Gizmo

Uhh... no. * That example was never intended to sprawl across 5 posts, but what was meant was simply this... It would be cool if the NPC AI was a bit more "cognizant" of player choices. In my example the idea was that based on what they had picked in conversation, the NPC gamble that they might be just the right tool for his dirty work. ** That they might go into an unsuspecting settlement with preconceived notions that were not accurate, and they don't know it because they didn't check out the shopkeeper's story. ***This was only ever about wanting cleverer AI. Edit:There's a flipside to this... The NPC might simply realize that the PC is a right bastard, and offer him the job in a straight forward manner... ~The town would react the same either way.

Indeed... but how exactly would it not work? *In the Fallout series (until #3), all NPC's were color coded the same (unless you had the right perk). What's to stop the developer from color coding NPC's any color they wish if the PC has the right flag? ~And I'd prefer a game not brand NPC's hostile until they have a reason to be. So fence guards could become hostile if they saw an intruder, but not be hostile if they saw you walking the road near the gate.

No... The point of it would be that its not a regular quest, and that the player might agree to it believing the lie, and depending on how they handle it, might well barge in shoot first, and ask questions later. *Only realizing after the fact that they were duped. What I'm suggesting is two fold. One, that the player be judged by their actions/answers (IE. the NPC figured the PC for a gullible do-gooder based on prior conversations), and also the hit to the player when they realize that not all is what it appears, and not every NPC is honest ~and that had they asked around they would have found the man's tale full of holes... If only they'd done that before killing the guards in the village.

This also worked in 1998: Times change. So that's where the vault suit came from ~yes... its a slow night..

Megaton and Junktown ~(even Shady Sands) had a wall. (and most would consider themselves private property I would bet) In a post apocalyptic world rife with raiders, a trigger happy village is not surprising ~and again, even Shady Sands was hit by raiders. As to how they met... Who knows... maybe the boy was sent to trade and met the girl in the shop. ** But like I said... the village example was only an example, it could have been a "go catch a thief and bring me back my diamond" quest. (where if you did it, then you would be the thief) [edit]... I said (or implied) that the AI would talk for a few minutes an then decide based on prior answers, that it might be possible to dupe the patsy to do its dirty work. This means that the AI might ask mundane questions (or respond to silly ones), and if the player picked enough answers that implied they were a "softy" dense hero type, then the AI might respond, [ in the case of the village] "No, no, I was listening to you, its just, just, I'm worried about something that's all" ~If pressed it might say, "Well my daughter was taken in a raid a month ago. Last week a man came to me with news of her, She is in a camp many miles West of here. The man offered to rescue and return her to me ~ for a price. I'm worried because he said that they had beaten and abused her pretty badly. I hired the man and that was the last I ever saw of him. I was so sure he'd help me, I even offered him his pick from my shop" (grandly gesturing with his arm at all he has for sale). And then it waits for the player to fall for the bait ~or not, and just barters as expected. The idea is that the area exists already, and is part of other quests, this quest (if taken ~no if offered at all), would cancel certain others depending on how it was handled. *** It goes without saying that I am not suggesting the quest, I'm suggesting the capacity to give it on the fly.

The problem with this is that either someone attacks you first or they don't. If you wander into 'innocent and defenseless' village and no one attacks you, then the average 'white knight' PC will start talking to people - and soon they'll figure out that the convincing sob story was just that. On the other hand, if the villagers attack you as soon as they see you, then they stop being innocent and defenseless. If you break into someone's village at night they'll likely lay hands on you, but also if the village is paranoid/paramilitary they may well shoot at you on sight regardless of the time of day. ~Still, the point is not the village, but rather the complexity of the AI that offered you the job instead of just bartering for goods as the player expected.

I'd like a system where the NPC could talk to the PC for a while, and based on the answers, decide that "This guy might just fall for it", and tell a convincing sob story that would set the PC off on a torch and burn mission against an innocent and defenseless village to return a "hostage" to her father.(unknowingly slaughtering the family of the boy she'd eloped with)

If they did it too, wouldn't there be jokes about coming over to the "dark side"?

