Obsidian making Fallout: New Vegas

[CoM_Solaufein]

I miss the comments that the old games had when you scored a critical like Raider was hit for 200 hit points in the groin, knocking the living **** right out of him. Or something like that. The originals had better taunts as well. Fallout 3 was lack luster in that.

[Promethean]

I wonder if they have the time or inclination to do the idiot dialogue for low int

[CoM_Solaufein]

Like that one guy in Fallout 2. If you had a low INT you could talk to him like you both were educated at an uppity university.

[Wombat]

*Also... can you role play a sniper without called shots?

You can in Mass Effect.

I've never played Mass Effect... What's the draw for choosing to play a Sniper in that one?

O.K. From the look of some articles on the net, I guess Bioware simply built Sniper Rifle skill and Assassination skill which, when invested, increase the damages of sniper type weapons. It's Bioware's recent game-design...they don't risk too much by getting into details but build a simple system and spend time on balancing. Considering some bug-ridden RPGs, I cannot blame them for this. After all, it comes down to pros and cons with which the players have to deal.

[Tagaziel]

*Also... can you role play a sniper without called shots?

You can in Mass Effect.

I've never played Mass Effect... What's the draw for choosing to play a Sniper in that one?

 

Neither have I. I'm curious.

 

Sniper Rifles in Mass Effect are the single most powerful weapons when it comes to single shots. They take a bit of time to reload between each shot and overheat quickly, but, if upgraded properly and used with the proper talens, by the end of the game they're practically a fire-and-forget weapon. The game does include headshots, but due to the distances at which combat occurs, they're hard to get.

 

The draw is in the ultimate rounds, High Explosive VIII, together with double Rail Extension VIII when using the Spectre Sniper Rifle. End result is, each shot overheats your rifle, but it's damage output is similiar to the Mako main cannon. So, it forces to be polite, professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

 

Plus, the sight of disintegrating enemies flying everywhere is amusing, to say the least.

[Promethean]

Like that one guy in Fallout 2. If you had a low INT you could talk to him like you both were educated at an uppity university.

 

It was the most fun I've had talking to people outside of being a Malk

[TwinkieGorilla]

No.

 

Called shots have nothing to do with role-playing. The mere presence of an option for the player is not role-playing. If that were the case, Halo giving me a selection of guns is a role-playing element.

 

hey! way to take the least significant part of that post, single it out, and ignore the actual point of the post! anyway, let's not get into a debate about what "role-playing" is. i couldn't think of a more common and less boring subject.

[Axier]

*Also... can you role play a sniper without called shots?

You can in Mass Effect.

I've never played Mass Effect... What's the draw for choosing to play a Sniper in that one?

 

Neither have I. I'm curious.

 

Sniper Rifles in Mass Effect are the single most powerful weapons when it comes to single shots. They take a bit of time to reload between each shot and overheat quickly, but, if upgraded properly and used with the proper talens, by the end of the game they're practically a fire-and-forget weapon. The game does include headshots, but due to the distances at which combat occurs, they're hard to get.

 

The draw is in the ultimate rounds, High Explosive VIII, together with double Rail Extension VIII when using the Spectre Sniper Rifle. End result is, each shot overheats your rifle, but it's damage output is similiar to the Mako main cannon. So, it forces to be polite, professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

 

Plus, the sight of disintegrating enemies flying everywhere is amusing, to say the least.

 

I prefered the shotgun with the explosive rounds. Boomstick FTW. I think Fallout 3, if it was made by BioWare might have actually been better if it played like Mass Effect. But either way, whoever does a game after its sold to a diffrent company and completely rethought people get angry... Its just like Halo Wars, just as pointless as Halo, but pisses off some of the fan base. lol Halo Fans, that is a joke in and of itself.

 

 

Like that one guy in Fallout 2. If you had a low INT you could talk to him like you both were educated at an uppity university.

 

It was the most fun I've had talking to people outside of being a Malk

 

That was funny. I do think that broader interaction with NPCs would have helped Fallout 3, but I still enjoy the end product.

I figure its kinda pointless saying how aweful Fallout 3 is because its not really changing, if you hate it, everyone knows why because people who hate it are saying the same things every time. Just like everyone who likes it just happens to like FPRPGS, or Bethesda. If you like it, you like it, if you don't, you don't... Can we stop saying the same things over and over and start random rumors about Vegas before it comes out like normal forum discussions on games that are no where near out? Or at least stop being so redundant when you try and talk about how they can improve by not doing what Fallout 3 did?

[Promethean]

Obsidian, if you do anything, dont do what Bethesada did.

[cronicler]

Hello Obsidian Boards!

I know of a couple of guys who have been discussing their wishes over new Fallout titles at the Glittering Gems of Hatred site. Anyway those boards had become a bit desolate but then we heard Obsidian somehow got the rights to produce a spinoff to Fallout 3 and a lot of ferrets on sugarhigh came out of woodwork wondering if a spin-offs spin-off could be a real sequel.

Anyways I tried to compile the Needs, Wishes and Hopes we had to be inserted into the new Fallout Flavored toolbox. Enjoy and Hate.

 

Needs:

The 3-D game play elements of Fallout 3 are sorely lacking:

(Need)-The hit boxes are just plain buggy and firearms can go ape* hitting invisible barriers everywhere.

