cronicler

Promethean: Just assume that 20 years have passed since the bombs instead of 200. I'm really not sure why the devs were so insistent on the 200 year part but the whole game felt better if you just assumed it was WWIII +20 or so

Lovely discussion. Let me spell this put slowly then. Compared to todays modern titles; Fallout 3 was a Average-Above Average title. We can argue this all day but in every area it had either medicore or poor grades compared to other games. What it had in good quality was diversity. It had a lot of different aspects in it that you could explore and have fun. The problem is the fact that having a very long list of "to do" and a lot of "cool/Holywood" to put in the game meant that the details were lost. We aren't here to bash the game because we are mean gamers. We bash and whine about those points because we really want them to become better and become an overall better game. Also this story without writing discussion did remind me one of the sore points. I really hope in the NV we don't see as many working computers as 3. Or to be more precise I really hope we don't see computer terminals sitting in random locations. I have no problems to see the Hero connecting his pipboy/portable computer to "might have something in it" ruined computers / ruined terminals etc and power them locally and then hack them/search their file systems/whatever. This is a very small detail but the divider that makes a game very good or medicore is really hidden in details. Details like Backpack, Pockets, Carrying Harnesses, Survival Kit, Pipboy... Anyone who has done some long, more than 2 days long, trekking / hunting trips can tell you about the survival kit (also known as if I am abducted by aliens" or "If i have to stay at a motel" kit.) Basically you carry a few bullets, a lighter, a spare underwear, 2 or 3 spare socks, 1 pair of fingerless gloves, some wire, duct tape, some basic medicine like caffeine and Vit. B&K tablets, some water purifier tablets etc in a little bag (Usually people prefer fanny or strap on leg bags). I would have loved to see something in like this in the game as It is a game with "Survival in Wilderness" aspect. You start out with a small kit containing your critical and/or expensive resources like your improvised lockpicks from Amada, very basic medical equipment (a lancet that you acquired from dad's office, a needle nose pliers..), some connector cables to hook up your pipboy to universal system sockets. These would allow you to only access the basic functions like treating gunshots, opening basic locks etc. As your skill grows you could manufacture your new and better tools or buy better tools to gain access to higher difficulty options. This is another little point that could have made the game more... realistic? enjoyable? It would have stopped getting weird feelings from "You need X skill to access this" errors. Yes they have the same limiting effect but devil is in the details.

Yay! Bashing Time! Firstly you might want to check out some of the specialist games by the mainstream wargaming companies like Mordheim or Inquisitor or some of the less known games like... like... like the one about warcasters and warjacks (Can't remember the name) If you have the minis, using them to play out generic open air scenarios is fine and if you have access to real wargame terrain like medieval cities, forest mockups etc, it becomes hugely enjoyable. The problem with using minis with rpg games is the sad fact that you can't really cover the amount of problems your pcs are going to get into map wise. When your party manages to start a fight in a throne room or a tap room, the terrain just can't be enough to represent the game and players start feeling unsatisfied. On the other hand its not all doom and gloom. Using minis to represent some parts of the game is actually quite enjoyable. Using some bastardised war-game rules to represent your guys as the leaders of some forces with some henchman attached to them (Archers, Swordsmen, Pikemen, Bodyguards for the casters) in a campaign where the players are the captains and lt.s of a mercenary company is immensly satisfying (And playing out the mercenary force's battle too )

Lets see; Mole rats, Feral (and not so feral ) Dogs, Geckos, Radscorpions, and Deathclaws and lastly Brahmin should be ok as meat sources I guess. I wouldn't chance Radroaches, giant ants and those flying things as those can endure more radiation and will probebly have toxic meat..

