out the voiced parts to make it mesh? For many years now, games have included a mix of text and voice, I think that works just as well with Oblivion as it did with FO1.

Nice jab. I've made a point to focus on the issue at hand and not take underhanded digs at you, I expect the same courtesy, esp. from a mod.

This is out of line. My comment was not an attack on you by any means. it was make a differentiation between the content of the game and the game engine. Please re-read my words.

I swear that nothing I am writing is a personal attack on you. Please do not take it that way. If you feel attacked by anything I have written, then I fervently apologize for it. I like responding to your posts because you have a lot of interesting things to say about Fallout and I enjoy discussing them. Your posts have made this a far more interesting thread than simply links to new screenshots.

I doubt we will agree on many aspects of FO3, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy an exchange of ideas in a civil manner. If you don't like discussing this stuff, just say so and I will stop responding to your posts.

Wrong, it's far more than that. People don't seem to understand that a game is more than just "story", it's the sum of it's parts, which is precisely why good gameplay mechanics are integral to having a good game. This is incidentally why I've written off FO3, because the original outstanding mechanics have been changed drastically according to that article in the gaming rag. Gameplay isn't just an afterthought, it's a key part to what makes a game and moreso a series successful. Look at the X-com games and how they went downhill after the first two.

In my personal opinion (this whole paragraph is personal opinion), some of the original FO gameplay mechanics were good, but some were not so good. SPECIAL was excellent. Action points were decent, though I thought the Infinity Engine did a better job with combat. FO NPC control was horrible. Inventory control was very poor. The dithering effect when behind obscuring structures was inadequate. The wasteland travel and random encounter systems were primitive and unimaginative. All of these negative things can be improved on radically (in my opinion) and so I think that all of them could be abandoned for completely new gameplay mechanics and actively improve the game. Just because one system worked well doesn't mean another system won't work even better.

[Whacker]

I just did. It's called the Living Economy mod. Merchants have fixed amounts of cash and the run out. The more of an item a merchant has, the less money he will buy it for and vice versa (supply and demand). I don't have a link for it because I'm at work, but it should be very easy to find at any Oblivion modding website. It's even built-in to OOO.

That's a new one to me, duly noted.

I don't know the name of them off the top of my head, but there are several built-in to OOO as well. Flora and Fauna something or other? There's a ton of alchemy stuff out there that will mimic any and all game effects.

Mimicing game effects is one thing, sure. I guess my point is that I'd like to see the alchemy system changed entirely back to the way it worked in Morrowind, save perhaps a few interface improvements. I am not aware of anything that does this, and as I said before, if YOU do, please let me know as I would very much like to take a look.

So what's the alternative, removing all voicing from the game?

Happy medium always. Having SOME speech is good and even to be expected. Major cutscenes, major plot events, etc, sure all those definitely I could see having voiceovers. Morrowind did a decent, but by not means perfect, job at this. The key is to make the major points interesting yet not make it so that fan-made content is not going to clash noticably with the original content, and so that new major content can be added in such a manner that it also blends in smoothly. This is where Oblivion falls flat on it's face because of that inherent limitation.

While I certainly wish there was a great deal more text and speech options, I personally think that the text sounds good when it is spoken. I really, really, really want them to add far more text than they did in Oblivion

We are of one mind here, absolutely no disagreement.

, but why does that mean they have to take out the voiced parts to make it mesh?

They don't have to remove it all, just make it far more balanced. See my response to your earlier point above.

This is out of line. My comment was not an attack on you by any means. it was make a differentiation between the content of the game and the game engine. Please re-read my words.

I swear that nothing I am writing is a personal attack on you. Please do not take it that way. If you feel attacked by anything I have written, then I fervently apologize for it. I like responding to your posts because you have a lot of interesting things to say about Fallout and I enjoy discussing them. Your posts have made this a far more interesting thread than simply links to new screenshots.

I doubt we will agree on many aspects of FO3, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy an exchange of ideas in a civil manner. If you don't like discussing this stuff, just say so and I will stop responding to your posts.

Freely given, freely accepted. My apologies for my harsh reaction, but I couldn't think of any other way to take it as such. Perhaps I need to stop spending time in the backroom, there are a lot of very angry people back there.

In my personal opinion (this whole paragraph is personal opinion), some of the original FO gameplay mechanics were good, but some were not so good. SPECIAL was excellent.

Singing the same song we are.

Action points were decent, though I thought the Infinity Engine did a better job with combat.

