[headdie]

Real men always save manually.

anyone remember level codes?

[Klaustrophobia]

man i suck at this.

[MP-Ryan]

man i suck at this.

I came to that very conclusion about a week and a half ago.  Turn-based games were never my strong point, and this one has been progressively kicking my ass.

[BloodEagle]

Real men always save manually.

anyone remember level codes?

hMT?8A?,INwbg3AU 4IUx0PhA

[X3N0-Life-Form]

man i suck at this.

I came to that very conclusion about a week and a half ago.  Turn-based games were never my strong point, and this one has been progressively kicking my ass.

Fallout games also tended to have a rather tough early game, especially for new players who don't know which skills and stats are more useful than others. You would basically get dumped into the wasteland with a disturbingly high amount of *nothing*, making random encounters and quests that requires killing unforgiving.
Once you hit lvl 6 or 7 however, things are usually starting to get fun.

[headdie]

Real men always save manually.

anyone remember level codes?

hMT?8A?,INwbg3AU 4IUx0PhA

[Mongoose]

That's the sort of thing that worries me about playing a game like Fallout today...people who loved them back then will probably shrug off a lot of stuff as, "These were games for real gamers," but I'd look at the same elements and think, "Man, there were some truly awful trends in game design back then, and thank God we've largely moved past them."  I've run into similar sentiments during my current first-time playthrough of Final Fantasy VI.  I don't mind games being challenging, but when the fundamental mechanics are completely obfuscated without using an external guide or experimenting for hours, and the gameplay actively punishes the player for little reason, I have some issues.

[BloodEagle]

That's the sort of thing that worries me about playing a game like Fallout today...people who loved them back then will probably shrug off a lot of stuff as, "These were games for real gamers," but I'd look at the same elements and think, "Man, there were some truly awful trends in game design back then, and thank God we've largely moved past them."  I've run into similar sentiments during my current first-time playthrough of Final Fantasy VI.  I don't mind games being challenging, but when the fundamental mechanics are completely obfuscated without using an external guide or experimenting for hours, and the gameplay actively punishes the player for little reason, I have some issues.

I don't recall Fallout doing either of those. 0.o

[Mongoose]

I don't have personal experience, but X3N0's post seemed to suggest that it's the sort of game where getting started is a real bear unless you're checking out GameFAQs or go through some major trial-and-error.  Maybe it's not quite so bad, though.

[BloodEagle]

I don't have personal experience, but X3N0's post seemed to suggest that it's the sort of game where getting started is a real bear unless you're checking out GameFAQs or go through some major trial-and-error.  Maybe it's not quite so bad, though.

Having to learn a game is not necessarily bad design.  Just sayin'.

[Scotty]

I don't have personal experience, but X3N0's post seemed to suggest that it's the sort of game where getting started is a real bear unless you're checking out GameFAQs or go through some major trial-and-error.  Maybe it's not quite so bad, though.

Having to learn a game is not necessarily bad design.  Just sayin'.

Having to learn a game through trial and error because it tells you nothing and gives you no opportunity to learn anything certainly qualifies though.  In Fallout, the only way to learn what works and what doesn't is to die repeatedly or look it up somewhere else.  That's not good game design.

Fortunately, I think the quality of the content gets past that, but I won't sugarcoat it and say that the beginning of the game is user friendly.

[General Battuta]

Games used to have manuals which you'd pore over a bit before playing.

[Scotty]

Games you get on Steam don't come with manuals to pore over.

[General Battuta]

Games you get on Steam don't come with manuals to pore over.

What does that have to do with anything? A, Fallout was not designed with Steam in mind, and B, many Steam cames actually do come with manuals; right click and you'll see a 'view player manual' option.

Nonsensical and factually incorrect.

[Scotty]

Fallout is not one of the games that comes with a manual.  Nor does it come with anything besides the game itself.

Fallout was also apparently designed without any consideration as to whether the manual would be able to stay with the game, because it offers no equivalent, no tutorial, and in-game help whatsoever, regardless of any want the player might have for it.  I'm not about to say that it's a bad game because of it.  Quite the opposite, it's a very good game.

I just happen to think that the lack of any kind of tutorial or help of any kind whatsoever aside from the manual that is easily lost/misplaced/not present if you buy it second hand is a bad design characteristic and shouldn't be considered anything but.

[headdie]

Fallout is not one of the games that comes with a manual.  Nor does it come with anything besides the game itself.