Actually like Arx Fatalis, there has been a couple of games which managed to get in a good hunger system integrated into it's game play. Well most of them are older or Indie types like Albion and Avernum ant I have taken the basic ideas from them, but here goes nothing: Firstly the system needs to be somewhat non-intrusive. Getting a warning that you haven't eaten and you are going to die etc, every other minute is not my idea of fun. One of the most successful methods I have seen about this is done by automating the system to some degree and tying it to the player's health system. The Player has a basic food and water need. Roughly 2 rations of Food and Water which you can buy, steal, forage (Outdoorsman skill decides how much meat you can obtain from a single molerat for your Mole-on-a-Skillet), or find in realistic places like killed human opponents, enemy camps and such. The amount of stuff the player needs to consume is depends on his Outdoorsman Skill and Perks. A guy that has just stepped out of a sheltered environment is going to need more water and probably a bit more food than a hardened desert rat. When the player looses HP, his natural regeneration works if he has some food. When / If you decide to camp to tend your wounds, you consume double rations to get a speedy regeneration. Depending on your hunger situation you should get debuffs like: Hungry for 1 day: Loosing concentration and Motor skills. At least you had some water. / Hunger & Thirst! You haven't eaten or drunk anything for the last 2 days! You are not so slowly dieing! As you might have noticed this system actually just adds some weight restrictions when/if you are playing a combat munckin. It doesn't really force the player to actively micromanage other than making sure that he has some food and water looted from enemies now and then. On the other hand its presence does give the player a little more realistic details. Gizmo: I'm not sure a system as detailed as Ark's is feasible to use as the main hunger system in this game. On the other hand if the guys at Obsidian manage to insert a detailed crafting system into the game, It would be nice to have a cooking (crafting) system that is tied to outdoorsman. Hell maybe you can even bribe a not so bright supermutant bouncer with a freshly baked apple cider pie Who knows? (Mmm Pie. I think i'll go and cook one now)

With Feodoras! Don't forget the hats dammit! And Wakizashi wielding ronin-ninja-yakuza raiders!

Also you could exploit the position of London to house a basic number like 500 housed permanantly in the city while having more Vampires in the scene as needed. The Mainland Eu has the potential to house as many Vamps as you need. That way you would have to put up some guidelines like Gangrels in the city are a bit scattered but they have the tendercy to create information links and amass huge number of fighters unexpectedly while Ventrues generally prefer to do their business by themselves and their own armies of security personnel.... As a rough estimate you can reach half the Europe if you have access to uncharted forms of flight so It wouldn't be weird if a new group of Vamps from this clan springs up after things start going ploin shaped for their members in the city. What I can't balance (in my head) is the number of Sabbat in the City. Any regular count turns up just too many shovelheads...

Here is some personal tips on crafting a decent scenario: When compiling a scenario there are a few different elements you need to keep seperate: the Background, The main story, the personal story and the little side bits. Background can be or can contain anything. Its basically what you are basing your own logic on. you can show it to the player with in game resources like newspapers, in-game internet, documents etc or you can just keep it locked away (like Ultima 1 taking place at a forgotten space colony that fell down to medieval tech and magic from blasters and spaceships) The main story is what the player will be muddling trough in the end. Try to keep this simple and bare bones. After you are sure of your game's abilities and limitations you can add details to this part to make it more fitting and to cover up your limitations. Example 1:Bad guys invade and kill and bad. Professor's daughter gets kidnapped. Kill bad guys, Rescue girl, blow up the bad guys reactor and then escape. (HL2 Ep1) Example 2: The engine can't handle too much movement in z direction: Your Power Armour is extremely powerful but it has severe cooling and grounding problems. Do not try to seperate from the spaceships surface on EVAs or you will die. Messily. (Theoratical Shooter in 0g/Space ship setting with map size issues) Personal Story: This is the main thing that you should flesh out first and the last thing you should polish. It is basically what the player will see in your game. Just build up your bare bones list like player starts here; he goes to here; here and then here. Boss fight should be here and Vistas / breathing points should be here. After your mappers turn out some basic maps and you get a feel for the limitations and strenghts, use those to make the gaming more enjoyable. The maps cause a graphical error / weird textures at some point? Call those points anomalities that can kill/harm the player and booby trap them. Make the story cover and highlight the game not sit by its side. Side Stories: If you have time, try to create some side stories.And try not to make sidekicks only. A hero is as good as his enemies. Lucky Luke wouldn't be funny if there weren't a horde of stupid villains in it. Try to make the player hate some enemies. (and if you are making a game on the wacky side, having a bad guy that resurrects again and again so much that the player character cries out "Die and let me pass the bloody level would you. I need to get to the pub after this a**hole..." is a classic ) Anyway while I agree that scenario is probably the last thing the game making team needs to work on, someone to keep the whole mess in 1 coherent piece and direct/fit and cover the non-standard parts is what makes a game good or medicore

