Aristes

Wow, now I'm curious to know who flamed whom. As regards the point of the vignettes, I don't recall an argument from anyone in this thread that we should remove all the text from the game. Likewise, I'm not claiming that other folks want a text only adventure game. If we can keep from trying to take every argument to the extreme, we can probably have a proper discussion. My point, the condensed version: A solid story conveyed through text (dialogue or narrative) is necessary to further the plot. I have never advocated taking the text completely out of the equation just as folks who don't like the vignettes want to remove all graphics from the game. However, the use of vignettes are an excellent way to introduce broad ideas and grant the player an opportunity to use his imagination dwelling on it. "A gymnast in zero gravity has the ultimate freedom of movement but to what ends(?), while a gymnast constrained to a floor can use it as a launching point for some incredible leaps of logic & imagination." "A gymnast shackled to the floor has absolutely no freedom, while a gymnast constrained only by gravity can use it as a launching point for some incredible leaps of logic and imagination." Remember, the argument isn't whether to have a story in the game. The argument is whether props unattended by text can add to the game. There isn't much of an argument there. No game I've played, with the exception of text adventures, has ever relied on text to convey every single idea anyhow. ...And, geez, I'm a big fan of increasing the text and fleshing out the story with better dialogue.

I would expect Obsidian to use prop placement in NV, whether we call it 'environmental story-telling' or 'atmospheric enhancement.' As regards story-telling through dialogue and some narration, I'd like to see more, but I also see prop placement as a positive thing. I don't want the game to read like a book. I think the design team will have to be able to count on the imagination of the player somewhere along the line. Games (and even books, movies, etc.) are a cooperative effort between the person making the game and the person playing it. It will always fall on the player to use some imagination in order to complete the work. If you've established the story well enough, then judicious use of prop placement will undoubtedly encourage the player to invest more in the partnership. In fact, the player already uses props from the environment to discern part of the story, right? I mean, the fact that he's in a vault is apparent from the dialogue, sure. ...But imagine the dialogue is missing. The deck, bulkhead, and overhead are all smooth metal and clean. The technology is clearly advanced. The player and NPCs wear jumpsuits all made from the same material and sporting the same number. These props all help the player feel like part of the story. On the other hand, text limits imagination. When the design team uses text, in any way, they've effectively defined something. The result is that the player's imagination can no longer roam free. Now there is no question as to the nature of the item and the player's imagination is now confined to what that item does in the story. For example, if the player had no text, he might believe that the areas he sees in the vault might be part of a vault, but he might as easily imagine that he's seeing the deck of a ship or even some sort of spacecraft. Explicitly telling the player that it's a vault cuts off further speculation about the environment. Using props is a great way to empower the player. It adds unresolved mystery to the game and gives the player a lot of room to let his imagination wander. Since it's not part of any specific story, the designer doesn't even take a hit for the fact that the mystery remains unresolved. Finally, the fact that the player is exercising his imagination encourages him to use his imagination to help complete the text-based story. Now, I don't think these environmental vignettes can take the place of the actual story itself. I also agree that the area where FO3 could use the most improvement is in the story-telling and, like twinkie says, prop placement cannot replace a compelling plot. Enhance it? Sure. Replace it? No. Let the player's imagination roam, but keep it on a leash. Reading over this, it sounds more didactic than I had intended.

I certainly hope so. Once I hear the controls are bad, I usually don't bother looking into the product further. Of course, that depends on the source of the gripe. The more reliable or more often the gripe, the faster my interest fades. I like the idea behind the game, last I heard. Something along the lines of Half-Life in that the PC isn't some highly trained assassin or GI or the like.

I'm curious about the controls. Will the PC controls be nerfed? ...Or will the controls be as sharp and responsive as a native PC FPS? I'd like to get this game, but one hint that the controls are going to be made intentionally sluggish and I'll have to visit my money upon someone else.

I don't know. It might be simple enough to make it inaccessible without doing anything artificial. The PC simply might not have the means to get to some outlying areas until later in the game. That could be in the form of better equipment, a larger source of transportable water, better radiation gear, or any number of things. Also, I don't think it's all that unreasonable to use some events to open up areas. For example, the PC is more than welcome to try to make it to Area 51, but will simply die of radiation poisoning before he reaches it. Somewhere along the line, he gets access to rad-x and rad away. Using these, he can reach Area 51 with some difficulty. Later, he might get a radation suit, which is easier but makes for tough fights. Still later, he gets power armor with rad resistance. That makes it pretty easy. Finally, he gets access to transportation ala the car in FO2. Then it's a quick drive to get there. Now, I don't think making areas so permeated by radiation (or heat or a lot of other things) that the PC cannot traverse them is terrible. There are some places that we cannot go in real life for a variety of reasons. The PC in Fallout 3 cannot swim across the Atlantic, for instance, to have tea with Queen Elizabeth II, the ghoul. That's why natural barriers are perfectly legit in my book. Clever and setting appropriate ways to open these areas to the PC are just as legitimate as long as they are well designed.