Could be... but if you compare the series as a whole, is it not 3 to 1?*Well 2 to 1 not counting Tactics.

~ Speaking of the "original recipe" I have an oddball question to the developers ~and as there is no other fallout thread... Here goes (and don't laugh ). Was Fallout's setting retro 50's ? I ask this because no one I encountered in the game effected any sort of exaggerated 50's appearance. Aradesh and all the Children of the Cathedral wore plain robes, and nobody was sporting buzz cuts or dressed like greasers, and the ladies never had beehive hairdoos or the like [Nicole even had a green mohawk] ~and Vree's glasses were not horn rim "granny" glasses. Except for the pre-fab vault suits and the vaults themselves (which pre-date the war) nothing that was not derelict and abandoned long since seemed in any way especially 50's looking. So I wondered (as I played the game for the first few times), whether or not the development team had intended rather that it had been retro 50's before the war, but that the present day story would be about the vault dweller emerging from his life long isolation into the sprawling wrecked remains of someone else's paradise [long lost ~and long dead]. With Fallout 2 this changed a bit, and you see things like the Brotherhood's experimental energy weapons that all look like Flash Gordon props, and the gangsters... But F2 came after, and I'm curious about the first game and its original premise. I suppose the only few that could really answer this were on the original development team or knew them well and spoke at length about the game. In the end, it was just curiosity of mine, and I never thought to ask it here before. So did Bethesda need to "ham it up" so... or was the 50's aspect dead 200 years earlier in the time line?

I actually don't mind the "learn by doing" method, but it leads to bunny-hopping your way through the game. It would have been cool if they had implemented a random delay before another use of the same skill was counted. You know, I actually parked my character near the Arena fighters sparring outside, because I wondered if [like Fallout], my character could learn by watching. A somehow balanced hybrid of "Use plus XP" might be interesting, if it could be made to work smoothly.

Agreed 100% ~Still I wish that they would have found a way to remove the "Obliviousness" and instantaneous mood switches of their the AI scripts. One second they're fighting for their life (or to kill you), and the next second next they're chatting away.. "Sup.. I heard that the raiders are gathering East..." etc... I saw this [again] for the first time with Butch firing the BB-gun like a madman at the Rad Roaches ( ); (and again in Megaton when I tried to with a flamethrower).

No? I saw several TES parallels in just the first

Why should it amaze you? People were disappointed that Bethesda would be doing FO3, but when push came to shove, were keen for another installment, even if not as true to the originals as it could of been under BIS/Obsid. They resig ned to the fact that FO was a Bethesda franchise now. Then, when they finally hear about Obsid getting a go at it, they remember all the things they disliked about FO3, even though it was an OK game, and get critical - for the purposes of ensuring Obsid does a better job. People get hopeful again for a real successor to FO1 and 2. I was not against Bethesda's making it (though I was disappointed that Troika could not). I bought Oblivion [Collectors edition] sight unseen because I wanted to see their best and learn about the company. Immediately I saw the potential they had, and had seen some of Gamebryo's potential in games like Kohan2 and later Civ 4. I saw several interesting parallels with the TES4 engine and Fallout 2 (if you can believe it). The first thing was that TES4 can't do seamless entry from outdoor to indoor [requiring a loading screen]. It occurred to me then that if they'd wanted too (as a gag), they could put exit grids at the edge of town ; but more seriously that they could have made a fallout 3 (loosely) similar to , and this would have allowed them to use much higher poly head models for close up dialogs with photo realistic heads that taxed the engine to a crawl on just the face alone; Depicting a play of emotions across the features far in excess of simple smiles and scowls. ~None of that happened , but that's still not what bothered me... I became disappointed when they began releasing screenshots that showed it to be another TES set in the Fallout game world, with a few trivial rule changes. To me its just not Fallout ~Its got the landscape, the BOS Armor, and the mascot... but what else does it have in common? ********************************************** Fallout 3 should not need be compared to the original... but it is ~endlessly. The thing is though... Fallout did what it did using 90MHz Pentium 16MB ram and a CD ~It ran in DOS under 32MB, Fallout 3 wants 32 times that amount of ram as a minimum, and uses a double layer DVD resource on a 2400MHz Pentium, and Modern PC's have dual/triple/quad core processors. So its odd that these games are compared at all. IMO though the world of Fallout 1 was more believable [in context], and it felt like a better thought out game. Fallout 3 needed not just surpass its predecessors, but should have been held to a relative standard commensurate with its requirements. Fallout 3 is an amazing game on its own merits, but when compared... its only just par, except for its graphics ~which don't affect the game. Some of the hallmarks of the series (as I saw them), were... A vast world with sparse and spread out towns of differing cultures (In Fallout 3, everything seems just over the next hill). The heads. For their day Fallout's heads were pretty incredible (for their day Fallout 3's heads are not). SPECIAL. In Fallout each stat had far reaching effects ~some were not always apparent (Fallout 3 has arguably introduced "dump stats" into SPECIAL). Risky choices. In Fallout you made these carefully (In Fallout 3 you can wait a few days and all is forgiven). The culmination of the PC's actions and how they affected each of the towns (non existent in FO3 from what I've read). Combat (my favorite), Fallout had a turn in which you could optionally choose to spend a bit more for an aimed shot (Fallout 3 has only that aimed shot and no other options).