Meh, Bioware did a good job with making their engines work smoothly in their games. Real turn-based still has it's appeal and place. This is perhaps where we diverge in that I don't think anything other than REAL turn-based works or meshes well with the FO setting.

FO NPC control was horrible. Inventory control was very poor. The dithering effect when behind obscuring structures was inadequate.

Preaching to the choir my friend. In fact you are dead wrong, inventory control was/is mind-numbingly aggravating. And I swear I almost had an aneurism trying to keep Dogmeat alive in the Military base.

The wasteland travel and random encounter systems were primitive and unimaginative.

Partially disagree here. Primitive... meh, by today's standards sure. Unimaginative? Are you nuts?? The Monty Python skits in FO2 had me laughing so hard my wife came in to see what I was making a racket about. The random encounter system worked fine, and in such a manner that it seriously discouraged exploring certain areas unless you'd worked getting better gear and stats. I still got my tookiss handed to me at lvl 21 with HPA near the military base, when I was jumped every 1cm by a full band of super mutes, all carrying chainguns and rocket launchers.

All of these negative things can be improved on radically (in my opinion) and so I think that all of them could be abandoned for completely new gameplay mechanics and actively improve the game. Just because one system worked well doesn't mean another system won't work even better.

Well said, but the other side of the coin is that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I think this is largely one of my major problems with Bethesda in general, in that they now seem to have a very arrogant mindset that everything they touch will be gold after their Oblivion success, and they can ignore canon and precedent completely because "that previous stuff is old and busted". The sad thing is, they have enough of a fanbase at this point that the game probably will sell just fine if not well, and they'll be sure to buy absolutely glowing reviews from the major sites to "validate" this. I guess the other bit to that is they keep seeming to think they can redefine certain aspects of established genres because their sales successes 'gave them the right to'. I admittedly have not played any of their previous games except Morrowind and Oblivion, but it seems to me and others that they've firmly decided to go down the route of making action games and "deep" FPS's, and abandoning their roots of making more traditional RPG's. This in of itself doesn't bother me at all, as I said it's the fact that they have the arrogance to say "Oh it's definitely an RPG because we say it is" re: whatever product they are making, when in reality it couldn't be further from that. /shrug Take all that as you will and with a requisite amount of salt.

[TinCow]

In the interests of candor, I will state again something I have said before: I am good friends with two Bethsoft employees. I would be lying if I said this didn't influence me. In fact, I'm actually pretty biased in their favor and everything I say needs to be taken with that in mind. To be fair, I had been a big fan of Bethsoft games before I even met them, but knowing people behind the product has had an impact. Perhaps I defend them more than I should as a result.

Happy medium always. Having SOME speech is good and even to be expected. Major cutscenes, major plot events, etc, sure all those definitely I could see having voiceovers. Morrowind did a decent, but by not means perfect, job at this. The key is to make the major points interesting yet not make it so that fan-made content is not going to clash noticably with the original content, and so that new major content can be added in such a manner that it also blends in smoothly. This is where Oblivion falls flat on it's face because of that inherent limitation.

This was actually the first thing I said to the first of the Bethsoft guys I met. "Why did you cut down on the text?!" I was disappointed in the answer: upper level managed decided that voice sells, especially on consoles, and thus everything has to be voiced. I was very disappointed with the drastic cutback in text from ES3 to ES 4. Last week one of the Bethsoft guys asked me my opinion on the Game Insider preview. It was a mixed and hopeful response, but I really ranted about my fears about putting Oblivion's limited dialog into FO3. FO were dialog based games for me and I am seriously concerned that the voice-only policy will really limit FO3. I'm hoping that they will realize this and instead pay a lot more money to the actors to voice several times the quantity of dialog that they did in Oblivion.

Meh, Bioware did a good job with making their engines work smoothly in their games. Real turn-based still has it's appeal and place. This is perhaps where we diverge in that I don't think anything other than REAL turn-based works or meshes well with the FO setting.

Yeah, definitely a difference of opinion here. For RPGs, I separate the combat from the storyline. It's odd, but many CRPGs end up more as strategy games than true RPGs. That's probably one of the reasons I like them so much. That said, I find an engrossing story just as compelling as a good strategy game. Morrowind is the perfect example. The combat was pretty boring, especially when you hit high levels. I played that game for more hours than I can count, but it was never for the combat. I felt the same way about Vampire: Bloodlines. By comparison, I also loved Icewind Dale 1 & 2, which were not really RPGs at all. They were dungeon hacking tactical games and I enjoyed them at that level.

