Slowtrain

Not quite. I'm saying put more space between those places that were counted as locations on the map (the ones the arrows pointed to), but fill that extra space with other interesting stuff to find and see (the stuff that don't have arrows, like the examples I provided in an earlier post). OK. I see now. Fallout 3 had a lot of that all ready, of course. There were many things to find that were not flagged as formal "locations", and basically you would like to see more of that type of space between the formal locations. SO basically enhancing the exploration factor beyond the named locations. I would be Ok with it personally, but I just wonder if the developers time could be spent more usefully elsewhere than adding more exploration to a game format that already has tons of it. Adding totally empty "dead" space to a map world would not probably be that hard, but adding space that has stuff to find obviously takes time. Certainly, the "realism" of Fallout 3 suffered from the compactness of the world a bit, but I'm not really sure "realism" is a major factor in a game like FO3. Daggerfall had real contiguous landscape that you could cross on foot if you so chose, and there were dungeons you could stumble across if you were lucky, but I don't recall ever being of a mind to strike out across the world on a wagon o the random chance that I mgiht find something. I mean, I probably did it once or twice until I got bored. It was mostly fast travelling across huge expanses of world. Don't get me wrong, I love Daggerfall. But it ended up being mostly a world of fast travel. FO3 was not a world of fast travel. I usually walked it because it felt worthwhile to do so. SOmehow I just feel that adding more space, even space with stuff on it, would increase the fast travel tendency somewhat. And again, if a world design encourages people to fast travel, isn't that just wasiting the developer time put into building it? If they never see it?

But it doesn't have to be empty to be barren. If you fill that landmass with a balanced amount of "goodies" to find, exploration becomes fun and rewarding. My beloved Gothic games are a good example of this. Clever world design and plenty of small things to do and find. For example, in a desert you may end up finding an old car, half buried in the sand with a still locked trunk. Or perhaps a few unmarked graves (did you bring your shovel?). Or, like in Fallout 3, sewage drains you can enter. There's plenty of stuff you could fill the world with that would still let that world feel barren and desolate. Of course, if you just make a huge landmass with nothing in it and tell people that it's empty, then it's a waste of time. The lure is supposed to be that there may be something out there for the people who enjoy the exploration aspect of games. But isn't what you are saying is: make a world just like FO3, but make it bigger by putting more empty space between the stuff. So all you are really adding is emptiness? Emtpiness that must be traversed to find the stuff? If you are saying something other, I am mis-understanding it. WHich I very well migth be.

I'm definitely not saying there wouldn't be some appeal to a huge trackless land; I'm just curious because it seems often that games that use large worlds get criticized by gamers becasue it takes too long to get from one place to another. Even in shooters like STALKER:SOC and Far Cry 2, the amount of traveling drew a good number of complaints. I mean, imagine if the FO3 world was simply expanded, like a big piece of rubber. Same number of locations but they were all stretched away from each other until there was many kilometers of real time world between each location. Are gamers really going to want to walk around, partaking of the great emptiness between locations? If not, and they are just going to use the fast travel button, isn't the devs time better spent on other things than creating a vast world of nothing?

Would people really enjoy walking through a huge expanse of empty wasteland if you knew there was nothing in it? My guess would be most people would end up hitting the fast travel button pretty freaking fast. And fast traveling all over the place seems to defeat the purpose of a super-huge wasteland, no?

JE is all ready on record in this very forum speaking about some of the flaws he perceives in VATS. He appears to consider it, in all directness, cheating. Or perhaps gamebreaking, is better, since it is hard to cheat in a single player game. I can't recall if eh used either of those exact words, but that was the upshot of his comments at the time. In other words, he thinks VATS is flawed. WHen last I heard he was playing using a stimpack mod, that changed stimpacks to do healing over time rather than all healing in one shot, in order to add challenge to the game. If it were up to him, VATS would most definitely be changed, I think. The question is, will Obs be ALLOWED to make those changes. No one has answered that question yet, so I think discussing the pros and cons of VATS is potentially very constructive.

PHEAR the werewolfs

It's a pure action game with a called shot system glued to it which gives you free shots and essentially breaks the gameplay. And worse it was tacked on with only two goals: to appease the turn based crowd and to allow for the slomo gore. Fallout 3 would have been a better game without it. Can I get an AMEN! Still if Obs can improve it, that would help.

Speaking for me only, I found VATS to be very static. If I am playing an FPS, then I like to be able to move, strafe, jump, run, take cover. FO3 is enough of an FPS that I found VATS quite dull and repetitive. If there had been more tactical choices in VATS I might have enjoyed it more. The RT combat wasn't good either, but at least it wasn't in slow motion. Concerning the original FOs: I am not a huge fan of their combat, but the targeted shot interfcae was a quick proces. And the game dynamics were already static, so that didn't matter nearly so much. That'st my personal take though.

Yeah, I got a taste of the overseers's dual-wielding minigun justice in my first playthrough. I was like, "OK, that's not a good idea." I remember irritating that bone collector guy in PS:T also. Not a good idea either.

