[Fallout 4 Obsidian Petition]

Obsidian wouldn't be making "4" anyway so you don't have to worry about that. Bethsoft is now handling what is technically considered the "main" series, though in truth even Bethesda doesn't consider their series to be central any more than the other games. 3 was just the numerical value to indicate that it was intended to be a direct sequel to the first two which makes a bit of sense considering the heavy references to past games including the presence of Harold. 4 being the sequel to 3 will likely tie in even more because it's going to be another East Coast game, supposedly Boston if rumors are to be believed. If and when Obsidian starts their next Fallout, it would likely be a direct sequel to New Vegas and take place in the West Coast, though the name will probably not reflect that.

[Fallout 4 Obsidian Petition]

I would absolutely not sign such a petition and here is why. Obsidian added almost nothing new to FO3 graphicwise, it's like they just took all the hard work Bethesda had done (as in everything seen onscreen) colored it browner and told me I was no longer in DC but now in Vegas. Kinda just like they did with KoTOR. I bought the game FNV when it first came out and the only thing I was excited about was the new workbench and campfire stuff. But then the game was updated and most of that cool stuff dissapeared or was watered down until it sucked as well. And then I noticed almost 80% of the enemies had dissapeared in the town of Primm, really? two guys in the middle of the town with 9mm pistols are holding off the NCR? Here is what I think happened behind the seens.. Obsidian are just plain Lazy there game didn't work properly and they didn't want to take  the time or put forth the effort to fix it so they just deleted what didn't work perfect. Again same as they did with KoTOR 2. These are obviously very talented people but either lazy or they have horrible management that makes them hate working. I think it would be better if they just went and worked for Bethesda and then we would get an awesome game with an awesome workbench.

 

 

I assume you played NV for... what? An hour maybe? Perhaps two?

 

Obsidian definitely didn't water anything down, New Vegas included virtually every gameplay feature of FO3 and then added a ton more.

 

As for adding anything "graphicwise." Why? This is the problem with your generation. It's all about graphics. Not about setting, atmostphere, mood, setpieces, or anything else. For you it all comes down to how much detail the textures and frames have. Go play Call of Duty and leave the actual gaming experience to the rest of us.

 

BOTH games were good. Fallout 3 told a very personal story that put the player in the centerstage of events. New Vegas took an interesting and different route by making the player more of a contractor in over his head than someone who a story revolves around. The envionments were also completely different. Capital Wasteland was extremely irradiated, bombed out, and utterly destroyed to the point that the only way to get around the city was to navigate the remains of semi-collapsed metro tunnels. The Mojave Wasteland was barely irradiated thanks to House, and as a result, was a far less depressing place to be. That's the key difference between the feel of the games. Fallout 3 was a very dark and uncomfortable game, New Vegas was a very fun and intricate game. None of these things make either better than the other.

 

Regarding your comment about taking Bethsoft's hard work... hardly. They used the same engine and design tools because it made sense. People liked the way Fallout 3 played, and redesigning the entire platform ground up would have taken  at least twice as long if not half a decade, why waste what works when it allows the Devs to focus on telling a talke rather than modeling frames and textures? It would be like whining that Bioware is lazy for recycling the mechanics of ME2 in ME3 when thee reality is, people want to play the sequel because they liked the prior installment. They want to find what they liked in the previous game in the new one while still enjoying a new experience.

 

I wouldn't sign this petition because I want Bethesda's Fallout 4. And then, a few years later, I want Obsidean's next Fallout on the west coast. Bethsoft can handle the East, let Obsidean take the West, everyone wins, and we get two very different yet still connected takes on the Fallout universe.

[Suggestion - Fallout: New Vegas 2]

The only same character/direct sequel that I can recall working well for me was BG2--and that carried over limited stat info and gear related to the PC, nothing concerning the status of NPCs. I see promises of what you do in one game affecting future games as one of those things that sounds good, but ends up being frustrating for all involved. Fans are inevitably disappointed by lapses in continuity between their personal canon and the sequel. Because it's impractical to develop a different game for every possible world state, choices in the first game tend to be circumscribed or tangential to the events of the sequel.

