bhlaab

Why doesn't it? They have radio towers and computers and the ability to play holodiscs. Makes about as much sense as large underground vaults operating for 200+ years And for full disclosure: I partially brought this up for suggestions of fitting oldies music to add to my Fallout 3 custom radio station so come on with the suggestions people >:^(

It's not that the gameplay is outdated, I think it's incredibly silly to say things like the days of Fallout and Baldur's Gate are dead and gone forever because it's an arbitrary distinction. Like saying that a 2-D sidescroller could never EVER be made again. Sure it can. What I think the problem is is that they're trying to wrap this oldschool sensibility in a veil of "cool" like Dude, it's totally not nerdy to play a dungeons and dragons rpg. Well guess what bioware, yes it is. And your attempts to make your Elf Game look cool just appears even nerdier because of the misguided pandering and "14 year old Nine Inch Nails Fan" pastiche

EA is probably the best big publisher out there right now. That's what makes the weird new marketing direction for Dragon Age even more confusing, because I would have thought EA and Bioware would both be smarter than that. It almost seems like it's from Bioware going "Well, now we're trying to sell a hardcore BG clone on consoles, we need to make sure those idiots will buy it even though the gameplay is wayyy over their puny heads" I completely don't think console players are dumb or couldn't handle something like baldur's gate, but I think a lot of old PC Devs making the switch DO seem to think that and market/redesign their games accordingly.

If New Vegas doesn't have a radio station something has gone horribly wrong as it was without a doubt the best thing Fallout 3 brought to the series. So here are some suggestions Johnny Mercer- Personality Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstorng - Stars Fell on Alabama Spade Cooley - You Never Miss the Water till the Well Runs Dry Roy Rogers - Don't Fence Me In Ink Spots & Ella Fitzgerald - I'm Making Believe Mills Brothers - Paper Doll Johnny Mercer - Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive Al Dexter - Pistol Packin' Mama Ink Spots - Beginning to See the Light Bing Crosby - Would You Like to Swing on a Star Danny Kaye - Black Strap Molasses Louis Armstrong - A Kiss to Build a Dream On Teresa Brewer - Music, Music, Music Andrews Sisters - In the Mood Anyone else got any? One thing, if there is a radio station I hope there aren't any boring instrumental tracks.

I can't talk about F:NV's content or mechanics yet. I can talk about game content and mechanics in general and explain my own preferences as a player and the thought processes behind game development design decisions. But please, everyone, stop extrapolating this information into conclusions about F:NV. I'm sorry, but it is infuriating. I'm not designing this game according to my personal preferences as a player (which are actually pretty wide), nor does any specific design methodology automatically apply to the work we are doing on this project. Sorry. It's kind of hard though. If you post something like "I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE games with brown dogs in them!! Ok well, back to working on the Dog City in New Vegas" It's hard not to read between the lines.

Yes, I agree that the cone implementation of skill vs spread is irritating and bad. I also think Morrowind screwed it up by not being very clear WHY you're missing. I think a better system is to just be very obvious about the dieroll-- have your weapons always hit the crosshair, but have the game decide whether or not it actually connects with the enemy you're pointing at. And then have a little floating number when you're crosshair-over the enemy so the player knows when to not bother. There, it properly abstracts itself with the floating number, and you never get irritating spread that hits, say the wall in front of you instead of what you're aiming at. It's probably a good idea to take out the tracers, though.

Firearm shot placement tends to matter a lot more than caliber or raw energy. not in burst mode, and not with explosive ammo like rockets. and since we're talking about a game that supports called shots, i think a better way to represent how skill affects shot placement which in turn affects damage, would be to make the skill govern the chance to hit or critically hit specific body parts that have better damage tables. it's a fairly good abstraction. yes exactly

Firearm shot placement tends to matter a lot more than caliber or raw energy. So if you get good enough at shooting a pistol, you can make a shot to the kneecaps damage your opponant just as much as a headshot did when you were bad at it? Anyway, I take that to mean you aren't planning on changing it :\

Yeah, this was supposed to be the one that's Baldur's Gate all over again. Fat chance of that.

