Longknife

I always read. Gotta make sure someone's argument is flawed rather than writing it off as such, imo. But the TL;DR of it is that he basically tries to claim that while FO4's factions give similar results regardless of who you choose, New Vegas was guilty of this as well because all of them make you visit the Boomers and BoS. He glosses over that the ending slides do quite a bit of impact despite not being actual gameplay, or divergence in choices. He then states that while FO4 doesn't let you side with evil or be an evil character, he states it's impossible to meaningfully side with the Powder Gangers and help them take out the NCR, nor is it possible to side with the Fiends. Again, glosses over all the quest options that let you be evil. In a nutshell, he uses broad strokes to make comparisons. Granted, yes, Powder Gangers and Fiends are not exactly the pinnacle of amazing writing (though SADLY, they're realistic because quite tragically, groups that stupidly detrimental to society exist), but it just seems very disingenuine to take a small 5% of New Vegas and argue that because it exists, the 50% of similar stuff in FO4 is "the same." Hell no, the scale of the two cannot be compared.

I don't understand this line of thinking: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3y7h6l/congrats_new_vegas_fans_you_made_someone_who/ I have my disagreements with the guy (if someone cares to hear them I'll just link my comment in that thread), but my point being more I do not understand what compels a person to want to defend a title so much that they're willing to make a bold claim like "it was always like this, your nostalgia goggles are blinding you! This is exactly like the last game!"

Not so bad if you'd prepped your mind for this months ago. To me it's more about the why and how now. I remain ever curious as to why actions like this are considered profitable or why all companies seem to follow this pattern. Because they are profitable? You spend less making the game and still get huge sales. So why bother making it better? Companies like Bethesda will only stop doing that when gamers stop bying their games. I just kinda find it hard to believe that it's that simple, yknow? It's crazy to me that they're cutting their work load down and there's no response from fans. Like I have difficulty believing they truly are doing less work because surely the customers would notice, complain, and demand cheaper prices. Perhaps it's me trying to give benefit of the doubt and believing best in people, but for me I try and rationalize it as misplaced priorities and poor management rather than "let's expend less effort and still demand the exact same price tag." You would think if that conversation took place, SOMEONE somewhere would come forward and say "this is what game companies are doing to you guys, you should speak out against such practices" if that were truly the case, thus I find myself trying to believe that all "mistakes" made were made in good faith. But yeah... Also, on topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTZyr6iaYIc#t=1h44m52s

Not so bad if you'd prepped your mind for this months ago. To me it's more about the why and how now. I remain ever curious as to why actions like this are considered profitable or why all companies seem to follow this pattern.

My TF2 unboxes sold and I have €100 god damned euro in my steam wallet holy crap. Any game suggestions since everything's on sale?

My first conversation with Trashcan Carla came near the end of the game. I'd traveled everywhere, including Diamond City multiple times. I still got the option to ask her "Diamond City?". Maybe that's the genius of Bethesda's writing. They wrote the dialogue as though every character is mentally challenged! They're geniuses. They didn't remove low INT playthroughs. Every playthrough is low INT by default!

And if not, then just take the guy that wrote the Kid in the Fridge quest and put him in charge. I think I would honestly pay money to see a game written by that guy, as no matter what your expectations are, you couldn't possibly be sure what would happen next. See, I'm mixed. Sometimes I think it's their interest, other times I think it's for profit and sales. The settlements for example seem inspired by Wasteland Defense, a common practice to cater to mods, but some of the ways it got fleshed out seem like Minecraft, and I'm 50-50 if devs said "let's make it Minecraft becuz I like Minecraft" (isn't this the part where a project lead says no because it's no their goal to make minecraft?) or if they figured catering to minecraft fans would help with sales. The Mass Effect style dialog? Nobody asked for, I have no doubt that they for whatever reason consider it profitable. But then with Skyrim for example, it's so crystal clear one of the lead designers bought the DVD boxset of Underworld, binge watched it, creamed his pants and then showed up at the office saying "LETS MAKE DAWNGUARD LIKE UNDERWORLD CUZ I LIKE IT," much like it's clear Todd has some reverence for Apple, which results in flashy-yet-impractical interfaces. But then I wonder if the reverence for Apple isn't because Apple's marketing team is quite impressive themselves. It's a mix of the two, no doubt, but I still feel like a degree of it is in the interest of marketing, which I find just rather depressing to think about. And while here we discuss Bethesda, I have to wonder how many other companies or games have seen decisions made based on profit margins rather than quality.

A friend of mine bought this recently. What stats should I advise her to get so that she can get a good view of the story (sounds like there's speech checks based on stats?) while still having tolerable gameplay?