Personally I was not really happy with the intro of Fallout 3. The baby steps part was a nice chuckle and ok as a "This is wsad. It is used to move around" part of the tutorial. The Birthday Party was... so so... Not because of the party itself but the "fish out of water" aspect you faced when talking to Amata right off the bat. If wishes were horses then I would have liked to have another section that took place before your birthday; a somewhat tutorial section where you go with dad to work as a kid and help him with doing what kids do at work; ie fetch coffee, take this printouts to mr.x take these pills to granny y. etc. I would have liked to have a chance to see and Interact with other Vault personalities more. The Goat felt the same way as the birthday party. It was presented without any story supports or anything. Also why did whole vault sequence had to take place in the same 20 rooms. In the olden days of FO1 we just saw an entrance area with emergency medical room and a very small slice of a residental area consisting of 8 or 10 rooms and the library-canteen-control room area. Sure I can understand engine limitations on the engine but I was really looking for seeing more of the Vault this time. Anyway the Tutorial of FO3 was decent but it had too many missing parts in it to make you care about the Vault or your Father. 5 minutes of playtime where you interact with dady really was not enough. Anyway it would be nice to have a tutorial that is mixed with the first act/level/part of the game for the NV. And also the less constricting it feels, the better it is. Just think of a tutorial like this one: The camera shows us a patched up and fortress like apartment complex. It passes trough some halls and up some old stairs and stops in front of 2 doors, leading to Female and Male parts of these slums. You press right or left and the camera continues on to enter a small room, not much larger than a closet at the end. The camera does a flyby: a small, not so clean and very untidy room, then focuses on a figure sprawled on the couch with some bottles around him/her. The figure is waking up muttering to himself, cursing headache and need to go to the head. He gets to his feet jerkily and the controls switch to you. You are instructed to go to the head by the constant drunken mumblings of your character. Anyway after completing this quest the camera shows hour character from 4 oclock and from hip height looking at your right shoulder as your char tries to slap some water to his face and looks at the broken mirror; mumbling things like "**** i need a shave...) At this point the face/body generator kicks in. Then your character starts whining about being hungry and he needs his pass from the apartment service to get some slop from the cantina. You go back to your room, try to find out where you put your papers in the unholy mess of your room. When you find the damn things, the create your character stats and skills and background interface pops up. After that silliness you get to cantina to get some chow where you get the basics of social interactions etc. by trying to get the unburned meals or second helpings or verbally sparing with other people in the place. After some more complicated things that result in getting on the bad side of Security goons of the complex, you are given back %50 your remaining rent for the next month and told to leave.

Actually it is the New Reno bit that gives me hope. Sure NR did not fit the story and setting (Could have if the story and background for it had been more fleshed out pointing out that it was also a trading hub etc...) BUT Gameplay wise it was the most complex and least buggy part of the game. You entered as an outsider with a grudge ( Sulik's Sister, Vic pointing you to "probably" hate slavers then the whole Vault City pains and then the raider caves that pointed Bishop as the head Honcho. ) You hit the scene playing one faction against other while doing some unrelated works on the side for cash and equipment (and making a name for yourself). After some long soldiering sections, You managed to get a gang war started and in the confusion you wiped out most of the vile hats. Sure there wasn't an option to take over the leftovers or anything but if you think about this for a moment you might see some GTA 4 here... 1999 game... And people accuse me of being stuck in 90s' titles and tought patterns

TBH I was thinking about an English or American film about gangsters/underground but as you mentioned SW is appropriate too

/shrug I am sure there are but when you are unable to play the game it isn't really a consolidation price that pirates can't too. Its like saying "Yes sir we took care of your houses insect infestation problem by pouring radiation to the area and making the whole village inhabitable."