FO3 is 80% shooter and 20% crpg. Maybe 10%. Maybe 5% Anyway, so yes, more player skill less character skill. Far less clunky. Playing FPS combat in Fallout 3 feels like taking a broken down jalopy out for a drive. Sure it gets you there, but its hardly enjoyable. If VATS didn't completely suck, I might not care so much. But VATS does completely suck. So. Actually, I don't really care at all. It would just be my preference. Turning Fallout into a pure fps sounds like the absoloute worst thing a person could do, their heart would have to be coal black and covered with thorny ice. As opposed to making it an rpg/fps hybrid, which requires a grey heart with half-melted nubbed ice

I find this funny. So if the voice actor is actually English with an actual accent due to where she was raised, you find it sad that it doesn't meet your expectations of an English accent? Well yeah, if the voice sounds like a bad impression of an english accent it still sounds like that regardless of whether it actually is or not. If she is english, then it means she's bad at acting naturally. Or what you think is an English accent is too narrow? Well okay, it very well could be a mancunian lady trying to put on a BBC voice and failing

I find this funny. So if the voice actor is actually English with an actual accent due to where she was raised, you find it sad that it doesn't meet your expectations of an English accent? Well yeah, if the voice sounds like a bad impression of an english accent it still sounds like that regardless of whether it actually is or not. If she is english, then it means she's bad at acting naturally.

Her english accent sounds fake. If the VA is actually an english woman that's pretty sad.

Jade Empire has gotta be the worst Bioware rpg eve-- well, okay, besides the sonic the hedhehog one

*ahem* if i may self advertise... Classic Skill Point Overhaul: http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6984 Classic fallout 1 formula, divided by 2 to compensate for 100 skill limit, then multiplied by 70% to compensate for there only being 13 skills instead of 18 Also tagged skills grow twice as fast and get a 10 point bonus I really hope NV raises the skill ceiling to 200

Checking right now, it appears so. But things are split up into 3 camps: -Generated based on templates (This is typical for random encounter enemies and people in clearly defined factions such as slavers) Templates are like named characters but can be used to affect multiple people at once. -Auto Calculated, probably for level scaling purposes (This is most named characters, like Bannon in Rivet City) This seems to mean that you can set their Level, and they will automatically decide where to place the skill points they earn. I'm not sure what affect SPECIAL has on auto calc, but I think it might influence what skills are chosen. -and a very few have set in stone skill sets that (afaik) never change ever, like Caleb Smith (who I think is a caravan trader?) So yes.. Bannon, for example, is great at Melee weapons and Bartering (don't know when that comes in handy for him as an NPC...) but he stinks at small guns. His Auto calc also seems to be selected to give him more stimpacks and better armor.

Ughhhhhhnnnn that flirting dialogue is awful, and not only that it's a completely awkward 180 degree tonal shift from the conversation from 10 seconds before. VO work for the two young women are pretty bad. I don't know how they've done it, but Bioware has taken me from pretty hyped for this game to dreading it

I agree that it does look sillier in a fully realized 3d environment from an Action game perspective, but damn it this is Fallout and any step towards making it play like a fallout game is worth its weight in gold. *raises lighter into the air* It's pretty obvious at this point that we're never going to see an isometric TB one again so I'm willing to forgo the cigar as long as it gets as close as possible

-Armor is a different formula. Weapon damage figures out the number that appears when you're highlighting the weapon in the pipboy (for example, 10mm pistol: 15 DAM) Armor has a similar number, labelled DR for damage resistance. I haven't checked but I presume that it takes the two formulas and mashes them together to figure out actual damage done. -I'm not quite sure but i think it's just to easily adjust all damage done with one variable. For example, its default is 1.0, and if you wanted to make a cheat mod "ALL WEAPONS DO A BAZILLION DAMAGE" you just set that variable ridiculously high without having to fudge with all the other ones. -fDamageGunWeapCondBase + (fDamageGunWeapCondMult * WeaponCondition) You're right, 1.0 is 100% repaired and 0.5 is 50%. But there's a little bit more to it than that, with a base value (default 0.5) and a multiplier (also default 0.5) So a weapon with a condition of 70% affects the damage done within the formula 0.5 + (0.5 * 0.75) = 0.875 The base is for whether you want the idea of weapon condition to affect things more across the board, and the multiplier is for setting exactly how much you want the condition to affect it

To be honest, rather than seperate variables I'd be much happier with Melee accuracy based on skill just like I think weapons should. Pretty much, yeah, just like old fallout. I'd be happy with melee/unarmed misses and also with dodge chance based on agility for all weapons.