This is sort of out of left field, but it's something I'm passionate about with the gaming industry so I feel compelled to bring it up. Some smaller journalists were having a discussion about why Bethesda would include a voiced protagonist when it's so clearly detrimental to the experience in a variety of ways, and they were spitballing possible motivations for the change. Down the line in the conversation, this was said as sort of a general comment on Bethesda as a company: I love this comment. I love it because I've long felt like Bethesda's marketing team is hands down the best in the industry, and I love it because he puts it in perspective what little meanings the release date and such hold. I bring it up moreso because... I wanted to ask all of you if you feel like Fallout 4 as well as games in general have the quality of their gameplay hindered for the sake of marketing? Fallout 4 saw massive changes to the general gameplay of the game. It's more FPS than RPG, it includes some elements that seem scooped out from Borderlands, Mass Effect and Minecraft, and it at times seems to state "screw it we don't care" in regards to how drastically it will depart from traditional fallout themes (some quests, elements or stories are so farfetched it doesn't feel like sci-fi so much as pure fiction and fantasy). There's two possibilities. The first is Bethesda devs are genuinely interested in making all of this as opposed to what they made before, the next is that these changes and ideas were deemed profitable. Call me cynical, but I find the latter to be far more likely. About the only one in that list that I'd attribute to Bethesda genuinely wanting to do one of those changes as opposed to not doing it is that it seems clear Bethesda would rather do their own take on Fallout rather than try to understand and respect the core elements of it that once existed. (thus the transition from sci-fi to fantasy, where instead of a logic being retained in universe, ideas such as super mutant suiciders are included simply "becuz kewl.") For some of you that might be a "well no ****" question, others of you might think "MAN THIS GUY HATES BETHESDA," and that's why I have to ask at all. I just find it rather tragic to imagine how many games have come and gone by various different companies that honestly now seem more focused on sales rather than quality. I wish this would change, but I don't feel like it will. Not because people are too weak to make a stand and say "no I won't buy this" (I did that here with this title), but because for every generation that notices a drop in quality, a new one grows old enough to play such games, touches one for the first time, and lacks a point of reference to know things could be better. I actually think a weak hook isn't neccesarily a problem. I found the FO3 hook particularly weak, it actually made the game a bit more enjoyable for me than Oblivion's main quest, just cause Oblivion's screams urgency while FO3's doesn't. I'm not someone who falls for emotional hooks, and to top it off, I don't really have a father. My father is the one who ditched me here in Germany to starve, so I mean if a father tells me "don't come looking for me" then my response is "lol ok." For me I guess it's more that I get the impression that Bethesda is convinced this style of writing is effective. I get the impression they pat themselves on the back and think "damn, that hook was so good! Good job Bethesda!" when in reality it's just so weak. The hook itself I think is no damaged by this, because you can have fun with this style of game whether the hook leading into the main quest is strong or not. However, I do think a weak hook can function as a red flag that suggests writing quality may be lacking. In FO1, finding the waterchip is simply a motivation given to you. The game states "here's the rules of the game, you're from a vault, you need a waterchip. Go." It's not really trying to immerse you, just giving you a goal. In this case, it's like they didn't attempt any writing with the hook beyond a reasonable and plausible premise to demand the gameplay begins. In Bethesda's case, they're actively trying to write in a hook and motivation, but failing at it.

Unless Obsidian were given permissions to make their Fallout more in line with their style (include traits, hardcore mode, rework the perk system to the old traditional one, old dialog system and no voiced protagonist, etc etc), I would honestly prefer they didn't as I fear making a good game with the resources at hand would be too difficult, and that really says something.

To me that's not really a mistake. The mistake is tying you to a kid that the game tells you you're supposed to care about. Similar to Dad in FO3 or the Waterchip in FO, forcing that kind of immediacy on the narrative kind of hurts where the fun in the game really lies (IMO) which is exploring the world with the character you've built. Mind you the game has a lot of problems similar to Bethesda's other games, mostly that the factions are mindless and to be honest I'm usually not one to give a flying flip about dialogue choices in a grand sense - most of it has been serviceable IMO - but I have to be honest and state for the record the incredible lack of ability to challenge some of Father's statements at the institute is unforgivable given that this is the moment the game has been trying to invest you in, with respect to the starting narrative. Bethesda has this really bad habit of trying to get you to develop emotional attachments to characters you've known for a matter of minutes. I'll never forget FO3 when Amata said "oh my god, they killed Jonas!" and my honest reaction was "who the **** is Jonas?" Took me another playthrough or two to remember who he was.

