Gizmo

I have a question about lockpicking...If the PC has a given percentage/proficiency at lock picking, shouldn't that be the chance that the PC has to pick a given lock (plus or minus difficulty penalties for the complexity of the lock)? *Side note: Fallout 3 seems to use the skill as a threshold that denies [or allows] you to play the lockpick minigame (which I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I always just move the pick to the top left and twist it open ~is there a point to it?) Personally I could do without it, and would really like to be able to disable it from the game as an option ~reverting to a more sensible pick chance based on the skill you've set for the PC. Fallout 3 seems to use many of the PC's skills to attenuate the player's own... and IMO that's counterproductive and kind of defeats the point. **2nd side note: Fallout 3's perks seem to be whatever they think might be cool; While Fallout's perks seemed to be what they thought might be useful... I remember Empathy's color coding the responses (hinting with color, and not blatantly labeling choices as good/bad), and Awareness' increased detail in descriptions... Its terrible that FO3 lists an accurate health bar for every opponent ~perhaps that could be part of the awareness perk instead of standard. ( I never used the awareness perk myself... preferring the regular descriptions as a gauge.) ~Never played with "Bloody mess" either, as the criticals lose all their novelty if seen every single time.

I had fun with that one. ~Also I really appreciated the HD quality downloadable cutscene replacement videos for Kotor2. (Are they still available online?) Heh... Am I the only one that used the force powers to charm the lightsabers in the final battle?

Sure it was ~in a way. The weird stuff was to break up the oppressiveness and instill a sence of "anything can happen ~out there in the undiscovered watses... (IE. Outside of town)". Fallout had strange kooky aspects, but they fit the setting. An example of what does not fit a given setting, is Gandalf in Helm's Deep, exhausting his spells on the orcs and resorting to an AK-47 pulled out from the folds of his robe ~that breaks suspension of disbelief... Supermutants in Fallout do not ~even Fire Gekkos do not (but they push it close ). Fallout was not a free for all 50's carnival hour where anything goes and folks get up after a nuclear blast. Vampires don't fit the setting and break suspension of disbelief for example, as does any essential NPC. This new perk "Puppies" is absurd break; Dogmeat's value was that he was a wicked pooch with a killer bite, but was still vulnerable and needed to be protected ~with that perk he becomes disposable and infinitely replaceable. ~what a crock...

It would have been a touch of style for them to have had a socket in place for protectron energy cells to operate the ancient terminals. I think its really close. (did anyone here see the in-game video last year? ~not the trailers, actual gameplay.)

How is that a weakness? In Fallout you play a man ~or woman, in a hurry; Doodling around in abandoned ruins is the waste of time (and is likely out of character). Fallout 3 [bethesda] brought this upon itself, with the decision to depict the world in that level of detail; Previous Fallouts were a bit more abstracted and the mind of the player seamlessly filled in the gaps... but F3 puts it all in 'yer face and its plain to see that things are not right in the wastes; So yeah... It gets hammered for more useless and flawed detail. IIRC, NASA has some computer systems in (of for use in) orbit, that are positively ancient (like 486's ~perhaps pentium pro's? ~I'm not sure of the platform... might not be x86 even); They are kept in service because they almost never ~ever crash, and because they are easier to hardened against radiation effects. Needless to say, I doubt they are running Windows I can see the VAC-tube systems remaining in use in the Fallout world, and some still being functional all these years since.

Millions of copies sold and the fact that another Fallout RPG is being made suggests replacing or "fixing" VATS is highly unlikely. There are few "unanswerable" questions surrounding the technical/interface/game systems aspects of FO:NV. The sales success of Fallout 3 has pretty much ensured that we should all know what we are going to get in this next game in regards to those issues. People need to just accept that Fallout 3 was a success. Forget changes in the POV. Forget changes in the game engine. Forget changes in the combat system. Expecting Obsidian to change many of the main factors in that success is unrealistic and IMHO a waste of time to discuss. What it is fair to expect/hope for are interesting characters and a good story. Why call it a spin off (of FO3), if its FO3 in Vegas? A spin off is typically a different game in the same setting.

That would have been brilliant; A Fallout series reboot/ prequel FPS/RPG hybrid spin-off, set 50 years before Fallout 1.

Reading that, I had the vision of a Dev made Easter Egg, where the pip causes a fullscreen "BSOD" ~but green, and a reformat warning I remember being "antsy" about the last time the pip asked for a reformat.

nope...I have won because resolution has nothing to do with anything; If Oblivion could achieve is graphics in 640x480, then Resolution is not that limiting. *And for the record, art need not be photo realistic to be better. Study a few road signs sometime... They're not much in the way of fine art, but they are carefully crafted to impart their meaning. In Fallout the art was carefully crafted to impart what it represented. Also... since you brought it up; I will say that I consider the heads in Fallout 1 to be superior to the heads in Fallout 3. Again Resolution (or even 8-bit color) has nothing to do with anything. The ideas are more inspired, and better done using the resources given. What game do I hate? ~Besides (as I mentioned above), "better" is very subjective and can mean "better suited", "better priced", "better accuracy", "better style", "better originality", "better detail".... (incidentally ~More detail is not always better, and this is something that most Black Isle games excelled at IMO).