Death Valley is an amazing place. The whole area would be a great barrier, but I think it would be nice if we could see some stuff on the edge of the place. It has some unique plants and what not. Anyhow, I'm just wondering if they can include all of this stuff. For me, Area 51 would be awesome. Yucca Mountain is close enough to Area 51 to be part of that experience or just another place that happens to be relatively nearby. I think the map should not be the classic box shape. instead, and this is something mkreku said earlier, account for the natural boundaries. That way, it can go south and east to include Lake Mead and Valley of Fire, and then west and north to include Red Rock, some of the northern mountains, Area 51, and Yucca (truly a sore spot with Nevadans!). That might make it easier to fudge the scale a bit and still include some prominent locations. It depends on what can be done with the map. Area 51 is way the hell off from Las Vegas, as is Death Valley. It's at least a few days walk under the best of conditions, and that assumes a healthy PC with good stamina and a lot of endurance, not to mention supplies. The idea the PC would just kind of wander there is entirely unrealistic, although Fallout has never been known for its uber realism.

I'm impressed, Gizmo. Good job, bro. I like my super mutants flat headed also. And dead.

I imagine that I'll be getting this game eventually.

I've been an unabashed FO3 fan since the first time I played game (and went without sleep that night as I plundered the game like a drunken pirate). I don't know if that makes a victory for Beth, but if my approval counts as a victory, they're a winner. I disagree about food and water. I think it can be done without making it overburdening. I agree, however, that the design should err on the side of making it less onerous on the player. If it can be done in such a way that it adds to the complexity of the game but does not become frustratingly burdensome, then they should do it.

ugh, Gorth! Wailing Virgins. You're killing me, bro. Anyhow, I'm just finished with the beast in the Witcher. Damned thing took me five tries. On the fifth try, I must have stunned with my ard sign. I tried knocking it back, but then I killed it in a single shot. I'm not complaining. The fact that they force you to go through all of the dialogue then make you skip the cut scene afterwards did not make me a happy camper, but I think the game is quite well done. I'm having a lot of fun.

Another place I've worked.... the Flamingo Hilton. I'm really excited about the Vegas Location. Of course, I missed the fifties and early sixties, so if they go completely retro I won't have quite the same frame of reference, but the other stuff will be there. One thing about Las Vegas in the 70s was how much desert you still found interspersed in the city. I imagine it would have been far more in the 50s. I don't know if it's all that important from a design decision standpoint, but I thought it was cool to walk home from school through the desert as a child. I think having a diverse color pallette for the sand is important. Folks who've never been to the desert sometimes think that all the sand is more or less one color, which isn't true. It not only has a range of color, but sunrise and sunset extend that range quite a bit. I thought that Fallout 3 did a good job with envisioning a wasteland, but I don't think everything need be quite so drab. The desert, as desolate as it can be, and godawful hot, is also quite beautiful. Likewise, as ugly as the wasteland can be, let it shine from time to time. Water should be far more important in New Vagas. Yeah. Yeah. I get the irony. Still, if you don't get enough to drink, you're going to die. While I don't think it needs to be completely over the top, forcing the players to be judicious in food and water consumption could be a good thing, not only for the story but also for gameplay. If requiring water and food on a regular basis is simply out of the question, dramatically lower the number of stimpaks and reduce the amount of food on hand for a good portion of the game. Aram, amongst others, has been quite vociferous on this. One of my biggest complaints about FO3, and I've heard others make the same complaints in these threads, is that established communities who have risen beyond basic subsistence, don't clean their areas. Now, maybe Bethesda saw the survivors as kind of living in an urban ghetto or something. I don't know. ...But places like rivet city, with a well established guard running as a quasi-military organization would never permit the amount of crap scattered on the deck and leaning on the bulkhead. Individual rooms? Sure. The entire damned ship? Ridiculous. Anything other than raider camps or temporary dwellings should show more care. Not all places will be spotlessly clean. A place like Megaton could never be spotlessly clean, although they would have kept it largely free of debris. That Megaton, sitting basically out in the middle of no-where and open to the elements, should be in better shape than Rivet City is downright strange.

I've worked in several of the casinos over in Las Vegas, including the Treasure Island, the Wynn, Caesar's Palace, the Monte Carlo, and the Venetian. I'm really curious to see what they do. Hey, I want plenty of "lulz." I don't even mind if it comes close to Fallout 2, which is my fave. I just want a break from the lulz from time to time. Lulz are good. Lulz are my friend. Give me lulz in good measure and I'm happy.