Speaking of Minecraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm881V1r5E

I was ****ing livid when the final boss involved me screaming "BACAWK" at a cloud for 2 minutes. Agreed on the NPCs. They had a backstory, but it was so bare bones, and you had to jump through hoops just to get to it, with pretty much zero payoff. Cool, you got a perk if you maxed your affection with them. But the actual payoff in terms of learning about who they are was disappointing. Then again, I think this goes in hand with the overall lack of dialogue/exposition/conversations you could have with all NPCs because of Bethesda's (odd) decision to water down that part of the game. I also noticed there was very little choice and consequence this time around, with regards to various factions/quests. Sure, at the end you had to pick a side, but before that? In previous FO games, often times you could do quests multiple ways. In FO4, it felt like when you got a quest, you did it and then collected your XP and reward. Hell, compare that even to FO3 (since we're comparing Bethesda to Bethesda/Apples to apples), where you could decide to disarm that giant bomb or set it off, or you could decide to allow ghouls to live in that apartment building or not. Choice and consequence for your choice. This time around, nothing. I was just about to ask you about this. You said FO3 is better, I've heard multiple people state it's undeniable FO4 is an upgrade from FO3. I myself? Wasn't so sure, thinking it could go either way. And why? Choice and Consequence. This is the one feature it seems FO3 retains above FO4. Yes, the writing in FO3 is retarded and ridiculous at times, but despite this, you STILL make meaningful choices. Great example, no character in their right mind has any motivation to blow up the Brotherhood of Steel in Broken Steel. It's a stupid evil decision that's incredibly difficult to reasonably justify. Despite this, you do get rather large, tangible differences in gameplay if you make that choice. You might scoff and sigh at how stupid the story is that led you there and how you struggle to explain your character's motives, but all the same you at least have an interest in trying them because you did have full confidence in FO3 to provide choice and consequence on that front. For all FO3's faults with story, it did choice and consequence right. It's just hard to recognize this because of course it could be better, but improvement is always possible, to be fair. More importantly, story reinforces choice and consequence, and the story of FO3 fails so abysmally hard on the "evil" front and the "evil" route that giving such a character motivations is a struggle itself that distracts from how much tangible choice and consequence there is. I've not played FO4 so I cannot say for certain if FO3 or FO4 is superior, but I too have suspected FO3 would be the superior game in my mind, simply because I value choice and consequence far more than many of the oft-cited improvements of FO4. Another minor difference is weapon balance. FO3's weapon balance was pre-school levels of balance. The game had a handful of guns that were clearly "the best" and you had little choice in the matter. Lincoln's Repeater, the Android's Plasma Rifle, Alien technology, Vengeance, The Terrible Shotgun, Backwater Rifle, Victory Rifle, etc etc. Total, there's gotta be less than 10 viable choices for end-game if you seek to utilize the most practical weaponry; all others cannot hope to compete with the ones listed. FO4? I've not played and yet I feel 100% confident FO4 is Skyrim 2.0 on the weapons front. Crafted weapons will undoubtedly be superior to anything you might randomly find, and once you've had a chance to play around with crafting a bit, there's undoubtedly a meta stat that, if you're interested in making the best weapon, you include this or that modification. I sincerely think Bethesda needs to review their design philosophy with crafting and with gameplay in general in regards to the "let the player do anything" mentality. I would attribute a lack of traits (oh my god!!! a negative downside!! Heaven forbid anything bad ever befall the player!) alongside the weapon crafting system to this. It's unfortunate because I think balancing crafting alongside unique weapons you find is totally feasible. Give crafting domain over stats such as crit rate or crit damage or scopes + accuracy while uniques get domain over AP cost and the like, and suddenly the use of crafting will depend upon your character.

To be honest it's only worth playing once. Go in spoiler free and expect lots of awful combat. Well to be fair, I've heard praise for the game for it's writing, never for combat, so I still have an interest in playing it. I love New Vegas to death because of it's writing as well as it's RPG aspects, but it gets only modest appraisal from people for it's writing. As such, I'd be very curious to see what the games look like that have absolute critical acclaim for the writing.

I really need to get around to playing this game.

I watch the Kid in the Fridge video every once and a while to marvel at the prime cut terriawful writing. As a connoisseur of all things terribly made or written, this is my favorite part of Fallout 4.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Violets aren't Blue, So nevermind, **** you

I hope this is the case, I truly do. At the same time though, I do feel familiar with how fanbases work, and I find die-hard fans are quick to want to find excuses for bad writing instead of accepting it at face value. As a counter-argument to that, don't the parents state at the end they attempted to get into a bomb shelter but didn't make it and thus became ghouls? The parents and their dialog seem to provide stark contradiction to that theory, implying it's truly the Great War in question. The protagonist's dialog and the fact that no one bothers correcting him if he's mistaken implies the very same. The wikis also currently have the parents listed as Great War survivors. I'd personally just be more curious to hear developer commentary on that quest. Who came up with this plot, why, and why did the guy in charge greenlight it? I mean another explanation I've heard is it's an Indiana Jones nod, but wasn't Crystal Skull critically panned, precisely BECAUSE it did ridiculous **** like that? I don't think giving nods to media that gets critically panned is the best idea.

