[Multiplatform] Fallout 3 - Guns with Oblivion

What, no, why parody. I do think that Fallout 3 will be good, and even if it turns out to be just 'Oblivion with guns' (which is apparently supposed to be a massive iceburn or something), that'd still be way fun. It's a game, not a damn religion.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

You'd never think that based on the obsessive "cultist" level Fallout fans. I remember people suggesting sending in threatening letters to Bethesda before and I couldn't believe what I was reading wasn't a joke.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Aardark

What, no, why parody. I do think that Fallout 3 will be good

You understand that this is as equally a fallacious reasoning as Fallout fans who claim that the game will definitely suck, right?

I was speaking idiomatically.

"Thinking" something is going to be good isn't the same thing as being dead-set on it sucking, though.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well, uh, I guess? I mean, I don't really care if people think the game will suck or rock or what, what worries me is that they take it so dead seriously.

FELIPE NO

To be fair, Fallout has always been a hardcore franchise with a lot of hardcore fans. It's only understandable that people are getting so riled up about it. If we can learn anything from this, it's the fact that the mainstream has killed niche gaming.

Bethesda trying to appeal to a larger audience isn't going to do the game any good, but that's just my opinion.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Imagine the backlash if Capcom USA made Street Fighter IV and decided to develop it to appeal to the Smash Bros. crowd? I think it's understandable that Fallout fans may be wary, but the concept of the game hasn't changed in such a way that it cannot present a similar experience, I think. That's just me, though. I don't know if turned based grid combat is essential to Fallout for some fans, but I do think Fallout can work with a different form of combat.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by AcerBandit

If there were people from Black Isle Studios overseeing Bethesda developing Fallout 3 then I might agree with you.

Whatever genius Feargus et al may have once had is pretty much defunct. What have they done lately? The unplayable NWN2? The unfinished KOTOR2? Or, hey, let's crank it back to their LAST failed company, Troika, and their buggy unfinished masterpieces TOEE and Bloodlines. If Bethesda is making "Oblivion with guns", Obsidian would only steer it toward "NWN2 with guns", andI don't really want to have to choose a class for my Vault Dweller and then spend hours sucking up to the random yahoos in my party so they'll really really like me!

If nothing else I doubt Fallout 3 will be crippled with major bugs that make the game impossible to finish, which is a damn guarantee when the Black Isle crew gets their hands on things. I love me some Fallout 2 but I've only been able to beat it perhaps once out of 25 or so plays, simply because some ass-fuck bug screwed me over. And this is AFTER the torrent of usermade patches, which SHOULDN'T BE NECESSARY

I'm sorry, but I'm just getting fed up with these guys who put out two or three unfinished games, fold, reform under a new gothy name, and repeat process. What exactly about this pattern inspires such confidence in people is beyond me. Why not give a chance to somebody who actually finishes what they start? (Yes, there are userpatches for Morrowind & Oblivion as well but they mostly appear to be for trifling shit like I LIEK BOOBIES and WANT BIGGER HAUS)

I haven't played Oblivion (the last Elder Scrolls game I so much as touched was Daggerfall), but I don't know what is so terrible about it besides the generic-ass setting. The encounter scaling is dumb but they already said they wouldn't include that.

This whole argument is based on such silly assumptions about development. SMB1 was a huge hit for Nintendo but nobody would reasonably assume that Legend of Zelda was just "Mario with Swords". Yes, both games are in 3D? God forbid that, I mean, depth is for PUSSIES

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RTw/P is a very different mechanic compared to using turns. All actions used to be limited by AP, now they're like a super power.

There used to be an element of tension where you performed actions in your turn and prayed that the next shot didn't crit and ventilate your torso. Now any kind of damage dealt is likely to be within predictable bounds, and you don't have to wait on the AI to perform its subroutines since all actions occur simultaneously (unless you pause for super shot). Now you have action-based tension, but once the player is aware of the system and how to fight, battles aren't as tense anymore, which is probably why they're hyping the Nemesis Behemoth and the stupid as hell nuke-a-pult as opposed to any kitschy new ray guns they could've designed.

They might not even get dialog right:

Quote:

Q: Is this another Oblivion but with a Fallout theme?

