New Fallout 3 screens

[Gorgon]

I liked Oblivion a lot better, it had some semblance of a story, Sean Bean (Boromir) and NPCs who answered with more than the standard name, profession, location, rumors, etc. NPC interaction was still pretty stale though.

 

Morrowind was good mainly for exploration, at the time it came out the graphics were unmatched, once the initial charm wore off though there was nothing left to do but mindless fetch this, kill that tasks. Well, thats what you had been doing all along, but back then you were fueled by the intense desire to enchant a silver claymore just so.

 

I don't subscribe to any sentimentality about the greatness of Daggerfall, the dungeons were torturously horrible and the graphics ugly to an extreme reserved exclusively for DOS games. The system and character creation was the only saving grace.

Edited March 28, 2008 by Gorgon

[Slowtrain]

I liked Oblivion a lot better, it had some semblance of a story, Sean Bean (Boromir) and NPCs who answered with more than the standard name, profession, location, rumors, etc. NPC interaction was still pretty stale though.

 

Morrowind was good mainly for exploration, at the time it came out the graphics were unmatched, once the initial charm wore off though there was nothing left to do but mindless fetch this, kill that tasks. Well, thats what you had been doing all along, but back then you were fueled by the intense desire to enchant a silver claymore just so.

 

I don't subscribe to any sentimentality about the greatness of Daggerfall, the dungeons were torturously horrible and the graphics ugly to an extreme reserved exclusively for DOS games. The system and character creation was the only saving grace.

 

 

Its true Daggerfall was ugly as heck. No question. Daggerfall is also the only crpg I've ever played where you could actually get well and truely lost in a dungeon, and while it was annoying at times, there was also a certain cool factor to it as well. But the dungeons weren't a problem anyway once you got the Recall spell, which wasn't terribly hard to cast.

 

I fail to see any great improvement between MW quests and Oblivions quest. Yes, Ob has perhaps slightly more complex quests in some cases, maybe not quiote so much fetch and kill, but those OB quests are even more woefully empty of significance than the quests were in MW. I don't think I ever played a crpg where compeleting quests felt as utterly meaningless as Oblivion

[Gorgon]

I played Oblivion almost to the end twice, the second time with the Shivering isles expansion pack, I thoroughly enjoyed many of the scripted encounters in shivering isles and the Dark brotherhood as well as the main quest, other than that I didn't get too involved in many of the guild quests except the thieves guild. I never bothered completing very many of the more mundane tasks people seemed to be handing out to me with alarming frequency. In the end my list of open quest was so long as to make me lose sight of where I was going.

 

Then my inventory started randomly disappearing, none of the patches in between the first release and shivering isles seemed to have fixed it, so I gave up for the second time.

 

I had some fun up to that point though.

Edited March 28, 2008 by Gorgon

[Gorgon]

In any case, being a survivor in a post apocalyptic mutant infected earth might well lend itself better to the sketchy and temporary feel of 90% of the quests in a Bethesda game, as will the exploration, which they were always good at, now if they could only throw in something more rewarding for the trouble of exploring than a scamp, a pile of bonemeal and a ruby, we might be getting somewhere.

[Shryke]

one thing i absolutely despised about morrowind was all the inane escort missions

 

"escort me to this place over the other side of vvardenfell please"

*long trek later*

"sweet, we're here, now gimme l00t!"

"here you are, a whole 100 gold"

"i suggest you find something a little more..."

[SteveThaiBinh]

one thing i absolutely despised about morrowind was all the inane escort missions

And the fact that they could never run as fast as you could, so you were forever having to stop and wait for them to catch up.

[Shryke]

they followed your path exactly too, so if you had a really high acrobatics skill and could jump over obstacles, they'd just run retardedly straight into the object over and over

[Hurlshort]

Why does balance matter in a single player RPG? I've never understood that argument. There should be easy to play routes and difficult to play routes. That made Daggerfall awesome in my eyes.

[Deraldin]

one thing i absolutely despised about morrowind was all the inane escort missions

And the fact that they could never run as fast as you could, so you were forever having to stop and wait for them to catch up.

 

I stopped caring about escort missions where your escortee is slower than you. Just gives me more time to clear the area ahead before they catch up. It's much better than having them constantly run ahead of you into huge swarms of enemies. *flashbacks of C&C Renegade* Damn you Dr Mobius!

[Slowtrain]

Why does balance matter in a single player RPG? I've never understood that argument. There should be easy to play routes and difficult to play routes. That made Daggerfall awesome in my eyes.

 

 

An unbalanced game can be just as unfun if it is a single player game. Its not one unit vs another unit kind of balance as in a mp rts, but single player crpgs require a lot of things be balanced: skills, classes, item curve, spell power, cash flow, encounter difficulty. They are not balanced for player vs player but for player vs game or player vs AI or however you want to say it. Still important either way.

[Tigranes]

Yep. If you need to grind an hour for every hour you play in a relatively linear game, for example, it's hell. (FF12) On the other hand, if 'story fights' are way too easy for someone who takes his time and wanders around a bit, it can be silly too. And if you have some sort of Great Equaliser for the entire world (Oblivion), it's just silly.

[Sand]

Have the enemeies scaled but to a point...

 

Peons at most be half the power level of party (or character). Leiutanents be three-quarters the power level of party (or character). Bosses be at the same level of party (or character). Story based encounters increase all values by 25%.

