Author Topic: Fallout 3  (Read 11756 times)

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The line on the first page of the article about "no compromises" seems utterly bunk.  The description of the targetting system made it pretty clear that they wanted to grab new players, who wouldn't be attracted to a turn-based game, while desperately trying not to alienate the classic Fallout fans by going completely real-time.  Now I'm starting to feel like I put too much faith in Bethesda to stay true to the style of gameplay found in the earlier editions of Fallout.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think I'm going to distance myself from news about Fallout 3, until the game's been released, and there's some player feedback floating about the net....

 

Offline Raven2001

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QFT!!
But you didn't quote anything!

Didnt need to, the post I was replying to was just above mine :D

Scans of a Game Informer article. Very informative.

http://img.waffleimages.com/531b2b5693e21d358706b67fe1c909d0daa4ef74/FO3-1.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/3298826a60e0edf5b840a48b9d3ebc22e851cad5/FO3-2.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/dfe408180d8414fef45c74d83312978175e8ba15/FO3-3.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/5957fcd6d852816fdc33ad1181110a2389e915c1/FO3-4.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/602d47a684cbbd23ea78c873978aa3c82350541c/FO3-5.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/dd4f06754322d82f5f513a42c4995c8a6eb3ef24/FO3-6.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/2d43ce42aa73c673eff32a1cb2d52fc987c50c27/FO3-7.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/c8da0168a038c1defa23c2205c5056355c216d76/FO3-8.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/a8d9ad630d6df7fbfefc4223c80a3c194fe8985f/FO3-9.jpg
http://img.waffleimages.com/74cd304fff1f6ec6b9d389ff39abed708885ee5f/FO3-10.jpg

Yeah I had seen those already.

Still need to know more, but overall I'm liking it.
Still need to know if your chars stats will make a difference in RT. If, for example in the quest they describe there, I can change my mind about whose "side" Im on at the last minute, or if I can collect the cash from 1 of them and then complete the other side of the quest, etc... that is, what made the meat of a FO quest.

About the gameplay... well Im not surprised tbh. Was obvious that they didnt want to alienate the streamline costumer, so if they pull it off right, the combat system could be very well done and with some hint of originality.

Like I said, from what Im seeing its looking good overall IMO
Yeah, I know you were waiting for a very nice sig, in which I was quoting some very famous scientist or philosopher... guess what?!? I wont indulge you...

Why, you ask? What, do I look like a Shivan to you?!?


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Offline Ace

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What I'm wondering about though are the battles going on behind the scenes at Bethesda between the lead designer (Emil Peligaro(sp) who was involved with Thief and did the Dark Brotherhood questline in Oblivion) and producers (the design leads of Oblivion).

"We don't do turn based 3rd person games."

"Well... ermm... how about a 'pause and aim' mode that is SPECIAL based?"

"Sounds sort of turn based to me... Well you need to keep level scaling and everything accessible at level 1."

"Ermmm... reviewers hated that, so we ditched it."

"Well... then you need a nuclear hand grenade..."

"Wouldn't people after a nuclear war be afraid of using such weapons?"

"But we already have Liam Neeson signed to give the voiceover for the grenade!"
Ace
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Offline Raven2001

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Yeah, I know you were waiting for a very nice sig, in which I was quoting some very famous scientist or philosopher... guess what?!? I wont indulge you...

Why, you ask? What, do I look like a Shivan to you?!?


Raven is a god.

 

Offline TrashMan

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hehe...looks promising...definately gonna keep my eye on this one :D
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Offline Ace

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My advice Trashman is to find a copy of Fallout 1 and 2... ermm... somewhere... *cough* online... *cough*

Play those.
Ace
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Offline TrashMan

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Did 2 months ago :D
Nobody dies as a virgin - the life ****s us all!

You're a wrongularity from which no right can escape!

 
Eh.....while it's not a fallout in the tradition of the isometric overheads of the past, it almost looks like it might be fun, especially since FPSRPGs are more or less my favorite genre anymore.  If only it wasn't Bethesda, I'd be interested.


But it's Bethesda, and I'm still pretty convinced they butcher anything they touch.  Mods for Obliv/Morrowind were popular mainly cause Bethesda couldn't make a decent game system any more then Hulk Hogan could wrestle his way out of a paper bag, and the fans felt obligated to fix it.

 

Offline Mefustae

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But it's Bethesda, and I'm still pretty convinced they butcher anything they touch.  Mods for Obliv/Morrowind were popular mainly cause Bethesda couldn't make a decent game system any more then Hulk Hogan could wrestle his way out of a paper bag, and the fans felt obligated to fix it.
Yes, which is why Oblivion got so many poor reviews and didn't sell very well at all.

:rolleyes:

 
Now now Mestufae, I know you're not an Idiot.  Do I REALLY need to start prefacing things that could ONLY be opinions with "In my opinion" around here?