Actually, I have played them, several times, and in my memory they used speech bubbles to describe.. well, virtually everything. I assumed it was because of the top down view and the low detail of the graphics (low resolution). But feel free to refresh my memory of what visual cues the previous Fallout's backgrounds contained. Low rez :lmao:, IRRC Oblivion defaults to tha same rez as Fallout 1. Graphics in Fallout were archetypal and served as markers of class and function; Fallout 3's graphics are generic bloom and vroom eyecandy that serves the same function as arcade game hook/attract demo's. Then why are you losing faith in my ability to make this a good game? Fallout 3 is a good game; Fallout 3 is also the wrong game. You making a good game is assumed, and ranks as par for the course; The unanswerable question is are you going to make the right game or just a standalone FO3 expansion? *[which is what I think a lot of us dread ~but I can only speak for myself...]

Heh... 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. Text is unmatched in any day and age ~provided the author is a good one.

Thank you both, ~but just to be clear... Its still the same mesh and texture that shipped with the game, I only altered the hue a bit more to green, drew on a tether strap and gave them a flat top head I might change the armor on one or two later on though; This stuff is maddeningly fun to mess with. All the while I'm trying to get better at it ~eventually I'll port this guy to the game if I can.

I worked a bit more on them, and now the teeth are not the green skin color, and the leather straps are slimmed down some. ~Still a work in progress, but I'll see if I can put it on Nexus or Planet Fallout soon for any who want it.

~that's partly the idea too. I like them MUCH better (though I'm still not entirely happy with it... I'm going to tweak the texture some, and perhaps re-do the Normal Map).

Mine's better ~but also its foremost, to block out the obviously frozen bystanders (as well as be reasonably similar to the other two in the series). *Also its part of a larger mod in progress. (and its awkward without the rest of it) ~not ready to play just yet. **As for the "foggy" alpha overlay... The glass is white (Actually I'd assume the glass is clear, and coated on the inside... I didn't mind it, but I might thin it out a bit more in the center).

Personally I'd like the Super mutants back like they were before... and since the new game is on the West coast... perhaps they can be a bit more like we remember... (I'm sure its a given that there will be some.) Here's my latest minimod... Its a retexture & slight Mesh mod (the top of the heads are flat ) I didn't think that the armor needed any changes... but I might fiddle with that too later when I finalize it and package it. I am working on a dialog mod too... (on hold for the moment), but here is an early example.

I dunno... Anyone who has played Arx for a while knows of the ... The thing is, in a game like Fallout there is great potential for covert actions like that ~Where Arx made it a required puzzle, Fallout could have made it one of several possibilities for the player to attempt. (Imagine if a sociopathics PC did that in a town and made the mayor sick with a poison, then used their high medical skill to heal the mayor and so get higher esteem from him/ of her ~and make them indebted).

So far... IMO Arx Fatalis has done that the best... [after the patch ~before the patched, the PC would pester and complain of hunger every few minutes.] Arx had food that was both raw and cooked, and used an interesting UI for cooking food, and even mixing ingredients for more complex foods (as well as weapons & other items). The PC could take raw flour from the a kitchen, and water, and make a pie, add apples before cooking and its an apple pie; add wine and its got that in it too. The PC won't eat raw fish or poultry, so you have to cook them. In the game Food heals, complex heal you more than simple or base foods. It worked very well.

Fallout's new Vegas may shape up to be a gambling mecca filled with handy mechanical card dealers, ghoulish lounge acts, and supermutant bouncers.

Parachuting Enclave in light up PA's and black wigs.

Well, no... I was speaking of the opening cutscenes of all three games. The tutorial to FO3 was for all intents, the same as Oblivion ~but drawn out a bit. FO1 & 2 were designed so that your PC was the next to be sent out on the mission, and if your PC dies and you restart, then your new PC is the next to be sent on the mission. (There were at least 3 previous Vault-Dwellers to be found in FO1 ~2 of them dead). Fallout 3 breaks this and grooms your special character from birth, then basically copies Oblivion from then on... Your PC dies and you have to go through the whole thing all over again.

IMO the opening intro for FO3 pales to FO1 ~ and is almost on par with FO2. (It again follows the pattern; Pelrman's script was not that great in FO2, but even less so in FO3). I would say that not all cRPG's were that way, though many were, and Fallout absolutely was. I still can't watch the vault door open without mild annoyance at them having made a blast-door [designed to deflect an exterior explosion] ~open inward. *The only reason to have it open inward is if the vault has a pressurized atmosphere; but with a door of that weight, opening inward wouldn't be necessary (the pressure to pop the door would kill the occupants).

That was my sentiments about Fallout 3 to begin with. [FO3:FO2 ~Same Gameplay, better characters and dialogue.] *but with 3d assets. Essentially this >>>

Currently [rather concurrently]... Fallout Tatctics Ravenloft:Stone Prophet Stonekeep Redneck Rampage Rides Again Next on the list is Spellforce, Sacrifice, and a return to Arx Fatalis *At the moment I just found something called Loki that I'll be trying next ~Its by Dreamcatcher, so expectation is low... **It looks like LOKI uses Gamebryo (I see all these Nif Files being copied by the installer.)

The Radscorpion Quest *can* be one of the easiest quests in the game, if you think outside the box.