Fallout was also apparently designed without any consideration as to whether the manual would be able to stay with the game, because it offers no equivalent, no tutorial, and in-game help whatsoever, regardless of any want the player might have for it.  I'm not about to say that it's a bad game because of it.  Quite the opposite, it's a very good game.

I just happen to think that the lack of any kind of tutorial or help of any kind whatsoever aside from the manual that is easily lost/misplaced/not present if you buy it second hand is a bad design characteristic and shouldn't be considered anything but.

What else did you read in the 10+ minutes it took to install a game?  And i dont know about you but i didnt loose that many manuals back in the day, most of the time you needed them for a CD key or "what is the 3rd word on the 5th page questions" to validate your copy, so you looked after them.

The rage now is over the inconvenience of a game not taking into account an evolved retail model that was impossible 14 years ago when the game was released is irrelevant to the business model of the time that a game had about 2-5 year life expectancy before everyone moved on.

[Mongoose]

Games used to have manuals which you'd pore over a bit before playing.

Of course, and I nearly wore out the manuals for games like Descent from reading them so much.  I'm sure the original Fallout had a lovely thick physical manual as well.  Whether or not the Steam copy happens to have manual access doesn't really affect my point either way, as I'd assert that the overall concept of needing to peruse a manual before playing a game is an outdated one...not just because the manual might get separated from the game, but mostly because it's an immediate immersion-killer, an up-front barrier to entry that could be handled much more elegantly by in-game means.  It reminds me of those times when you're trying to play a new board game and have to spend a good 10 or 15 minutes poring through the instruction sheet to figure out how the hell to play it...sometimes, by the end, the game barely seems worth playing anymore.

More importantly, though, there are often critical portions of games that manuals just wouldn't cover.  Sure, they'll go through how the menus work, and all of the various controls and functions, and maybe some general strategies and tips, but they're not going to clue you in on some of the more involved stuff.  I know a bit about Fallout, enough to know that how you distribute your initial stats greatly affects how the game unfolds, and that not putting enough towards intelligence can be a real pain in the ass.  That's probably something a manual wouldn't get into, so you'd either have to figure it out the hard way by creating a dumb-as-a-log character, or have someone else tell you as much.  Maybe the prime example I've ever heard about is from recent entries in the Pokemon series, where there's apparently this whole crazy system of bonuses and statistics that's almost completely hidden and never explicitly referenced in-game.  Obviously that's an extreme case, but I've definitely played multiple games over my life that made me fall victim to, as TV Tropes would put it, Guide Dang It moments.

[z64555]

I just happen to think that the lack of any kind of tutorial or help of any kind whatsoever aside from the manual that is easily lost/misplaced/not present if you buy it second hand is a bad design characteristic and shouldn't be considered anything but.

On the Contrare, I think it could be considered as an asset. The lack of a in-depth manual or tutorial helps preset the mood of the Fallout character: You have barely an idea what's going on, and you have absolutely no experience with the "outside" before.

Thus, while your playing the game for the first time, you see the Fallout universe in the perspective as your rather noob character, giving an element of immersion of its own.

BTW, the first Fallout gave the Diplomat character a fighting chance, while Fallout 2 made the Tank character the only real chance of surviving combat past the Den. I have yet to complete Fallout 2 with a stock character.

Oh, how many of you remember your random encounters? I remember the stealth-boy vs. T-Rex in Fallout 1 and The Bridge of Death in Fallout 2.

[Scotty]

I just happen to think that the lack of any kind of tutorial or help of any kind whatsoever aside from the manual that is easily lost/misplaced/not present if you buy it second hand is a bad design characteristic and shouldn't be considered anything but.

On the Contrare, I think it could be considered as an asset. The lack of a in-depth manual or tutorial helps preset the mood of the Fallout character: You have barely an idea what's going on, and you have absolutely no experience with the "outside" before.

Thus, while your playing the game for the first time, you see the Fallout universe in the perspective as your rather noob character, giving an element of immersion of its own.

Similarly, when you die less than fifty meters outside your Vault because the Random Event maker decided you need to fight a pack of mole rats before you get anything more substantial than a 10 mm pistol, you die.  Which immediately kills all immersion as you either recreate a character because you've been playing for ~15 minutes or you navigate the save menu because you've died that way already.

[z64555]

Well, it's a game. If things aren't going your way, your either obviously not doing something right or have the difficulty too hard.

Plus, it goes to show that running away and screaming like a little girl is not always an option in the wasteland. It's Plan B.