Oblivions review were simply artifacts of time strapped reviewers not getting a chance to really review a game, and more then a few of the being way overly forgiving of the game's fundamental flaws, as well as the "WOW" visual factor that Bethesda has undeniably nailed down.   It's sales were an artifact of it's padded reviews and the simple faith in the modding community's ability to fix Bethesda's ****-ups the PC community has.

Really, can you look at Oblivion's leveled loot, leveled quest rewards, leveled enemies, then fight one bandit completely armed in glass armor and tell me this was a wonderful idea?  Can you look at Morrowind's stupidly abusable alchemy and tell me that was a well thought out plan?  Can you look at Star Trek: Legacy for the PC and tell me it wasn't an afterthought console port with little quality control?

I'm sorry if popularity disagrees, but I look at Bethesda and see a company that doesn't know **** about how to make a fun game, and can rely on their modding community enough that they never have to actually LEARN.

If I had even one Bethesda game I could say was quality out of the box, even post x zillion patches, that would be one thing.  But Morrowind was broken.  Oblivion was broken.  And not in little details either.  The breaks were in fundamental game mechanics.  No one could look at Oblivion's leveled everything system and say "This is an absolutely wonderful idea for an RPG".  And no one could look at Morrowind's alchemy, which lets you get your stat score to several BILLION (out of 100 max for a human) for several game centuries with a few hours work in the FIRST city in the game and not say "Houston, we have a problem."

I played Morrowind, and came to the very simply conclusion that Bethesda's quality control policy was "look at the graphics, ignore everything else" and have yet to see anything to convince me otherwise.  The fact that FO3's lead is a TTLG alumni makes it at least possible it won't be completely broken out of the box, but I'm not holding my breath.

And if I have to mod it to high holy hell and back to get a decent game out of it - like I and everyone else absolutely has to do with Oblivion and Morrowind - then why not just direct my efforts to Stalker, or Deus Ex, or UT2k7?
« Last Edit: June 23, 2007, 01:26:37 am by phatosealpha »

 

Offline Mefustae

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Who else's opinion is it going to be?

Of course it's your opinion, and I was shooting holes in your opinion as is the norm for an online forum of discussion. I'm sure you backed it up rather well with that rather lengthly explanation that I can't be stuffed reading, but the fact is that I don't really care how good Oblivion was, or whether or not Fallout 3 will be handled well by the folks over at Bethesda. I just saw an opportunity to make a snide remark, and I took it. It's how I get my jollies.

 
While I'm not going to disagree with you, phatoalpha, I might suggest a different example from Morrowind's host of flaws.  The Alchemy issue is a flaw in the system that a power-gamer can exploit, but such loopholes are going to exist in any system.  Sit a power-gamer down with any edition of any RPG system, and given time, he'll find something.

Morrowind's journal system is something that not only saps the fun from the game, but does so for everyone.  I've made four or five attempts to finish Morrowind, now, but haven't reached the central plot's conclusion.  Why?  The first four times, I decided to do some sidequests, and because the journal system fails so miserably at intuitively tracking quests, I lost the plot entirely.  The last time, I was doing just dandy at keeping track of the main quest, by avoiding nearly all side-quests (which really seems to sap the game's potential, but I would like to finish the damn thing), but when I took a break from the game for a couple months, I couldn't drop myself back into the plot straight away, again, because of the awful journal system.

I could gripe about the combat system being too simplistic as well, but everybody knows that.  You can't do a one-to-one port to PC, from a console, and have an intricate, yet intuitive combat system.  This is something else that concerns me about seeing Fallout 3 being designed both for consoles and with a real-time combat system.  Under a turn-based system, even if the console controls are a little clunky, the player would have time to cope with any difficulties inherent to using a game pad, versus a mouse and keyboard.  If the game was a PC-exclusive, the combat system could still retain some of its former detail, even in a real-time environment (given reasonable pacing), since so many controls are right at the player's fingertips.

Oh well....  I'll probably have a year's worth of buzz to read by the time I actually get Fallout 3, anyway, since it or Spore will likely require substantial hardware upgrades on my end.  May as well wait for Spore (now tenatively slated for '09) and pick both up at the same time, while simultaneously clearing my calandar for the next eighteen months.

 
Who else's opinion is it going to be?

Of course it's your opinion, and I was shooting holes in your opinion as is the norm for an online forum of discussion. I'm sure you backed it up rather well with that rather lengthly explanation that I can't be stuffed reading, but the fact is that I don't really care how good Oblivion was, or whether or not Fallout 3 will be handled well by the folks over at Bethesda. I just saw an opportunity to make a snide remark, and I took it. It's how I get my jollies.

Now that is a level of pure simple honesty I can appreciate wholeheartedly :).