Not really creative, I think i got most of the ideas from a few faintly remembered movies (B side probably). Still It doesn't have to be totally original or anything to be good. Just a tidy little story that gives us the foundations to start a solid story on and lots of nice little story hooks that we can follow to get to the bones of the story. We probably don't need stuff like GTA4's "take your friend to bowling" parts from modern sandbox games, but it would probably be nice if you could just be yourself instead of a "in your face and on every billboard" announcement that you are the guy that will save the world every minute. Didn't liked it when Overseer sent me back to hunt Cathedral in FO1, Didn't like it in FO2 and certainly didn't like it in the modern games.

This weird "kill kill kill the pirates" wave is getting really strong in European companies who do business with parties outside Eu. Both Atari and Ubisoft (and probably other publishers whom i am forgetting right now) are inserting weird, extremely restrictive and/or extremely intrusive protection into their games. The funny part is the little fact that these protections don't work. I'm not sure but I don't remember any title that managed to resist being cracked more than 1 week. All these heavy handed protection does is hurting the legimate players/buyers. I heard there is a nice protection system called steam which manages to balance and minimize its intrusiveness and system usage by offering decent free bits, promotions. It said that it had even gotten rid of most of it's bugs after all these years. Still it doesn't serve cookies . Thats why Atari and Yubi must be hating it and it's like

It is becoming Ironic really, Other than small sites or sites devoted to a specific genre, It is becoming really hard to find some decent Info about any game. If the general gaming sites are to be believed every AAA title that comes along heralds the return of Atlantis or something.... Among the thorny mess of lies and misdirection, A generally :censored: person with :censored: and :censored: nand :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: as his motto has become the paragon of truth. Its like having the Godzilla protecting orphans from space invaders and or something

Actually I would really like it if Obsidian managed to get rid of the Fallout story-curse FO1 was a great and unique game. FO2 didn't really add much to the game actually. Sure they added about a million quests and tons of text but it was basically FO1: Bigger more and extended. Even the pacing of the main story was the same. Sure all the creativity in the game coupled with the solid gameplay elements meant an upper %80 game but it was still a re-hash. I really want to see a game about personal story someday. Just some hints, some light stories about how you came to be the guy starting the journey. something like Fallout did with the endings; you choose your origin, background skills etc at the char creation and you get a mini slide-show of your past when the game begins: you with your last bullet in your pistol and only determination and madness on your side. Sure there should be an actual "Main Quest" that goes on in the background but I don't really want is to be waggled at my face at every step. Just Imagine: I am a small time guy. I don't play politics or any big **** like modern guns or drugs. Sure I have to work like a dog and do a lot of favors but I am an independent operator. No one tries to take over me. I just want to get a living and some income for myself and some fun. Yea lots of fun and girls and booze. Maybe I want to take over a bar (hey I'm not an angel) or just kidnap that Red haired lass. Man she costs a lot Then on a tricky but just a small time job I happen to find some copies of documents / stuck in the middle of a shootout between some heavy guys / hack an important guys computer to find stuff to blackmail him and get some weird stuff instead / break into a big guys place to steal some dough only to find something really weird. Suddenly I am "persona very non-grata" to some big time heavy organization(s). What the hell is going on? I need to find some intel or I am toast.... And so my journey into the mess begins. Being declared the guy that will hold the bag because he was there at the wrong (right?) time is more intresting than nth rehash of "YOUUU AREEE THEEE CHOSENNNN ONEEE"...