 

I'd much rather have a new game not burdened by the sorts of expectations invited when a game is characterized as a direct sequel.

 

 

That's why I suggested an indirect sequel where your character is not in fact the Courier, but someone else who happened into the Courier's territory. Like I said, they could do it fairly easily. All of the companions went their separate ways one way or the other by the end of the game, so there'd be no need for concern with them. And the Courier's faction choice could affect the vibe of Vegas years later, but in the end, the Courier could and would be in control. Independent is a given, General Oliver or President Kimball of NCR could easily have placed the Courier in charge of the Mojave given his/her service, familiarity with the land, its customs, and peoples, same goes for Caesar. House would likely allow the Courier the same benefit, having essentially done the same with Benny before.

 

So it would be a new character with the Courier being this kind of unseen deity of the Mojave that essentially keeps things in order for one faction or another.

 

More realistically was my earlier suggestion that a large DLC be released for the next Obsidian Fallout where the protagonist ventures to New Vegas years down the line and experiences the Courier's brand of leadership in one way or another, allowing you to make some key choices at the start of the DLC regarding the Courier's past and decisions. That way we'd still get the taste without it spoiling our appetites.

 

 

I haven't finished Fallout: New Vegas so I am careful when reading threads like this (don't want spoilers).

 

Idea/Inspired by thread: Fallout: Post-Apocalypse Online

 

If you live in, let's say New York, you'd start off in New York. If you live in France, you'd start off in France.

 

Yeah, maybe in some couple of 100's?

 

 

I am against both the idea of Fallout leaving the USA for any reason, and against any possibility of a Fallout MMO. You can't sew these kinds of stories into a mass multiplayer, it just doesn't work. Fallout is a highly personal series for each player; that was the point when they made it, and that is how people tend to see it. Same goes for the Elder Scrolls, ES Online won't kill the series, but the game will die quite quickly.

 

Mass Effect on the other hand could work despite how personal the story was. Given the immensity of the galaxy, it would be easily doable. Problem is, no game has successfully managed a transition from single player to MMO other than Warcraft... and lets be honest, those games never had personal flair to begin with.

[Suggestion - Fallout: New Vegas 2]

Though I completely disagree with nearly everything you said Darkrpriest, I can both understand and respect how you feel.

 

But let's not steer this thread off-topic. This is solely about whether or not a direct sequel or DLC sequel to New Vegas is both viable and desirable.

 

If you'd like to share opinions or hear mine regarding your assertions, feel free contact me. I'm always up for a lively discussion when I have time.

[Suggestion - Fallout: New Vegas 2]

If you'd read anything I wrote, you'd know I know full well who owns Fallout. This post was just to see if others agreed with me, had it been an actual proposal to the developers or publishers, I'd have just sent an e-mail, not posted on a forum where no staff is likely to read this anyway. I chose Obsidian's forums because they developed New Vegas, and did so In a way that I believe was closer to the original titles.

 

I misspelled Obsidian a few times, switching back and forth between "ian" and "ean," thank you for pointing it out. However, I wrote this up in MSWord before I posted on the site so I didn't have a reference and since it's capitalized, Word must have recognized it as a proper noun and not underlined it.

 

All that aside, thank you for sharing your opinion. I expected a few detractors, and can understand why. However, I do believe there is a fairly sizeable market for a direct sequel.

 

And by the way, there was no precedent for Fallout being a first/third person ARPG, but that didn't stop Bethesda Game Studios from trying.

[Suggestion - Fallout: New Vegas 2]

 

Did Dishonored receive anywhere near the same level of attention as Skyrim (or even Fallout 3)?

What do you mean by attention? It got a lot of press, and got a good marketing campaign from Bethesda, but as far as I can understand, it wasn't a smashing sale success on that level. Still, Beth was satisfied with the performance, and they're going to keep working on the IP, that much has been made clear.

You also need to consider that Bethesda was the publisher in that case, not the developer.

 

Bethesda Softworks is a publisher, Bethesda Game Studios is the developer whose primary and currently only titles are the Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Bethesda Softworks also published games like Brink, Rage, and Wet.