In regards to that clip, I am completely blind to the voice acting cause I'm so overwhelmed with the plot. I was watching and waiting for the kid to reveal himself as a con artist or something, didn't expect he was legit. All I can say on that subject is I would guess that a competent sound director can be an unsung hero in game design. I recall watching Making Of videos for New Vegas and Skyrim respectively. In New Vegas', all of the voice actors sounded very into their characters and provided good detail about who their characters were, as if someone sat down with them, handed them a script and had a talk about how the character is envisioned. In Skyrim's, they briefly spoke with the voice actress for that one Blades lady, and her comment was akin to "Boy this is hard work the way they want me to provide such a wide variation of emotions and scenes back-to-back in such a short amount of time!" Sure enough, the father ghoul sounds like none other than Joshua Graham, and while I'm certain no one would criticize the man's performance with Joshua Graham, his bits of voice acting here can be rather simple and uninspired. It's not the voice actors, it's a director that just doesn't give much of a damn. :/ I say kudos to Boxcar's voice actor though. He seems to give pretty consistent quality in his work across both NV and FO4.

Actually I think this might be the most frivolous bit of nonsense I encountered, not that I've seen it all but I reckon this is pretty close to the bottom of the barrel. I honestly think the best part of the whole scenario is that someone obviously took care to say: "WAIT! Make sure he reacts all hypersensitive to light from the sun. He hasn't seen it in over 200 years, after all. Otherwise this plot line simply won't be believable."

Is this the holy grail of bad writing? Tell me it doesn't get worse than this. I will feel so satisfied knowing I hit rock bottom, and so frightened and disappointed if it can actually get worse than this.

A 200 year old billionaire is offering you wealth if you become his protege and you don't think your character has any personal interest in the main quest...? I never really felt that connected to the whole revenge thing in New Vegas so it was the reverse for me. After catching up with Benny I felt like the world really opened up and I got to explore a load of interesting situations and philosophies. I think it's just as easy to be involved with Benny out of curiousity, fear (the note states a bounty goes up on you if the delivery fails) or revenge. Personally I always felt curious as to what's going on. Really surprises me just how many players consider the main quest to be "over" once Benny is dealt with while I consider him a tutorial of sorts.

I don't mind the Boston Accents in a game set in Boston. I actually wish more movies and games used local accents, but I think I am pretty alone in that regard. That being said I do wonder how I come across people with Irish accents or Russian accents. I mean those accents have to exist, its only been 200 years or so and those accents have been around far longer than that, but how did they make their way here in a world where Travel like that is very, very hard hard to pull off. I don't mind the access but I want a reasonable explanation as to why it's there. Exactly. The Boston ones I can expect and I won't fault a company if they include Boston accents while a linguist says "nah it would evolve like so." (no clue what they'd say) It's something that a developer may or may not have time to research. If they don't, it's understandable, if they do, I admire their passion. But there's Irish, there's Russian, there's Indian, there's everything under the sun. Strangest of all, I do believe Cait's voice actress is Scottish, and instead of having her do a Scottish accent, they asked a Scottish person to do an Irish accent. Wtf? Why? Just let her speak and you'll get an accent one way or another. My best guess as to why this was done is because Irish Americans have this strange degree of pride in their heritage and would appreciate the "cameo" while Scots and others would just be like "hey that's cool I guess." But I digress. I choose to believe that this is how the design decision to include accents went down.

Unboxed a fancy shmancy €81 weapon in TF2. Someone go buy it so I can use your money on stupid stuff: http://steamcommunity.com/market/listings/440/Unusual%20Forest%20Fire%20Flame%20Thrower%20%28Minimal%20Wear%29

What I'm more confused about is the accents. Like whether historical inspirations are considered traditional Fallout or not, you can argue they sort of fit with the idea of history repeating itself, albeit a bit of subtlety with the repeats might be nice. But the accents...?? This is something that, to my knowledge, anyone in FO1 & 2 faked. Then came FO3 and people commented that Tenpenny and Mortiary feel out of place, saying "hey Bethesda, that doesn't make much sense, please don't." Then came New Vegas and Melissa has a New Zealand accent inspired by "taking after her mother," and Sawyer explicitly comments it's something that got through that shouldn't've and to pay it no mind while apologizing for said oversight. So then here's FO4, Bethesda can now look back on commentary made about accents in the past four titles, and what do they conclude they should do based on feedback received on the last four titles? They put accents ****ing everywhere. I mean look to be fair, it's their IP now and they can do what they want. Pete Hines has both stated they don't give a damn about logical continuity in Fallout and that they're looking to make this IP their own, right I get that. But at the same time, you'd THINK they'd show a little more interest in customer feedback. It's no big deal, but sometimes Bethesda does something like this, where they seem to take whatever their fans have requested and do the polar opposite. Baffles me and blows my mind every time.