The way I feel about Fallout can be explained by my feelings about Fallout Tactics (which I'm currently replaying). Ignoring the storyline and violations of canon, the actual game itself is interesting and entertaining right up to the point where it moves off into robot-o-doom. At that point it quickly becomes boring for me because it leaves the wrecked towns, the inhabited wasteland, the struggle for normalcy in a post-apocalyptic world, and it simply becomes Fallout style combat in a different setting. I lose interest because I miss the atmosphere which I associate with Fallout. I've never seen a Fallout game with the atmosphere but without the combat, so I don't know for sure if I would like that, but I suspect that what I really enjoy most is simply the wasteland existence.

I liked Morrowind and Oblivion because I liked living in the world they created. They're definitely not the most entertaining games if you're looking for specific objectives or goals, but I realized that early on and stopped trying to find them. In contrast, I also enjoyed Doom 3 a great deal, far more than most other people did it seems. I knew from the start what it was good at and played it with those strengths in mind. I only played at night, turned off all the lights, pumped up my sound, and sat really close to the monitor. I then enjoyed what was essentially the computer game equivalent of a haunted house. I will probably never play the game a second time, but I loved it for what it was: an experience.

Partially disagree here. Primitive... meh, by today's standards sure. Unimaginative? Are you nuts?? The Monty Python skits in FO2 had me laughing so hard my wife came in to see what I was making a racket about. The random encounter system worked fine, and in such a manner that it seriously discouraged exploring certain areas unless you'd worked getting better gear and stats. I still got my tookiss handed to me at lvl 21 with HPA near the military base, when I was jumped every 1cm by a full band of super mutes, all carrying chainguns and rocket launchers.

LOL, I wasn't criticizing the actual special encounters, just the general ones and the manner in which they occurred (running around on the world map and clicking yes or no depending on your outdoorsman skill). I love the pop culture references in all their ridiculous glory. When I said unimaginative, I'm talking about your 37th encounter with bootleggers fighting slavers.

Well said, but the other side of the coin is that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I think this is largely one of my major problems with Bethesda in general, in that they now seem to have a very arrogant mindset that everything they touch will be gold after their Oblivion success, and they can ignore canon and precedent completely because "that previous stuff is old and busted". The sad thing is, they have enough of a fanbase at this point that the game probably will sell just fine if not well, and they'll be sure to buy absolutely glowing reviews from the major sites to "validate" this. I guess the other bit to that is they keep seeming to think they can redefine certain aspects of established genres because their sales successes 'gave them the right to'. I admittedly have not played any of their previous games except Morrowind and Oblivion, but it seems to me and others that they've firmly decided to go down the route of making action games and "deep" FPS's, and abandoning their roots of making more traditional RPG's. This in of itself doesn't bother me at all, as I said it's the fact that they have the arrogance to say "Oh it's definitely an RPG because we say it is" re: whatever product they are making, when in reality it couldn't be further from that. /shrug Take all that as you will and with a requisite amount of salt.

What I take from this is that you think they're guilty of false advertising. I have to agree with you on this because it's true. Their marketing department does one heck of a job. It would definitely be nice if they just straight out said what they where making. The secrecy is designed to focus more and more attention on the game. While that works wonders in driving up publicity, it inevitably disappoints people who interpreted their ambiguous words wrongly. I think there would be far fewer hostile feelings towards them if they would simply say "We're making a first person game in the Fallout universe. We're making a storyline that we think is fun but which doesn't mesh 100% with canon. We're abandoning most of the Fallout combat system because it doesn't mesh with our engine." If they did that, then people who didn't like the sound of the game would go away and ignore it and those who did would stick around. Everyone wins, but the sales are probably a bit lower.

[Xiahou]

Things such as removing the obnoxious influence game

Actually, that was one of the first mods I got. That mini-game was very anti-immersion imo, so I was glad to see a mod replace it.

[Whacker]

Actually, that was one of the first mods I got. That mini-game was very anti-immersion imo, so I was glad to see a mod replace it.

I would love to have a link to such a critter if you could provide one good sir.

[Xiahou]

I would love to have a link to such a critter if you could provide one good sir.

I think this is the one I DL'ed.

Here's the summary:

This mod gets rid of the persuasion mini-game in Oblivion and replaces it with a system that is more realistic and better balanced. I feel that the current system is deficient in a number of ways:
- It's relatively easy to raise someone's disposition at or near 100 with only an average speechcraft skill, making it nearly pointless to raise this skill to its highest level.
- While the security mini-game simulates picking a lock, the persuasion game is a completely abstract exercise in lining up rotating wedges. You must say the same things to every character, and your success is only dependent on the order in which you say them. R-i-i-i-ight.
- Persuasion as implemented leaves little room for role playing. You must coerce, boast, admire and joke with every person you meet, regardless of your character's personality and values, or the type of person you are talking to.