 

That aside, Dishonored is not a proprietary of Bethesda insofar that it is not necessarily Bethesda's decision to continue the series considering that Arkane Studios was the actual development team. In this instance, Bethesda could of course continue producing the games using a different studio or, since Zenimax now owns Arkane, tell them to do another game, but then you could be getting into some ugly IP disputes depending on which side of the fence the original writer was.

 

But yeah, if they continued to work on the titles it would be Arkane, not Bethesda Game Studios, that would be working on it. So the game itself is largely irrelevant to Bethesda's decisions for Fallout or Elder Scrolls with regards to the publisher, not the studio.

 

In the end I believe it would be Bethesda Game Studios that would choose whether or not to consider bringing Obsidean in for another title, and at that point would have to talk to the publishing side of the company on whether or not it's a viable option. Given Bethesda's success with most titles aside from Brink, it more than likely be a non-issue.

[Suggestion - Fallout: New Vegas 2]

Not necessarily. As good as Fallout 3 was, it wasn't a flagship title. If anything it was an experiment to see whether or not consumers would accept their take on the Fallout series. Luckily many did. There are a few hold-outs who want the series to return to the overhead turn-based gameplay that the first two had, but most seem to have gladly accepted the mostly live-action combat and first/third person control.

 

The only real flagship series Bethesda holds is the Elder Scrolls series. People loved Fallout 3, but under their ownership it still doesn't have the foothold that the ES games do considering that the ES games are what made Bethesda the powerhouse it is today. A lot of people probably only gave Fallout 3 a chance because of Bethesda. Had someone like Ubisoft purchased the rights to the series, the game would have likely been one-and-done.

 

Despite not winning any "major" awards, New Vegas performed admirably in sales, and in hindsight is typically considered the better of the two new Fallouts. Not only that, but allowing Obsidean to take point gives Bethesda breathing room to have their other dev teams focus on projects like the Elder Scrolls series. So not only are they profiting on two simultaneous large-scale developments, but they are handing creative control to another developer whose take will be different, thus producing a different experience for fans. And that worked with NV because it felt more like the original Fallouts than 3 did because 3 was a darker, more personal story where your character is at the epicenter of a grand tragedy unfolding around his/her family and eventually finds his/herself caught up in a much larger game. New Vegas is less personal, but captures the "take-charge" feel a lot of the older Fallouts have, with the Courier kind of stepping into the role at will. After the Courier catches up with Benny, the story is no longer personal, it's about something much, much bigger. Obsidean also adressed that aspect by bringing in Ulysses who cemeted the idea that one person taking initiative can change the world even if that person doesn't realize it.

 

Bethesda's titles are always a huge draw, so funding is likely a near non-issue with the assurance that the title will perform well. And from past experience, I'd say they know they can rely on Obsidean to follow through with flying colors.

[Suggestion - Fallout: New Vegas 2]

This will be a large entry so bear with me. I've done a lot of thinking about this because if I'm to send a letter to someone who may choose to run
with this, it needs to be a solid concept.

 

I've been a Fallout fan for years, and I recently did another playthrough of New Vegas. Still enjoyable, still stunned at how entertained I was, and still
wanting more.

 

A lot of times, especially with the Fallout games, the developers like to let the lore tell the story about what happened later; the fallout of your decisions, so to speak. You'll hear about the Chosen One or the Lone Wanderer in future games no matter how sparse the rumors. In this regard Obsidian was very clever in opting only for hints at what had been occurring on the east coast since Fallout 3.
 

With the closing of New Vegas the story indeed felt complete... or at least so I thought. However, after some pondering and due consideration I have come to the conclusion that that is not a necessity. Both Obsidiean and Bethesda LOVE to experiment. Granted, Bethesda seems to have opted a bit more for universal acceptance of their work, with the advent of Skyrim and all the appeal to previously untapped markets of gamers who fancy other genres perhaps but not intentionally at the expense of their core consumers. Either way, the game was new, diverged a bit from it's origins, and it was still a wonderful experience.