A: In short: no. Sure, Fallout 3 plays primarily from a first-person perspective like Oblivion, and conversations with NPCs use a similar style of dialogue tree, but combat, questing, character creation and most importantly the tone and style of the gameplay shares more in common with Fallout 1 and 2 than Oblivion.

Dialogue tree is an important distinction to make, since none of the screenshots actually showed how dialogue worked, and while Oblivion's wiki system could offer branching choices, the actual trees followed a straight line from each base.

It's already not going to play like the predecessors by virtue of the combat alone, now we're not even sure if they can get NPC interaction right.

Quote:

Whatever genius Feargus et al may have once had is pretty much defunct. What have they done lately? The unplayable NWN2? The unfinished KOTOR2? Or, hey, let's crank it back to their LAST failed company, Troika, and their buggy unfinished masterpieces TOEE and Bloodlines. If Bethesda is making "Oblivion with guns", Obsidian would only steer it toward "NWN2 with guns", andI don't really want to have to choose a class for my Vault Dweller and then spend hours sucking up to the random yahoos in my party so they'll really really like me!

"NWN2 with guns" would actually be much more like Fallout than "Oblivion with guns." Both games use essentially the same presentation, but with different combat mechanics. Nevermind that the Black Isle guys were working on Van Buren before they were forced to shut down, and that KOTOR 2 was more interesting than any piece of shit Bioware and Bethesda have crapped out in years.

Quote:

This whole argument is based on such silly assumptions about development. SMB1 was a huge hit for Nintendo but nobody would reasonably assume that Legend of Zelda was just "Mario with Swords".

Fucking Earth to Pang. People are arguing on the premise that they are marketing a completely different game as a sequel. They did not market Legend of Zelda as SMB2. Stop falling back on this fallacious reasoning.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Pang, have you completely forgotten how to debate something? I mean, the Zelda 1/Zelda 2 comparison is right fucking there, and instead you're wandering off on a tangent about Super Mario Bros. SMB2 wasn't anywhere near as good as the first or third game, so it's not reinforcing your point much, and I really don't know what that last bit was about.

How ya doing, buddy?

Isn't it ironic then that Zelda 2 is widely considered the worst in the entire series, outside of the CD-I games?

I was speaking idiomatically.

A lot of Fallout fans think less of Fallout 2. Think maybe this is a trend?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Isn't it ironic then that Zelda 2 is widely considered the worst in the entire series, outside of the CD-I games?

Extra ironic given that it's not actually a bad game. People just didn't like it because it was different. I mean, I'd still rank it as the weakest of the series, but even the worst* Zelda game is still good in its own right.

On the other hand, Zelda 2 also didn't take extreme liberties with its source material. Even if you didn't like it, you can't argue that it wasn't Zeldaish. There was nothing in that game that would have seemed out of place in a traditional Zelda game.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night? Another radical departure. You didn't even play a Belmont in that one, and it was more Metroid than it was Castlevania. It sure didn't suck, though - and it still looked, sounded, and handled like the good old gothic horror action romps from before. It stayed true to Castlevania's particular designs, right down to the maddeningly placed medusa heads, even while changing up the gameplay.

Now, it's a little too early to be screaming about Fallout 3 given that we've had all of a single 8 page teaser to look through, but that brief teaser really doesn't suggest an end product that stays true to its source. It's entirely possible to not be enthusiastic about the direction of this sequel without being one of the NMA jerkoffs, after all.



*The CD-i games emphatically do not count.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Bradylama

A lot of Fallout fans think less of Fallout 2. Think maybe this is a trend?

I don't think it's all that comparable, because to anyone but the NMA crowd Fallout 2 was more or less what you'd expect to see in a sequel whereas Zelda 2 was a huge change from the first. Not to mention that Zelda 2 was only the second game in the series so when it came out the structure of Zelda grew to a broader concept, as not only did the perspective change but RPG elements were added. Fallout 3 comes after 2 turn based games that are very much alike, and while I'm not necessarily saying this makes it not "Fallouty" enough, I'm saying it complicates the situation compared to Zelda 2. I think if those classic games can make the jump to 3D that Fallout can do it, too, though. We'll inevitably have to give up some things, but just how much we can't claim to know, and we also have to wait and see what we'll gain in return.