It was probably my OCDness. I didn't want to let the couple get killed or kill the guards at the inner door. And after the Vault door closes if you stayed near the door you can "see" that the guards beat up Amada. If you wait enough she will kill them all between being unconscious. Heh you might get shot by a guard who sticks his arm around the Vault door's seams now and then too

Personally I am wondering If Obsidian will use any of the Van Baurren materials. Playing the prisoner number 13 could have been nice

For Justice Ceasar's rights should be given to Ceasar. B. has a very good highly capable and easy to use editor that they have released to the modders. Despite hating their policies and pr and all I have to concede that the editor makes it nearly worthwhile to get the TES4. I remarked it on the other thread before; I played Oblivion a lot; sure I disabled every vanilla part of the game with 2+ gigs of mods but having that ability does justify the games price in my eyes, not the game itself.

Mkreku: I was banned 4 times from B. boards and I never went further than saying "are you sure going in this direction this far is a good idea?" Sure there were a lot of flamethrowers but anytime someone tried to criticise something, s/he was buried under the rubble at B. boards. On another note please don't deny that the game was given a whole mountain of PR. Heck B. even hosted the reviewers on a Hotel to experience the game before the release. Now after so many years Gotys and Praises the so called rewievers are finally saying Oblivion was good but I hope they fix this or that in Tes5... People who said those things when the game was fresh were booed off remember? I am not talking about abstract concepts or things ahead of current capabilities; the games were not polished, their parts didn't fit and they weren't consistent in themselves. They were enjoyable but they were not as good as they could or should be.

weird, she should have spawned next to you after reloading a couple of times or force changing levels...

It was not but it was consistent. Sure the game used lots of "Hand Waveium" in it's explanations but there weren't many things that breached the fourth wall except the easter eggs. Fallout world had its rules: Long term medium Radiation exposure on a guy who was exposed to few makes mutations like 6th toe. There are healing and antidote potions i mean drugs. It had its own rules and it stayed in them.

The couple that gets killed in the entrance door: Bump the female onto the male and sometimes they just run away instead of running to the door and getting killed (or making you kill the guards to save the civies). At the interrogation chamber draw your bat and hit the window. The girl will escape and the guard will come looking for you. you can hide from him in the computer room if you are lucky and he will go back to the interrogation chamber and threathen an empty chair At the Vault door run into the room then run back out and close the door so the girl hits the closed passage and stops. that way she wont be beaten after you flee or her idiot ai wont kill the guards

People please. Discuss the Merits and Flaws of different approaches on the other title. Leave this on clean and only for suggestions/ Wishes not reasions.