Edited April 1, 2008 by Sand

[thepixiesrock]

Maybe just story based boses be 25% more.

[Sand]

That could work too. Use a scaling mechanism that can adjust the difficulty as well, which most games would already have.

[Slowtrain]

I have no problem with FO3 doing some sort of level scaling. Level scaling IS a workable way to keep a game challenging and interesting. Oblivions use of level-scaling was simply not varied enough, however. With everything from loot, items, monsters, rewards, npc levels, spell power etc being scaled, the game created a very stagnant and uninteresting world: surprise was virtually non-existent.

 

Also, scaling npcs is fine with me, but it is stupid when their equipment scales as well: the classic sheepfarmer wearing a full set of glass armor and carrying a daederic longsword. Boost the sheepfarmers stats as my pc levels, sure, fine, but keep the sheepfarmers equipment the same regardless. If he is wearng a wood mace when I am level 1, he should still be weilding a wood mace when I am level 20. Especialy ifyou put books IN THE GAMEWORLD that tell me daderic and glass are so rare only thopse of great wealth and power could ever hope to own them.

 

Honestly, I have little faith that Fallot 3 will overcome the design beliefs of its dev team. Morrowind was bad and Oblivion was worse. History gives me little reason to be hopeful of the future.

Edited April 1, 2008 by CrashGirl

[Foamhead]

WOW good to see people remaining objective about Fallout....

 

Next thing there will be console bashing.... wait...wait for it...

 

Well, this is a 360 game.

lame console port

 

Oh it happened already. At post 7 and 19.

 

Could some people please tell me what you could possibly do different with a post-apocalyptic world? I mean the graphics aren't earth shattering but Fallouts 1 & 2 weren't either. As for bloom well it is Bethesda, and if thats the only thing you can find to pick about.

 

 

Years later I still don't compute why some people are so rabidly anti-console, personally I don't see a friggin' difference. While I will go on record as saying I am not remotely pleased with the direction Fallout 3 went, I would not go so far as to call the game "ugly". I think the graphics, while I agree they lack variety, are pretty much on par with others games in the FPS genre.

Edited April 1, 2008 by Foamhead

[Gorth]

(a single post pruned, hoping this minimalistic approach gives the thread a longer lifespan)

 

Lets stick to discussing Fallout 3.

[Sand]

No amount of praise nor any amount of bitching will change the way Bethesda makes games. Those who are the old vangaurd of Fallout players have two options. Get the game or not get the game. I had enough of games being Fallout in name only with Fallout Tactics and FOPOS.

[Dark_Raven]

Consoles suck. Simple.

 

Bethy may make the game that they wish to, but they'll change that attitude when they don't sell.

[Sand]

It has nothing to do with the hardware, Gabs. It doesn't matter if the game is on the XBox 360 or the PC, or both. When dealing with the raw processing power and capabilities of this current generation of console compared to mid level PCs the power level and capabilities are pretty much even. Its a matter of software, the design choices going into the game that will make or, more than likely, break Fallout 3. In any case the old vanguard of Fallouters are in the severe minority. Fallout 3 will sell and sell well, even if not a single old school Fallout fan buys a copy of Fallout 3.

[angshuman]

It has nothing to do with the hardware, Gabs. It doesn't matter if the game is on the XBox 360 or the PC, or both. When dealing with the raw processing power and capabilities of this current generation of console compared to mid level PCs the power level and capabilities are pretty much even. Its a matter of software, the design choices going into the game that will make or, more than likely, break Fallout 3. In any case the old vanguard of Fallouters are in the severe minority. Fallout 3 will sell and sell well, even if not a single old school Fallout fan buys a copy of Fallout 3.

Exactly.

 

The only argument you can make against consoles IMO is where the mouse and keyboard interface has a definite advantage (FPS's) or are an absolute requirement (RTS's). The old demographic argument (consoles are for teh kids) that probably made sense in the N64 generation is no longer valid today.

 

I do think those screenies are ugly, although that wouldn't stop me from trying out the game. But the Morrowind-style gameplay somehow just doesn't appeal to me.

[Sand]

The whole keyboard and mouse thing doesn't really apply to the XBox 360 anyway, since you can plug in a USB mouse and keyboard in the system. Hell, they have a mini-keyboard hookup for the controller.

[mkreku]

Microsoft doesn't allow developers to implement mouse/keyboard support into their games though (supposedly because it would make the Xbox 360 too much like a computer). So yeah, the Xbox 360 (as well as every other console) is limited by the controller.

[Moatilliatta]

The whole keyboard and mouse thing doesn't really apply to the XBox 360 anyway, since you can plug in a USB mouse and keyboard in the system. Hell, they have a mini-keyboard hookup for the controller.

If only it was that simple. :sad: Consoles would be so much more awesome if it would only utilize multiple control schemes i.e. mouse and keyboard for stuff that it is best for (FPS, RTS etc.) and controllers for the stuff that it is best for (Racing games, fighting games etc.).

Edited April 2, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Sand]

Microsoft doesn't allow developers to implement mouse/keyboard support into their games though (supposedly because it would make the Xbox 360 too much like a computer). So yeah, the Xbox 360 (as well as every other console) is limited by the controller.

 

That seems like a silly limitation on Microsoft parts. They need to amend that.