Isn't calling it Colbert Flue the same as calling it Swine Flue anyhow?

That made me laugh, Jaesun. You big meanie. I like the idea of hitting Area 51 also. I hope we stay away from going too hog wild on the corny humor. I like it, and I want it, but I don't want it every single minute of the game.

I think you did not understand my original point. I think that some of the founding fathers were quite happy to legislate a specific single personal morality. That is, in the form of religion, or some other standard. Some of the founding fathers did not view legislated morality in a positive light, and some of them, Jefferson for example, did not believe that morality was a constant. He believed that each generation could change the laws at will. He was not an ardent admirer of the Constitution in the first place. He was disappointed that the convention had not merely tidied up the Articles of Confederation and reaffirmed them. Hell, he didn't even believe in debts between generations. Some of that attitude derived from the fact that he lived under crushing debt much of his life, largely do to his spending habits. Murder is immoral. It is also destructive to society. There is a clearly logical reason to criminalize murder. Homosexuality? Less so. ...And there were plenty of people who had a variety of views as regarded personal morals as something separate from laws. In the example above, Jefferson was an admirer of anarchy. He believed in an innate sense of human morality. He believe laws were necessary only as the population increased. Also, this fight between atheism and religiosity is not something new. The French Revolution raged in Europe very soon after the Constitution made its way to ratification. Many of the French Revolutionaries were atheists and found a sympathetic voice in American Republicans. The notion of doing something for moral reasons was simply not a big concern, or even discarded out of hand. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the early Americans were a diverse group and that we can't simply say that early Americans held one view or another. It's kind of like the idea of "Early Christians." There was a lot of variety among the early Christians, and so you can make a claim about them, and it will be true, but it will probably not be universally true. Early Christians were human and believed in Christ. Otherwise, all bets are probably off. If we're going to move the discussion to morality, and I'm guilty of helping to move it there, then we should probably define our terms. ...But the idea taking the time to adequately define my arguments makes me cringe. haha

Depends on what you mean about actual examples. In terms of removing religious imperatives from becoming law, I have plenty of examples. In terms of substitution a single set of personal morality, I think the evidence overwhelmingly supports this claim, and not only because of the previously mentioned separation of church and state. Oh, I don't know. Jefferson? I mean, I've read a little bit about these guys, and a little bit of it in their own words, but I guess Jefferson would be a good place to start. EDIT: Just a quick edit. I think a lot of folks would be surprised at some of the attitudes that many of our founding fathers held. Adams wrote that the title of senator might someday need to be hereditary. He also stated that there was nothing inherently and diametrically opposed between republican government and a monarchy, from which he was pilloried, and wrongly I believe, as a monarchist the latter half of his life and after his death. Jefferson believed morality is inherent in the human individual and that, on a small scale, anarchy was perfectly legitimate. Even in a larger scale, he believed that morality, as passed down from generation to generation, was not necessary. Washington was quite the pragmatist in his views of human morality and how it governed individual actions.

I agree with you, Wrath, that social conservatives make up a strong constituency group within the GOP. However, just because it happened that way doesn't mean it was preordained. Politics makes for strange bedfellows and we are currently in bed with social conservatives because of political tactics Enoch has already cited. It need not have gone that way. However, since the fiscal convervatives used socially conservative tactics to dislodge southern Democrats, we've got got a platform that values an anti-abortion stance more than a responsible spending and taxation stance. As regards the orginal intent of the constitution, we had started to move away from personal morals simply by providing protection and freedom for religion. ...And you simply have to be careful in making broad statements about the founding fathers. After all, there were a lot of competing views in the late colonial/early republic. There were plenty of people, some of them quite prominent, who would have disagreed with the idea of imposing a single set of personal morality on the citizens. Legislation should be the means by which we balance personal freedom on one hand and the establishment and maintainence of a well ordered society on the other. Abortion laws and laws regarding homosexual activities cause more disturbance in society than the ills they seek to address.

Yeah, I think it depends the context of the discussion. I've often heard of written scenes as "cinematic," so you're not the only one breaking from the cut-scene meaning. :D

This is actually what I meant. The way the story unfolded within the action is just awesome. ...And it told a story without spoken dialogue. It felt something like Alien. Really, conveying a lot through less text is a good thing. I mean, PST is still my fave, but there was still room to cut text. Some characters are more verbose than others, sure. (I'm one of them! hehe) Anyhow, that tutorial with the Ebon Hawk is probably my favorite of any game.

Hey, GD, I'm praying for you bro. Or sending out positive vibes or whatever works best. Mostly, just wishing you best.