How ya doing, buddy?

Van Buren, Black Isle's in-house Fallout 3 project had already made the jump to 3D, and the texture work makes everything look as if the backgrounds were painted. It was high quality stuff and would've been balanced for turn-based (Interplay demanded multiplayer), but Interplay shut down the studio so they could dump all their money in Brotherhood of Steel, which sold a grand total of 17,000 copies.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yes, but Van Buren was never released. I know about VB and how it still looked like Fallout (And thus you're right that it was possible to keep the game like the first two and still have 3D graphics), I'm just saying that Fallout can also change perspective with the jump to 3D if Metroid, Zelda, and Mario can do so, too.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Nobody is disputing this. What they are disputing is making a franchise game that doesn't play like its predecessors and billing it as a sequel. If this was Fallout: DC there wouldn't be much problem, but with Todd Howard saying he wants to "reinvent" Fallout, and calling what is basically a shooter with pause Fallout 3, it sort of means that there's no hope in there ever being another game like the first two.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

What they are disputing is making a franchise game that doesn't play like its predecessors and billing it as a sequel..

Admittedly a bit exasperated here. There will be debatable... things in here. I'm not entirely convinced I have a point, though the temptation to just vent here is too great for me. So, feel free to lay into me (like I could stop you).

All of those examples that Monkey King used are fine and dandy... but here's the thing. I don't think the Zelda or Castlevania fanbases were polarized back then. I can't think of a single person I knew who WASN'T excited for Symphony of the Night. Zelda 2... I was too young back then, though call me crazy, I think the guys behind those projects still had a legitimately known origin in the development of those games. Zelda is always controversial (it's fandom, like all fandoms, are a faggot collective) They hadn't tanked, so I find them laughable as examples in this case.

Now my example would be Thief 3... I think it's a bit more applicable here and that it makes me better than you all. REALLY! -- Not really :sadface:

First of all, it wasn't entirely horrible at the end of the day. Yeah it had issues, yeah if you didn't like Thief 2 you probably hated it at some level for being "Thief 3", YES CONSOLE DEVELOPMENT FUCKED THINGS. But there were good things going on there. The only thing I think was universally agreed upon was the question of "Was this Thief?" I know a lot of Thief 2 fans who still say "No" to that. I still say "No" to that. But it's subject to debate, and aesthetics and such are for fags lol.

That's me saying I don't give a shit about it now.

So, what does that have to do with anything? Similar circumstance and fanbase I'd call it. Reiterating, when Symphony of the Night was released, it wasn't like Konami had gone under. Same with Zelda 2 and Nintendo, the gaming community wasn't quite united in faggotry at that time via the internet. Yes there were faggots, but now we can all cry meaninglessly in unison. Did you hear the one about that Cel-Shaded Zelda?

Can we expect the same of Fallout 3? Is it going to be decent? Is anyone asking that question? Who would say they're more worried about the game being decent over, rather than along with, the fact that it doesn't bear true faith and allegiance to Fallout 1 and 2 so help it god? A fan [of a certain portrayal].

My frustration with this whole... Fallout thing lies in the fact that it's as if I need a demo or something which would put a collective mind at ease, like we're all waiting for that special someone to jump out and say "SEE!? I TOLD DAT NIGGA! TOLD DAT NIGGA! TOLD DAT NIGGA THE GAME WAS GONNA SUCK/RULE/BE FAITHFUL/ABUSE THE FRANCHISE NAME FOR PROFIT! WUT HE DO?!"

I can't fault anyone for speculating on this game given the evidence. Yet, for christ sake, for all the criticism I see shot toward gamers, this is a good case to reinforce that mindset. Are we all just a collective bunch of sandy vagina, whining faggots? If it's an enjoyable piece of work (please cast worries aside for me, do me that favor here), what are we left with?

"It shouldn't be called Fallout." ... Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

Given all we know of their work and with all of the things it could entail, I think saying at this point it isn't going to play like its predecessors, that it is going to move away from established themes... is refusing to accept that changing perspective and developers is going to also entail *GASP* change.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

People were predicting this change the moment Bethesda announced the acquisition of the license and they weren't happy with it then, either. There hasn't been a sequel to Fallout 2 in 9 years, that's a lot of time to sit around and talk about Fallout and other games like it, and that's part of the problem.