For me, the fact that everything is so disconnected is one of the biggest problems with FO3. Every quest is like its own little isolated minigame. It may even be interesting, but if it doesn't affect anything outside its own little minigame space, then it never really amounts to much. At least for me.

That didn't really bother me. Many games are "forgiving" of player actions in the tutorial sections. I was actually pleasantly surprised that I was allowed to kill the overseer in the first place. The guy was a total jerkface though.

Harold as a tree seemed more like somethng out of the Shivering Isles, rather than a Fallout game. I didn't dislike it exactly, but it seemed somewhat out of place. I liked they brought Harold back, but surely they could have come up with something a bit more interesting or even more relevant to the gameworld? He is kind of an iconic character in terms of the Fallout world.

Nope.

Really? Even if you blow up Megaton you can still complete Moira's quests? ANd still shop with her and stuff? Yes, she just turns into a ghoul and moves into the Underworld. How convenient. If Simms get killed by Burke, his son will give you the reward for disarming the bomb instead. I'm glad he is doing that instead of vrying over his dead father gunned down in a bar. Isn't it neat how Bethesda has all the angles covered?

Really? Even if you blow up Megaton you can still complete Moira's quests? ANd still shop with her and stuff?

Wizardry used some of that methodology. It worked pretty well.

I do like the idea of learn by doing systems. They're just so hard to balance in reality that they never seem to work very well. They tend to create and encourage exploits as well as lead to the high-level-characters-that-are-all-exactly-the-same-problem. I should also point out that I think the modding community around Oblivion (and also Morrowind) did a great job. Oblivion with mods is a far more playable game than without. My criticisms of Oblivion are aimed strictly at the as-shipped vanilla game. I think its kind of poor form that fans had to fix up a game that developers were paid a lot of money to create. But that is neither here nor there at this point.

If FO is going to stay as what is essentially a realtime FPS format, I'd love to see some of the stats manifest themselves in the realtime world. For example, a higher agility means you can run or turn faster. A high perception means certain objects are visible. A high str adds to your hitpoints but slows you down. Luck and perception especially could really be used to provide different play experiences for different character builds. Luck could affect how quickly a raider's morale fails or the chance of a critical failure in combat for an opponent. Lots of things.

Happily I saved what I wrote before I tried to post in a suddenly locked thread: This thred will probably be merged, I'm guessing, but maybe not. 1) Strength: I didn't have a problem with how Bethesda did strength. It was the stat they incorporated best into the dialgoue checks and I felt that my stronger characters definitely had a different play feel than my weaker ones. 2) Perception: I felt that this was badly under-utilized in FO3. I think the best and most use interesting use of this stat is to allow the pc to gain addtional information about items and the world and npcs. This was a done a little in FO1 and 2 but even there not very much. THis could be a really important stat to a diplomatic or stealth character if implemented well. 3) Endurance: My high endurance characters played differently from low endurance characters at low levels, but the difference became less prononuced later. 4) Charisma: Was this one any use in FO3 other than cheaper prices? If so I didn't notice. If a crpg is going to have a strong social/dialogue element charisma should be an important part of that. Bethesda isn't too big on that part of a crpg so I imagine they didn't bother too much with this one. 5) Agility: I never had a character with more than 4 agility and I never noticed any problems. Interesting how it went from being THE stat of FO1 and 2 to pretty much a nothing stat if you never used VATS. I never used VATS. 6) INtelligence: Still somewhat important in FO3 for skill points, but it wasn't like skill points were really a valuable resource. A low int character had no real difference in play through from a high int char 7) Luck: I have never liked the way Beth handles luck. They just blend it into the other skills for the most part. I would prefer luck be a stat that has an effect on the game completely outside your pc's normal skills. I think a lot could be done by Obsidian to make your stat choices a lot more important to character creation.

Part of my initial reaction to FO3 was amazement that it wasn't so nearly as horrific as Oblivion. But it doesn't take long before all the annoying Bethesda design tendencies begin to show up. Still, I thought it was all right. I just think and hope there is room for big improvement with Obsidian taking over. Mostly in the writing, characters, and choice and consequence.

If by coconut, you mean Oblivion then well, yeah. Except it doesn't mean people are weird, it just means they like a crap game. I have all the Resident Evil movies on Collector's Edition CD's. They are total crap, but I enjoy them. Its more a reflection on my horrible taste in movies then any positive qualities inherent to the films though. People like what they like. I don't argue that.

I sigged your line, Aristes. Hope you don't mind. But it's good sig for gaming board.

Words to live by. That is my biggest hope with Obsidian in the driver seat and not Bethesda. I KNOW Josh believes in meaningful choices and consequences because he has talked it for years. Given the freedom, Obsidian could completely turn FO3 into something much more interesting. Bethesda built the world and put the technology together, and it's good enough. Now Obsidian can take those pieces and put some meaning behind them. So I believe. And hope.

I'd like to see at least one big city on Obsidians FO. Even 2 would be better. Places like The Hub or Vault City or NCR. Big places with different neighborhoods. Places that you can walk around in and get lost. Lots of people doing all sorts of things. I would find that a lot more interesting than just another big blob of wasteland filled with some deathclaw caves and raider camps and mole rat dens but not a single solitary person to talk to.