Instead, this mod implements persuasion through regular dialogue. You are free to pick any option you want, and either try the same one over and over or alternate between many. Each time you pick an option, you have a base chance of success based on your speechcraft skill. Then, your chances are modified based on the current disposition of the NPC. The higher their disposition, the harder it is to raise it further. Finally, each option has an individual modifier based on a number of factors (see the Modifiers section below), making it easier or harder to use that option with a particular NPC. For instance, you will have a much easier time coercing a farmer than you will the Arena Grand Champion, and the burly Nord in the local tavern will be more impressed by your boasting than will the Countess of Chorrol, etc. In this way, there is some amount of player skill and role playing required for successful persuasion rather than randomly clicking options.

[Whacker]

In the interests of candor, I will state again something I have said before: I am good friends with two Bethsoft employees. I would be lying if I said this didn't influence me. In fact, I'm actually pretty biased in their favor and everything I say needs to be taken with that in mind. To be fair, I had been a big fan of Bethsoft games before I even met them, but knowing people behind the product has had an impact. Perhaps I defend them more than I should as a result.

Hah, we're very much alike, I also have several friends "in the biz." What's even funnier is they've worked exclusively on games that I hate. One of them worked on Ghost Recon, and we already had the time-honored "Why Operation Flashpoint was a bazillion times better than Ghost Recon" argument a few times. I guess the sticking point is, can you criticize your friend's company and games (heavily even) from a more "professional" standpoint, aka as the gamer/customer, without them getting offended personally as a friend?

This was actually the first thing I said to the first of the Bethsoft guys I met. "Why did you cut down on the text?!" I was disappointed in the answer: upper level managed decided that voice sells, especially on consoles, and thus everything has to be voiced.

Bah, "Upper management" and the Marketing types are squarely to blame for the mind numbing lack of originality in terms of gaming today. Don't even get me started on the whole "Why consoles are partially to blame for the dumbing down of gaming"...

In contrast, I also enjoyed Doom 3 a great deal, far more than most other people did it seems. I knew from the start what it was good at and played it with those strengths in mind. I only played at night, turned off all the lights, pumped up my sound, and sat really close to the monitor. I then enjoyed what was essentially the computer game equivalent of a haunted house. I will probably never play the game a second time, but I loved it for what it was: an experience.

I also enjoyed the out of Doom 3, whereas a good deal of my friends thought it was mindless trash (go figure....). The key, as you so well pointed out, was to LET yourself be immersed. It was kinda hard to play it at night w/my headphones on, and my poor dog almost gave me a heart attack at one point when she came into my room unseen and nosed my leg. Also I was... erm... "inebriated" and on Teamspeak with a few friends when I finally got to Hell, that was almost a religious experience in of itself. They told me the next morning all I kept saying was "Oh... my... gawd...." and making various quotes from Event Horizon.

As for Morrowind and Oblivion, my view is that Morrowind offered a much deeper game to immerse oneself in. There were levels of complexity and enough storyline and diverse tasks to provide for a feeling of just how big the overall world was and how much there was to do. Oblivion didn't give me that whatsoever, it was basically a pretty setting to run around and kill stuff with fire. The "wow this looks great" factor tends to wear off with me very quickly with games, usually within an hour or two, at which point I start to concentrate on the story and mechanics, esp. in RPGs. This was when I started down the dark path of indifference leading up to rejection.

When I said unimaginative, I'm talking about your 37th encounter with bootleggers fighting slavers.

Putting it that way, I'd have to agree wholehearted with you there. There wasn't a heck of a lot of variety in that area, esp. in FO1. FO2 helped that a bit, but not much.

What I take from this is that you think they're guilty of false advertising. I have to agree with you on this because it's true.

I guess to simplify it, in principle yes that's a fair way to paraphrase it. It's not really that they do it, it's that they are doing it with a very neglected, dying genre that I am having withdrawl from. Sadly that's now what I tend to expect from the PR types at publishers and studios; nothing but pure BS and hype as opposed to real, well thought-out, and meaningful attempts to portray their products. Pretty much all you need these days is a large chested female brandishing a gun and a sword, making a messy headshot on critter A while simultaneously decapitating critter B in some action-packed setting, swearing up a storm while doing so, with huge explosions in the background.