Flames:  The example of alchemy was meant primarily as a fundamental loophool in a game mechanic that the game designer reasonably should have seen coming.  It's not so much about the player, as the guy coding the system.  Using character.int versus character.basestats.int (both of which must reasonably exist) is a pretty simple difference with huge effects on fundamental gameplay.  The problem I'm seeing is the guy at the C++ prompt isn't actually considering how different the effects the two have are, and that's just plain bad.  While I've now doubt Power Gamers can find holes in any system (and for the record, FO2 ranks #2 in stupid power gaming strats behind Morrowind in my book), the difference between in two is that in FO2, they had the choice of making an objective arbitrarily unreachable until a certain point in the game (the Power Armor Rush Trick).  The Morrowind guys had to choose between variables in a subroutine.   Maybe it's just cause I code for a living, but I look at the one and say "Data error" and the other as "coding error".   One is forgivable, if condemning.  The other is not.






Anyway, the real problem I have here is this.  I want to like FO3.  Like I said, FPSRPGs are my thing.  Stalker, DX, System Shock, even Dark Messiah of M&M.......but I don't trust Bethesda one bit (even with the guy I know kicks ass at the helm.)  And looking at Oblivion's reviews in the magazine's, I realize I can trust the magazines to give Bethesda a handjob whether or not the game sucks.  Online player reviews are about as accurate as a ouija board, so I'm screwed there too.  The super harsh NMA crowd will hate it even if it rocks because it's not exactly the same as fallouts 1 and 2.   The rest will be more random then a newegg hardware user review.

So what do I do?  If I buy it and it sucks.....Bethsoft already has my money, and now I'm just another ouija board giving negative online reviews.   If I don't, I keep my cash, but what if the TTLG guy at the helm manages to make it not suck?  Then I've saved 40 or 50 bucks which I can spend....well, actually which the wife will spend on god only knows what.

Damned if they do, Damned if they don't.

 

Offline TrashMan

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Oblivion was rushed, so naturally it had a few balance issues and is not as good as it could have been...but a bad game? C'mon.

Oblivion is a good game.. even moreso with a few good mods.

Regardless, the interview said that approaced Fallout3 from a whole different angle and designed everything from ground up (took nothing out of Elder Scrolls for granted). As said, there will be no scaled encounters, the AI is improved as well as NPC's...sounds promising.
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Offline diceman111

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And lets not forget you have a pip boy instead of some old dusty journal, makes all the difference



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Oh yeah, because a PipBoy that doesn't track your quests or organize entries in any kind of logical scheme is so much more rockin' awesome than a journal that doesn't track your quests or organize entries in any kind of logical scheme.

  

Offline brozozo

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Oh yeah, because a PipBoy that doesn't track your quests or organize entries in any kind of logical scheme is so much more rockin' awesome than a journal that doesn't track your quests or organize entries in any kind of logical scheme.

wha?

The Pipboy tracked quests just fine and holovids (the closest equivalent to journal entries in Fallout, I suppose) just fine.

 
It was a needless jab at Bethesda's past work, not a needless jab at the previous Fallout titles.

Though, as I recall, the old PipBoy had a fairly nonsensical way of tracking quests according to the location where you received the quest.  A lot of quests took place in only one area anyway, so it wasn't that big a deal, and it was certainly better than the nothing that Morrowind offered.

 

Offline Ace

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But it's Bethesda, and I'm still pretty convinced they butcher anything they touch.  Mods for Obliv/Morrowind were popular mainly cause Bethesda couldn't make a decent game system any more then Hulk Hogan could wrestle his way out of a paper bag, and the fans felt obligated to fix it.

Well Oblivion and Morrowind are at least decent games overall despite their flaws... but what you just said does hold true to Bethesda's latest opus:
Star Trek Legacy.

The thing is though that I don't trust the comments on the AI considering similar promises made with Oblivion and "Radiant AI" being less flexible than scripting behavior in NWN2.

Similarly it sounds like the dialog system is going to be closer to Oblivion than Fallout. Which does seem to go against 'learning from Oblivion and not taking things for granted' considering that the dialog system in Oblivion was weak compared to other RPGs.

Now I do have some hope that the Looking Glass peep in charge may pull off a miracle. The art direction seems to be close to what I'd do for a first person Fallout game. The problem is, as I have joked, what seem to be mandates from on-high from people who happen to think that players like things such as the 'persuasion minigame' and shallow plotlines.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2007, 01:14:52 pm by Ace »
Ace
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Offline Raven2001

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Agreed on all of that, however just one minor correction:

Star Trek Legacy was only published, not developed, by Bethesda. So I dont think we should draw conclusions based on that... erm... game :P
Yeah, I know you were waiting for a very nice sig, in which I was quoting some very famous scientist or philosopher... guess what?!? I wont indulge you...

Why, you ask? What, do I look like a Shivan to you?!?


Raven is a god.