 

We all know and hope that Bethesda continues to bring Obsidian into the fold. There's been a lot of suggestions and hopes from both sides of the fence that Betheda continue developing their East Coast dystopia while allowing Obsidian to further develope the West Coast so well established by past Fallout titles. It is a good balance, especially if the teams consult one another and play the titles/take notes regarding what occurred in their counterpart's games so that they can properly interweave the two with perhaps a few slight references and nods; acknowledging the shared universe.

 

With that said, perhaps Obsidean should consider a strange yet new direction that no Fallout has really taken before. Not something that establishes a pattern for future titles, but something that can really give themselves and their fans something new and intriguing to try: the "file transfer"
or "contigent continuity" cencept.

Mass Effect utilized the idea quite well. The idea that your character would become something more, and that your previous decisions carried weight in future games. Bioware, however, were not the first to dream up this ingenious aspect of gaming. The Suffering, a 2004 survival-horror game, did the same. Although theirs was a more straightforward way of handling the idea, Midway/Surreal did something interesting for gaming by making decisions matter. The Suffering read your save game data and loaded the outcomes from one of three possibilities based on decisions made within the games like saving someone or killing them. Long before that, Psycho Mantis of Metal Gear Solid would comment on the type of person you are based on the information the game extracted from your memory card regarding which games you played. This idea is time-tested as being
extremely satisfying to gamers because unlike the "ulitmate end" they experience with most games, there is a feeling of genuine accomplishment
regarding everything you did. And despite its media, is that not what many video games strive for? A closer and closer reflection of the person wielding the controller or keyboard?

 

There are MANY ways to handle this, all of which would work with varying degrees of difficulty for the developer and any of which should be HIGHLY satisfying for consumers thus ensuring good sales figures for the game, though in all honesty, I can't think of a main-series Fallout that didn't sell well. I will lay out these ideas by number for organization.

 

1. The  TRUE continuance. In this scenario, YOU ARE THE COURIER. You pick up where you left off, whether years later, or simply right after the battle at Hoover Dam.
 

Methods of character extraction - Since unlike Mass Effect, Obsidian likely did not plan on such a direct sequel and has such would not have "flagged" outcomes in the file beyond what can be read by the game itself for the ending, there would be two easy ways to handle this.

 

-First way: Release a patch for the original New Vegas that would both set markers for reputation outcomes and end came scenarios. Since the original gmae had you load a save prior to the completion of the battle at Hoover Dam after completing it, this way might be difficult but surely not impossible. I also know that the games use character-gen codes for appearence, so that would be an easy way to import the character design, though that's largely unimportant.

 

-Second way: A storied menu at the start of the game where a narrator tells about the story of the Courier and you determine the outcome of the decisions and reputations in the first game.

 

-Alternatively: Just request the outcome of New Vegas with regard to who holds control, excluding the various faction and town based outcomes. This way is a bit less substantial, but it would relieve a LOT of stress on Obsidean's part for developing a game given how many different outcomes there are for each settlement and faction especially when you include the outcomes of DLC like Old World Blues.

 

With this first way, it would be interesting to continue on with your character. Features could be added that allow you to make economical and
militaristic decisions given you chose an independant Vegas in the first game like choosing how to manage New Vegas with regard to security which could increase or decrease monthly earnings. Letting everyone in would increase earnings but run a higher risk of raiders and the like trying to take New Vegas and scaring people away. Alternatively, letting too few factrions into New Vegas would result in a low income which would not only provide the player with less benefits but remove features of New Vegas if enough time passes since there is not enough money flowing in to fund them. Same thing could go for the casinos, you could decide to lower your cut or squeeze them, affecting how well they do and whether or not the club stays open.

 

This same feature could work with ANY of the four outcomes given Obsidian goes the route of letting your character take control. For example, Caesar or Colonel Moore could put the Courier in charge of managing Vegas. Same thing could go for House. In this way, the choice you made to align with a faction STILL allows Obsidian the leniency of pre-progamming the inevitability that your character runs New Vegas without comprimising the faction you chose. Gamers too often complain that they are not given a choice that results in diversity without realizing the enormity of programming a game that widely diverges based on decisions. To do this, it would likely take a developer far too many years to put the game out on the same console, let alone enough resources and funding that would likely outweigh the cost-benefit of even making the game in the first place.