FO3:New Vegas might well be FO3 with an Obsidian spin; Perhaps (in a way) he will get his wish.

I don't like to eat bamboo, and think it unfit to live on, but Panda's seem to eat it exclusively; So... its not crap to them, but it is of very little nutritional value, so I can't understand why they eat it at all. BTW ~Since you like GOG, I'd recommend Arx Fatalis to you [highly]. *The only caveat is that it takes place underground, so it does not have the rolling hills and trees found in Oblivion. [quote name='H

I always assumed the codex being censored on the Bethesda boards had more to do with their general attitude and vulgarity. Unless everyone who gave Oblivion a bad review is banned there then that excuse is nonsense. That makes a lot of sense in a way, because I can see them not wanting links from their 13+ forums leading straight to one that is blatantly not. ~Still that seems like only one of the reasons. I would be shocked and amazed if even one member from the Beth, Obsidian, and even NMA forums, wanted a Fallout 1 or 2 "clone". I've not seen that asked for even once in the two years that I've read them. (Granted I've not read the Codex forums much... but I'd still be surprised.)

And you know why that is? They gave Oblivion a negative review. Yep.

They use the auto-censor to break URL's leading to the RPGcodex. ~It replaces rpgcodex.com with [censored], so you can neither link to it, or name it in posts. This is what members mean when they post "the site that must not be named". ** I'm not sure... but I believe that NMA is not censored, but possibly their own staff has been instructed not to post there. (again, I'm not positive about this.)

Has anyone here seen the 'Ground Zero Tech demo'? When I first saw it 2

Once I accepted Oblivion for what it was, I had fun with it. (played to 26th level before my PC got stuck in swim mode, (swimming through the tree covered hills). I'm one of those that played Oblivion in third person unless underground in the dark. As for Fallout 3 and Oblivion... I can't help but see them as two sides of the same coin. Almost as Warhammer & WarHammer 40k. [To me] the games play the same, but for a few trivial changes. I know that some don't see it that way... but they don't often explain why.

"Think about your hero... When you're at ground zero..." http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/2921/sheldonmq5.swf

Fallout's overland map was topographic and your path through the wasteland took longer if you plodded through rough terrain. The map also had a "fog of war" that let you only see a bit in all directions. [You could see a settlement that was nearby, but not far off locations unless they'd been marked on your map] IIRC... if you went on the Overland map without bringing enough water for the long trek, it would stop you and have you take dehydration damage. The distances were vast, and the game only paused the trip if something interesting happened (done differently, you'd walk for a week with no encounters). *I think Arcanum let you do that if you wanted to... ** Now you have me doubting it too... Fallout's travel marker did slow down on certain terrains, but I have not played the game in a few months, and really should re-examine the time behavior . (unless someone else knows for sure.) *** It does seem to take longer and encounters I hit added to the clock.

As nu_clear_day will likely soon confirm... most of those guys [probably] played Fallout last week ~or surely within the last