Their marketing department does one heck of a job. It would definitely be nice if they just straight out said what they where making.

I'd have to disagree with you here, I think their marketing department is one of the worst in the business today. I share the general opinion with quite a few others that Todd and Pete are egotistical morons, and the gaming industry is suffering indirectly from the PR nonsense they are pulling now with FO3 and with Oblivion. Seriously, "Soil erosion"? There was(is?) a large compilation of quotes and sales bits made from the time leading up to Oblivion, and comparing them against what the actual product had. While many of them are indeed subjective, it's not hard to see overall that almost every single one of them was one of 1. blatant lie, 2. extremely inaccurate, or 3. gross exaggeration. Stunts and regular behavior like this means it's not hard to realize why so few of us take these people seriously anymore. If I can find the link to that bit, I'll PM it to you, it's at least good for a laugh even if you may not agree.

The secrecy is designed to focus more and more attention on the game. While that works wonders in driving up publicity, it inevitably disappoints people who interpreted their ambiguous words wrongly. I think there would be far fewer hostile feelings towards them if they would simply say "We're making a first person game in the Fallout universe. We're making a storyline that we think is fun but which doesn't mesh 100% with canon. We're abandoning most of the Fallout combat system because it doesn't mesh with our engine." If they did that, then people who didn't like the sound of the game would go away and ignore it and those who did would stick around. Everyone wins, but the sales are probably a bit lower.

Exactly, dead on. The all encompassing absolute bottom line, profit. There was an editorial bit written not too long ago about the general state of gaming today, and how publishers will generally strive to maximize sales, and will 'dumb down'/simplify/whatever you want to call it to their games in order to try to reach the largest number of buyers. It made complete sense to me, I mean look at the market for REAL simulation games and even RPGs right now, it's pretty thin to almost non-existent. Heck look at what CA is doing with the TW series... The gist of the article was that despite this overall trend, there are still good numbers of gamers in all respective genres that would make putting together a 'niche' game a very viable prospect financially. The obvious problem is that while it would sell, it wouldn't sell say as good as Madden 2k8 or whatever, and hence why the Execs/Marketing types would do their utmost to force the product back into that generic Let's Try To Please Everyone role. Again it all makes sense to me, it'd be real nice to see someone take that to heart and take the plunge. Perhaps it's just me being obstinate and refusing to believe/accept that real RPG players and flight sim fanatics are a dying breed.

[TinCow]

...

I shall respond to that post in a new thread, since I don't want to pull the FO3 thread off-topic.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87427

[Bob the Insane]

The way I feel about Fallout can be explained by my feelings about Fallout Tactics (which I'm currently replaying). Ignoring the storyline and violations of canon, the actual game itself is interesting and entertaining right up to the point where it moves off into robot-o-doom. At that point it quickly becomes boring for me because it leaves the wrecked towns, the inhabited wasteland, the struggle for normalcy in a post-apocalyptic world, and it simply becomes Fallout style combat in a different setting. I lose interest because I miss the atmosphere which I associate with Fallout. I've never seen a Fallout game with the atmosphere but without the combat, so I don't know for sure if I would like that, but I suspect that what I really enjoy most is simply the wasteland existence.

I really have to agree with you there, it a flavour/atmosphere thing to me more than a mechanics thing (though the dialog system will be of huge importance)... I want to revisit that world and I am not too concerned about the perspective I am viewing it from when I get there...

To be honest I got the first tingling of the "Where has the Wateland gone" right at the end of FO2 (though the RPG elements persisted of course, it did not totally devolve into a big tech fight)... And now in Tactics it is fine while you are out and about on missions, but it feels too sterile back at the bunker and by the sound of it that will only get worse...

[Lemur]

Who are we kidding? Unless the reviews are gawd-awful, we all know we're going to buy and play it. Stop pretending you won't, you're only hurting yourself.

[Whacker]

Who are we kidding? Unless the reviews are gawd-awful, we all know we're going to buy and play it. Stop pretending you won't, you're only hurting yourself.

Honestly I can't tell if you were kidding or not mate, but in all seriousness I am most definitely not going to be getting/playing this game based on the current information we have. Disco has already been telling me the exact same thing in the chat for a week or more now, and it's not working as I think he'd like it to.

[discovery1]

Honestly I can't tell if you were kidding or not mate, but in all seriousness I am most definitely not going to be getting/playing this game based on the current information we have. Disco has already been telling me the exact same thing in the chat for a week or more now, and it's not working as I think he'd like it to.

The first stage is denial.