 

As much as I understand the disappointment of ME3's ending, there is a large following of people that understand that EA put them on a timeline and budget, which was not their choice. Working with Bethesda would allow Obsidean some room to manuever since Bethesda technically owns Zenimax, meaning the developer runs their own producer, which is a HIUGE advantage that allows them time and funding to complete games as they see fit. This is why we saw a 5 year gap between Oblivion and Skyrim, and why we are seeing such a huge gap between Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. The rumors for Fallout 4 are only just NOW circulating, so that should give you an idea.

 

I feel this idea would be more fan-based than it would dev-based given how much time and effort it would take to complete such a game.

 

2.  The comprimise. You are NOT the Courier. You exist in or around the Mojave Wasteland. You are a character relevant to the Courier's story. You now opertate in a Vegas controlled by the previous protagonist, and as such his/her decisions weigh on the setting and lifestyle you lead. There will be a lot less explanation on this one than the previous  entry because I've covered a lot of possibilities with that one that can apply to this and the following one.

 

In this scenario, perhaps you are a character that does the Courier's bidding, or are trying to take him/her down. Or perhaps the Courier is an entity beyond what you can hope to work with. Either way, the decisions you made in New Vegas can still affect the landscape, the atmosphere, and many
elements in the Mojave. Within this scenario, less choices need to be made regarding what you did in the previous game, and perhaps we could even have a voiced Courier where you choose at the beginning whether your Courier was male or female, and what faction they allied with.

 

3. The reasonable. In this instance, New Vegas is DLC. This game takes place in a nearby land, or at least near enough for your character to visit New Vegas. At the beginning of this DLC, you choose a few details regarding your previous character like who you sided with, whether the characer was male or female, etc. Obsidean could build an interesting plot for a DLC that involves the previous Courier and allows you to explore a new more fully developed New Vegas shaped by the decisions made in the previous game.

 

That ends the scenarios that I have been able to come up with. I'm sure there are more possibilites, but I believe I've given the most basic and probable ones.

 

Thing is, places like Kickstarter have managed to revive games like Wasteland, and even produce consoles like OUYA. If a site where you can donate
money can do something like that, then you can imagine what fans can do when they ALREADY love a series that has solid funding. A series where fans can promise their interest and their intent to purchase. I don't know whether or not Bethesda plans to give Obsidian further chances to expand the franchise, but I can tell you a lot of people loved New Vegas and I'm quite sure many of you would be more than willing to shell out a few sheckles for something like this.

 

I will end with this, and am more than open to further propositions and comments. Just please, be eloquent. Gamers made Wasteland 2 happen, gamers made Bioware create the Extended Cut for Mass Effect 3. YOUR VOICES MATTER!

 

All I can hope for is that Obsidean listens to its fans. All I can hope for is that Bethesda does the same. Even if it never happens, the fact that the desire was acknowledged matters. I assume that Obsidean isn't working on a future Fallout because I assume that they would alternate with Bethesda, and since Bethesda has only recently begun its work on Fallout 4, it's a fair assumption. What does this mean? It means TIME. It means Obsidian has the time to propose the idea to Bethesda. It means they have the time to work on it with the new Creative engine, which I assume Bethesda will use, it means they have time to listen to fans, to develop the game, to hear our battlecries!
 

P.S.  I can't go back to a Fallout that doesn't include gambling. I really can't. That's a simple fact. My friend and I were so engrossed in the atmosphere of it that we are ordering custom cards and poker chips that are factory distressed to look like cards and chips that appear in New Vegas. Both display the logo of The Tops Casino. We are even building a Blackjack table that matches ones seen in The Tops, and several of our friends have committed to weekly blackjack games. Nerdy? We don't think so. The environment in New Vegas was something else. The old world music combined with the decrepit casinos and the fun of gambling attracted us to something we'd otherwise not cared about beyond perhaps the occasional fantasy football league.