I guess it is inevitable that even if we just agree to disagree we will be irritating each other; so lets try to blow off steam here. Let me just do a quick recap on my gamer profile first then explain my feelings about the games. I started "really" using Pc at around 1998-1999 period when I was finally allowed to buy a new computer to replace my secondhand 286. I didn't have much cash and I didn't really have a stable internet access (too costly) and didn't have a clue either so it was more of a luck and taste about choosing my first titles (from a second hand shop no less) ; Monkey Island 3, Pandemonium, Jagged Alliance 2 and another secondhand title with a cracked plastic box called fallout. After such titles I got onto the gamer wagon with other titles like Baldur's Gate, KKND, C&C, Commandos... These games created my standards for looking at new games. Despite liking good graphics I don't think I'm too much of a graphic slave: An adequate graphical representation, A solid gameplay and system coupled with average to good writing is what I want from games. (On stories themselves: I am a bookworm especially on SF and Military. I have seen that it is really hard to create something new that other people haven't done like this. But this doesn't stop people from using over-used concepts and creating very enjoyable and very good books as in this one ) Fallout 1 was a pioneer B side title. Somehow its whole world was balanced in itself and everything fit without too much trouble. Fallout 2 was more of an expansion pack or quest DLC than a new game. After creating the fallout engine and system from ground up, the maniacs at interplay sunk a whole year of creativity and about a month of bug fixing into the second title. The result was a big, good but extremely buggy game. It had its brilliant moments and its good sides but there were a lot of places that lacked polish or didn't fit in like New Reno. I guess New Reno is the best example of this: The place was like a beautifully crafted ultra complex swiss watch. the whole city and Npc reactions changed as you did more and more stuff. It was like playing the GTA4 story on fallout engine. And it was Neon colored while everything else was dust dirt or earth colored. And the whole place was just a side show in the main game/story... Most of the new Fallout fans only see us bashing Fo3. Actually we bash every fallout game, spin our wheels to find out how we can make them more polished and better. Anyway around this time Interplay had a change of ownership. Despite their good games Interplay was in the negative due to sub-par financial management. So came in Herve Caen. Now I am not going to say much for fear of being slammed a fee for insulting him but his vision (or the lack of) for making mainstream cash bundle making games and the changes in company atmosphere started to push developers to leave for other places. Anyway lets look at the B. now; I wasn't really interested in the FP-RPG side of the RPGs so I never really looked at Arena or Daggerfall real closely. The closest I came to is when I tried Morrowind on a friend computer. It was a suprisingly robust title with lots of materials to find and explore. The graphics were so-so but my computer didn't have the power to handle it so i forgot about it. Then came the Oblivion (Near my new machine) Man the game was stunningly beautiful and seemed incredibly well constructed. Sure If you left the path of the main quest the game suddenly lost most of its polish but I shrugged as I didn't expect them to create a totally working world this size on the first try. (I had accepted that O. was bigger than M. without thinking or knowing). Anyway after my second deadric gate and some boring attempts to sandbox, I left the game. Then I tried Morrowind. and I was suprised to see how many things had been cut out of the game and/or been made console friendly. The game had gone after shinny bits and left most of its brainy bits like long books, detailed crafting... It was also sad to see that the M. fans were just ignored and had become their own clan is some ways. Anyway lets move onto Fallout 3 from an old timer's perspective: The first thing that made me uh-oh was the escape. The tutorials up to this point had been ok, and I was really looking to spend some time in the vault's corridors doing some fetch quests and see other parts of the vault. No such luck. Call me weird but I was trying to find a way to sneak past the guards and get out without violence... Well unless you bug abused there wasn't a way to go out without killing people. and 9 guards on duty were a bit overkill for 1000 man vault with 3 shifts... (And how the hell did ****roaches the size of labradors get into the living quarters??) Anyway you get out, the vista is beautiful and you arrive at Megaton. Uh oh, why did they copy paste this from FO:T? and the quests... I mean at least open up some of the other quests after I do some quests in the town and become a new but known figure... Most of the rest of the game was like this. The main story was lifted out of FO2; Enclave trying to kill all unpure and FO1; Mutants dipping everyone. Locations didn't make any sense, they just existed to be quest hubs for player. How hard is it to insert a few random lines at Arefu cursing Megaton for buying so cheap and at Megaton cursing Rivet City for driving prices up... The good creative parts of the game also suffered from the New Reno problem. They were nice to excellent but they didn't really fit is. Hot did those guys get Vault 106 suits? Why are there 5 vaults in 1 city? Who puts a military project in a civilian vault. Then we have the gameplay issues and bugs. I think most of the design decisions were made to capture a more robust FPS-Shooter feeling into the game but all they did was making the game taste weird. What makes an Oblivion player like me angry is the little fact that most of these bugs stayed over from Oblivion. Any bug that is related to physics engine or deep code that wasn't accessible to the modders and weren't fixed by modders is still in the new game. The saddest part is probably the mud smearing campaign: Oh those old sticks just can't evolve with time. They just want the same game. Lamers.... None of the guys and gals at NMA or other fallout communities wanted that game to be bad. We went to the boards and asked normal questions like "Don't you think radiant AI needs some more tweaks?" or "Isn't combat a bit too much on the highlights?"; we were told to "STFO" and driven off the boards. We have been chewing on these games for a long time all we wanted to give was some input but from day 1 we were seen as public enemy no1. Yes I guess I am jaded and Cynical towards B. now; they just used the fan made material from oblivion in their new title and didn't even bother the fix its bugs. They just reused the concepts and stories from the first two games for the main story and didn't even make them fit. They just created a single player game based on MMO gameplay and I am the evil guy when I point this out. Ah well. I have blasted my rant. lets roll with yours against mine guys.