Tagaziel

I'd like to see Avellone's concept (two adventuring parties) come into play, I hate the "stereotypical bad guy wants to conquer the world" plot.

Finishing Iron Storm. The setting, atmosphere and characters are absolutely mind-blowing awesome. Sadly, the gameplay is not quite as spectacular. I resorted to a walkthrough, since I don't want to waste my time with confusing layouts any longer.

People arguing about the game they develop is never wrong.

Reducing the number of key events to 5-6 instead of 70 and filling the space with sidequests counts as non-linear because...? Or that you can choose in which order to complete the objectives, or go for the Super Muties from the start? Or do you mean the ability to ignore it completely? The quests and events themselves won't change, despite what you do (except the thing with the water merchants I guess) in game. Note: I mean these questions seriously, it's 1:35 AM here, and my brain refuses to work overtime. There are only two key events in the game - blowing up the Cathedral and Mariposa, both of which can be accomplished in at least two ways. You're blind if you can't see the non-linearity.

Play through Fo1 again.

I love MCA.

I can't accept how stupid the father character in Fo3 is. I might've been spoiled by KotOR2 and our Mom, err, Kreia.

It isn't characteristic for Fallout to only makes sense superficially. Fallout is supposed to make sense within the context of its gameworld, ZAX in the Glow makes sense because he's cutting-edge technology, likely shielded against an EMP blast, with its own personal power source (remember, a T-51b can carry fuel reserves for 100 years) and limited self-repair capability. It made sense when you thought about it. An ad-sponsored radio station in a post-nuclear world is not feasible. There is no point - most people don't have a working radio, since there'd be no point in having one, limiting the listener base severely, and thus the impact an ad might have. Not to mention that the resources required for maintaining a radio station can be put to better use through, say, trade caravans that actually bring people the goods, instead of just telling them "believe us, we have the goods". Instead of the radio, this should be applied to people you meet and their reactions. I'm not completely against the idea of a radio. It'd be feasible in a settlement where someone was able to hook up speakers to a jukebox, patch a microphone into the set and make a makeshift radio station that doubles as a PA system and alarm. To be honest, it'd be great to see settlements have their own radio stations, complimenting the town's atmosphere.

I never understood the family photo part. I hate the Father character. Badly written, badly planned, couple that with some atrocious plot devices and you get... a bad character. It seems Beth tried to make him likeable, to have the player bond with him... but to me, all they achieved is limitless hatred for the character. Especially the sequence with Autumn. God dammit, I pictured my character banging his fists against the glass, screaming "Don't do it you retard!" at the Dad. If it was possible, I'd shoot Li in the face afterwards and wait for the Enclave to pick me up. Because, frankly, Autumn was a good guy.

The ending narration was such a far cry from the original Fallouts that I felt sorry for Mr Perlman.

A radio station doesn't fit. All the resources required to run it, namely power to sustain a continuous broadcast that can be clearly received by PIPs, spare parts to maintain the machines, defenses against the wasteland and disgruntled listeners, food and water to sustain the crew are, in essence, wasted on something that's practically useless. The people of the wasteland need food, water, guns and shelter, not a howling retard most won't even be able to receive. Feedback on your deeds is better shown in other ways, take Obs' KOTOR2 for example. Your crewmembers, for instance, react to changes in your alignment, your deeds, choices, time spent with other crewmembers and they do it perfectly. People in the world also react to your actions, in various ways, not just a single pre-programmed one. And while there is no radio in the game, not once did I feel that my choices are meaningless. Which, by the way, was the case in Fo3. Despite that retards howling and screaming on the radio, I never really felt that I was making any kind of impact on the world.

Simple way to include music in Fo:NV: your PIP-Boy (or whatever thingamajig Obsidian decides to use as your PIP) can store music clips, comes with a few in the beginning and you can expand the collection with holotapes you find, files you download, records you take (tribal musicians for instance). Elegant, simple, consistent with the setting. And gives a tasty slice for all collector freaks.

Except a radio station makes no sense in the post-nuclear wasteland.

Gameplay-wise, I'd like to see it as one of those rare weapons that you treasure and use only in the most extreme of circumstances. Yes, a bit like the Fatman, but without the silliness of being a nuclear catapult.

Since FO:NV will most likely be a FPP game (hey, I can dream, can't I?), I'd love to see ironsights in the game (shouldn't it be a case of merely adjusting the position of the model or even making a faux scope that pops into place when the RMB is hit?), with your skill with that particular weapon affecting how much the weapon wobbles and how much you have to compensate for it, reload times, how fast your weapon breaks down (since the better you are, the more you know how to treat your gun right, skills in Fo1/2 include knowledge of proper maintenance of the weapons, after all) and running speed (since it's a wee bit harder to run with a big slab of junk in your sweaty palms). As for the ballistics model, Fallout: Compendium author, Dubby, was working on formulas for damage calculation in Fo3 that are based on real-life physics and include factors like penetration, armour thickness and type etc., rectifying the "10mm Pistol penetrates Power Armour always" problem Fo3 suffered from. I wouldn't mind for them to be universally deadly weapons, to be honest. A rocket launcher (plz bring back Rockwell's BigBazooka) is damn effective, as you mentioned, and it should be. It'll make going up against enemies armed with them a challenge, a welcome break from shooting people in the face. It's fun (and deadly) in the F3: Compendium, where one well placed explosive rocket is enough to splatter even a power armour toting foe all over the area. A bit of a miniboss approach.

And isn't it even clunkier to see your guns magically deal more damage as you sink points into a skill? Deus Ex nailed the skill system. And it wasn't even an RPG.

Fenster means Window in German.

He makes all of our stained glass windows. I now imagined Obsidian as a monastery full of scribes hunched over parchments, writing pieces of code and dialogues under the careful guidance of the Whipmaster. Sounds kinky.

Twitter is a publically available service, so it's stalking only in some obscure part of your brain, Stabilis.

http://twitter.com/jesawyer Latest Fallout-related: "balancing weapons, one of my favorite activities." and "In the future, the Mojave Desert is filled with hundreds of poorly placed satellite dishes and debug objects." Stop whining, start researching.

Main reason is propably the gag order from Bethie's PR. You know, hype machine etc. Personally, I'm sickened by such methods.

It's more of the devs overestimating the players' desire to use the Tell-Me-About. Days like those, I wish there was a wiki-dialogue segment in Fo, just like the one in Morrowind (which was good for Tell-Me-Abouts).

Just completed it. It's crazy, in a very, very good way.

Kreia = Arren Kae MCA commented, when asked about it, that it's a good catch.