Here are the formulas fallout 3 uses for damage Gun Damage = PerkModifiers(BaseWeaponDamage * DamageMultiplier * GunConditionPenalty * SkillBonus) + CriticalDamageBonus Melee Damage = PerkModifiers(BaseWeaponDamage * DamageMultiplier * MeleeConditionPenalty * SkillBonus + (fAVDMeleeDamageStrengthMult * (fAVDMeleeDamageStrengthOffset + ActorStrengthValue)) + MeleeArmConditionPenalty) + CriticalDamageBonus And here's the gun accuracy formula Spread = PerkModifiers(IronSightsBonus * CrouchBonus * (ConditionPenalty[none in vanilla] + SkillBonus) * (WalkPenalty + RunPenalty) + ArmPenalty) And the problem with me trying to mod it is that the "skill bonus" for melee and weapon damage both share the same variables! Argghh

Personally, I don't like the fact that you can pull off awesome shots straight out of the vault. You should start off as a total gimp at level 1-- especially when it comes to headshots and limb crippling since being able to perform those are the so-called carrot on a stick of focusing on guns. One more thing. I'm not sure about this, but I don't think Perception factors into accuracy at all. I'm not sure what it does besides provide the base for stealth skills and put the little red blips on your compass. That is something that DEFINITELY needs to be fixed in New Vegas: Perception and Charisma being completely and utterly useless.

The thing with the Wii controller is that you can play things like Mario Galaxy with it as well. Natal can ONLY be used for the gimmicky casual stuff like human blockout.

The roving crosshair would be good for iron sights. But just wandering around, it would be really distracting. There's already a system in Fallout 3 where the sniper scope will wobble according to the skill level, I'm not sure if it works 100% perfectly though. I'd also prefer a mass effect stlye camera where you can fully rotate around your character, unless you have a gun readied in which case it goes over the shoulder. For VATS, here's a list of my deman- uh, dreams: -You press the VATS button (for example, right bumper on Xbox 360), and the camera zooms out to an overhead view. -The enemy you were most likely aiming at will be highlighted in green. You can swap targets with the D-Pad or by selecting them with the mouse -You can do untargeted shots with Right Trigger or the Left Mouse Button, producing a die roll. This will cost AP. -You can walk around with the left joystick or WASD, but you will be locked on to the highlighted enemy Zelda-style. This will cost AP -You can zoom in and out of the action with the right joystick or mouse wheel. You can toggle back to first person by clicking in the right thumbstick or the mouse wheel, but you won't be able to move around while in 1st person during VATS due to complications with the "lock on" movement. -You can reload or holster your weapon (to move more efficiently) with the X button or R key. This will cost AP. -You can access your Pip boy with the B button or Tab Key. This will cost AP. -You can switch between two "hot" weapons with up and down on the D Pad or with the number keys. This will cost AP. -You can zoom in for a targeted shot on the highlighted enemy with the left bumper, resembling "classic" VATS. These shots will cost more AP than untargeted. -You can jump and crouch for AP costs. -You can use objects in the environment just like in realtime gameplay to trigger traps, drink water, etc for an AP cost. -You can hit the right bumper again to exit VATS and zoom back in. I'm not sure how to deal with the enemy's turn. Either give them a full fledged turn or, after exiting VATS, make the player stuck in one spot unable to do anything until their AP is charged up.

It was probably like that in Fallout 3 because it was like that in Oblivion. Aaand it was like that in Oblivion because a ton of people complained about Morrowind's combat which was die-roll heavy (meaning that even if your weapon connected, it could still miss because of low skill) -- Just like a lot of people are complaining about Fallout 3's inaccurate weapons. I think the main problem is that the game uses a "cone" to figure out where your shots will go-- Meaning, if you were ducked behind a small wall you could end up hitting the wall instead of shooting over it where you're actually aiming. I think a much better system would be to have the shots always hit the crosshair, but if the bullet actually connects with an enemy it rolls a die to see if it missed based on skill and the enemy's dodge chance. This would also help the problem with enemies moving around during VATS making 95% shot suddenly become a 0%. It would also be a good idea to have the % chance show up in realtime when your crosshair is over a target so the player will KNOW why their shots aren't connecting. (I think that was the major problem with Morrowind, you never knew what your chances were of hitting so instead of knowing you have no chance in hell and running away you'd swing your sword over and over in futility and get killed)