I thought the intro to Fallout 3 was quite clever. ...And I mean that as the good sort of clever, not the "you're just making points in an argument" clever. The child's ABC book made me chuckle the first time I saw it. I will own that replaying the sequence was frustrating for me, but mostly because I couldn't skip certain parts. I think it would have been okay to force the player to go through the intro the first time but skip it (or truncate it in some way) on subsequent starts. As a fan of the series, I thought they did a great job with the Fallout feel, even though the similarities between Oblivion and Fallout 3 were apparent to me immediately. Now, on Bethesda's part, they probably figured that most folks wouldn't be bothered too terribly much on repeating the intro. For me, that's true. I was frustrated by it because I tend to be impatient, but I wasn't excessively angry. I just clicked through the dialogue. However, it's not like there weren't parts of either 1 or 2 where I didn't click through the dialogue because I'd memorized it. Mostly, I think comparisons between Fallout 1/2 and Fallout 3 become less relevant as time passes. Beth's already hardened their hearts to hardcore fans of the first two games. I don't like draconian rules on a message board, but I can at least understand the way Bethesda approached the fan base. Hell, they probably decided to throw over the hardcore fans as too volatile before they even purchased the rights. As someone who enjoyed Fallout 2 more than Fallout 1, I have to say that it's kind of refreshing that the Fallout 1 fans have a new target for their ire. haha The upshot is, I think folks who argue from a Fallout 1/2 perspective are marginalizing themselves somewhat, although I have hopes that like... well some poster above... said about the success of Fallout 3 leading to different games from the franchise which could include an isometric game with turn based combat. After all, that what I want also. Obsidian has proved to be quite good at intros, so I have high hopes for NV. In fact, I think the KotOR 2 intro is a classic.

Enoch is talking about the 2000 election, doofus. Since Obama was not a candidate in 2000, nor was he a candidate in 2004, I think he must be talking about Nader. Makes a lot more sense to me, at least. ...And the Republican party isn't bad because it has conservative values. At least, no more so than the Democratic party for having liberal values. The problem with the Republican party is that it has too many shifty characters, and it's conservative values are mostly fixated on the bedroom rather than the bank account side. To be fair, the Democrats have shifty characters, but that is not nearly as important to me. Pop's glib, leftist crack about a latter day McGovern is not really all that insightful. After all, the party must either restructure in some sense or wait out for the climate to change. Since most sweeping changes come to be characterized by the guy who leads the charge, I'm sure we'll have some convenient name to put on it. On the other hand, if the Republicans just wait out the current storm, and the Democrats prove to be the party of political profiteering, then we could end up in the status quo again. As a republican, I don't like that. We're throwing out social conservatism as if it's bad. I don't think being socially conservative is bad, per se. If you don't believe abortion is good, then you should advise friends not to take that option. If you don't believe in it, don't do it. If you think homosexuality is bad, don't engage in it. However, my problem with social conservatism as part of a national party platform is twofold. First of all, whether I disagree with something like, say, abortion, I don't agree with making it a matter of national policy. Second of all, and this dovetails into the first point, by making social issues a matter of policy, we're detracting from matters that are far more important to me personally. It's a screwy world where socialists in the United States are the champions of personal freedom whereas Republicans are the gatekeepers of personal morality. I don't want to stand guard at gates of morality. Morality is a personal decision, and it is the source of infinite and intricate argument. It is particularly ill-suited for the sort of legislate and forget politics necessary to run a large western democracy. Nevertheless, here we are, wondering if the Christian right will once against ingrain into the public that fiscal conservatism goes hand in hand with social repression. Hey, I'm a Christian too, and I want no part of that. You're more likely to be accepted in the Republican party right now if you have strong socially conservative credentials than strong fiscally conservative credentials. I am absolutely convinced that the fiscal conservative argument has suffered greatly because of this. So neither party has an ounce of fiscal discipline. It's not that I wouldn't leave the Republican party. It's that I have no where to go. However, I'm still hopeful. I don't believe that this election, or any other single election, will crush the ideals I personally hold most important. ...And, in true GOP fashion, I'm still hopeful for the future.

Witcher Enchanced

I don't think Obsidian wants to confine the sandbox with a "linear" story. I don't know what they think over there at Obsidian, but I'd like to be a fly on the wall. My guess is that there are a lot of folks jonsin' to do a real sandbox game, and they have a strong voice in the company. After all, doesn't SoZ have a sort of sandbox feel to it? It seems they wanted to have a strong story, but a lot of room for the player to explore and do their own thing. That said, I just didn't want to buy another NWN game, so I passed on SoZ. I still have the feeling that, while I'm sure Bethesda sees writing as an Obsidian strong point, FO:NV is going to be a sandbox game just like the previous title. Really, just like the franchise altogether.

I'm currently downloading The Witcher on steam as we speak...er... type.