Fallout's become bigger than its own sphere of interest, it's become symbolic of the way CRPGs have moved since the start of the millenium. The last CRPG like it was Temple of Elemental Evil. The last good CRPG was Arcanum. Yet every new game coming out with RPG slapped on the box plays nothing like the games that people played in the late 90's, and aren't even that great at roleplaying.

Fallout 3 being turned into a 3rd Person shooter, is the affirmation that absolutely no big budget roleplaying title is going to play like the old CRPGs.

People aren't afraid of change assuming that it's change for the better, and there's absolutely nothing to indicate that Bethesda taking the helm of one of the most popular CRPG franchises to date will accomplish anything positive for the genre or roleplayers.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Tipping my hand, I wasn't a gigantic fan of some CRPG elements in the first place. But that goes hand in hand in the way I see games. I think the concepts Ken Levine is applying to Bioshock would be great for something like Fallout 3. I'm not such a fan of dialog trees as I was way back when.

I think I saw a few journal entries of yours basically, in a roundabout way, saying we're looking at a dying genre. Watching Fallout get taken into this whole bastardization/evolution of the old genre as you may or may not call it, is it that upsetting to people who didn't have such a vestment in the genre itself?

I don't have the time out here to do an Iron Man run of Fallout 1 or 2, but I think it'd be interesting to see how many people on the forums participate. Perhaps we could ask what they see in the games at the end of it? What they enjoyed and such? Was that your goal?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

No, my goal was to make a Fallout Iron Man Thread because it's a kickass idea.

Does there have to be an ulterior motive for everything?

FELIPE NO

Eh, was more like a proposition. I thought if it were an ulterior motive of yours, it'd have been cool, regardless of that it'd be possibly worth doing if you could get a big enough number of participants. My reasoning is that most people I know never really play CRPGs for the roleplaying aspects, they complain that everything is "click click click." I'm wondering if that's all the conventional mind that most companies pander to for business is going to see in CRPGs.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

That's generally it, yes. Diablo had great action and people took to it like crack, so that's when everything started going downhill and RPGs became more action oriented. There were a couple of great hurrahs, though.

If the Iron Man thread inspires people to play some great roleplaying games and have community-based fun doing it, then that's also great.

As long as we're on this subject you might want to check out Age of Decadence. It's an indie CRPG being made by a 3 man team, inspired by games like Fallout and Darklands. According to the impressions given by Vault Dweller (lead design) the combat is turn-based and plays out roughly like Fallout, while performing quests often involves playing them out like a text adventure. It's also not released yet. =/ It'll be "done when it's done."

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Brady, I'm actually curious about what gameplay elements you're going to be missing about some of the older games. Are you talking about games in style similar to Baulder's Gate?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Dialogue trees, ahahaha

In Fallout 1, you weren't constrained to a dialogue tree! You could ask the talking heads about ANYTHING! Anything! And then they'd tell you they didn't know anything about that

ASK ABOUT: SHADY SANDS

ARADESH: I'M AFRAID I'VE NEVER HEARD OF THAT

Originally Posted by Monkey King

SMB2 wasn't anywhere near as good as the first or third game

Yeah, you said something that's not true just there. The true measure of a Mario game is the Crack Level, or the degree to which it was evident the Designers Are On Crack. Mario 1 has a very high crack level for its time but in retrospect it is unimpressive. Ok, mushrooms, plumber, yeah. SMB2 upped the ante. THIS DINOSAUR IS A TRANVESTITE AND THE FLOATING MASK WISHES YOU TO DIE! IT WAS ALL A DREAM! AHAHAH! Mario 3 further improves matters by throwing every goddamn thing they could think of into the bucket. "YOU CAN TURN INTO A STATUE!" 'What the hell for" "JUST DO IT! WHEEEE!" But even this did not meet SMB2's hgh standard. "What if one of the hammer brothers had a boomerang" is no match for WALK INTO THE GAPING BIRD'S MAW TO CONTINUE

Maybe this is blasphemy but the Mario series would be very pedestrian if not for its absolutely deranged trappings, and SMB2 took the opportunity to FLOATING PRINCESS HURLS TURNIPS AT BLOATED FROG

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.