(Need)-The combat also lacked depth. There were no alternate ammo types, Damage Resistance

system or any difference between weapons. You just went Vats and headshotted this mob. then the other then the other. All you needed to win the game is a pistol.

(Need)-The AI or more precisely the lack of AI. The combat AI was equvalent of a Wolfenstien 3D Enemy AI. They saw you and they run at you and fired endless number of bullets. If they had any Launchers or similar area of affect weapons then they were likely to kill themselvesas they too suffered from invisible blocking things.

(Need)-The meelee was supposedly carried over from Oblivion but somehow it was gutted down too much. The game had a location based damage system but you couldn't control your meelee attacks so it was just bash bash stimpack...

(Need)-The Numerical system that supposedly defined your character was broken too much. The game just gave you 10(Bobble Head)+ 25*2 (Skill books and Perk)skill points for every skill. The Stats themselves had no influence over the game except determining is you could carry endless ammo or endless ammo...

(Need)-The Perks were... weird. There were about 6 or 7 perks that affected game play in some ways (Black Widow, Child atr Heart, Action Boy...). All the rest were in grades pf +1 statpoint, +15 skill points, +30 skill points,+45 skill points...

(Need)-The Talking heads of Fallout 1-2 were nice because you could see how the guy felt trough their mimics and tones (Most of the time. it still had the mood:happy lines when NPC was angry/mad at you. Still It was 1998!). The Facial Zoom in Fallout 3 is not working out well due to a combination of factors like wooden faces, zooming and being fixed on the guys face etc. Alternating the camera angles now and then,zooming to the scar on the guys cheek or gals rack or a tatoo on the tribal's chest or the ornate cup on the shelf behind the salesman now and then would make the conversations a bit less static

(Need)-The NPCs were overdone in useless/cosmetic areas and underdone in important/game play areas. It is impossible to give NPC's appropirate tones for every line. And this leads to you asking a normal line after the npc is crying you get a normal response which breaks the thing. The speech really needs to be rare and tailored to the conditions instead of using "Mood: Normal/Happy" lines in the middle of crying for dead parents/friends.. On this issue Less is more approach would work better. Only giving Major Npc's direct and detailed voiced conversations and giving the normal Npc's a maybe few generic voiced lines that and maybe "speech bubble" style speech would be better.

(Wish)-Also on this topic, the Information box of old Fallouts is sorely missed. Trying to cram everthing visually onto the player doesn't work well. People miss most of the stuff that is going on when it is only represented visually. "The raider was hit for too much damage kicking the daylight (and a lot of organs) out of him" is actually more funny than seeing the said action over and over and over again.

(Need)-This brings us to the V.A.T.S. system. Something to give the player more control over the situation is actually needed in a game that wants to be more than a shooter. However there are much better examples that this can be achieved. Just look at Mass Effect or Brothers in Arms games to see how a pause system could make the game more tactical and deeper in combat side. As it stands now, Vats is just an embedded cheat key that allows you to skip combat and see gory animations.

(Wish)-Speaking of gore, whats up with the over the top blood in the game? Look I am aware of the North American hypocracsy of gore and spleen is ok, tities are evil but the amount of critical death animations just become a "yawn" factor after the 50th head burst you see before you reach levl 4...

(Need)-Back to Combat, The game does not have "ANY" cover mechanics beyond invisible barriers projected by the props. A way to implement controllable cover mechanic into the game would be real nice.

(Wish/Rant)-The surviving buildings in the game were... Look I just cant wrap my head around how a wooden prewar building survived athe bombs and 200 years worth of weather. I really hope you can balance the cool factor with acceptable factor when you build your cities. It doesn't have to bee 100 logical, It just needs to be unnoticed or covered by the awe factor like: City Ruins sure this is streching the boundary of realism but the art factor does cover its problems....

 

 

 

Man what a wall of text. And up to now I have only listed the limitationsi Obsidian Developers will have to deal with. Anyway onward to the list of wishes about the game:

 

Time what is time:

We don't really konw if you guys (Obsidian) will be able to choose when your game takes place or if you will have to build your story at/near the same time FO3 takes place.

Most of the Glittering Gems of Hatred have commented that they would like to see your game taking place some time after Fallout2. A lot of us would love to continue the saga of NCR that we created by mistake :D

There has been a lot of material from fallout Bible, Old Fallout 3 and Van Baurren scripts. Is there any chance of you using these background materials in your game?

 

The City:

I guess it is inevitable for the "New Vegas" to be considered as "New "New Reno"".

New Reno of Fallout 2 was the most detailed and complex part of the game. From a gaming stand point it was the pinnacle of the game. However from the story standpoint it was a sore tooth. It just didn't fit in. It just Existed unrelated to other parts of the game and was criticed for it a lot. (Then again we got a sequel which didn't have any part related to others and it was considered.... All right, all right I am shutting my trap.)

I really hope you guys do take into considerations the lessons learned from New Reno. We would love to see a place as complex and satisfying as New Reno but this time supported by the story and the game itself. (a relevant Thread at NMA: New Reno . Note: If it is no go to post links then feel free to remove it or warn me so i can remove it.)

 

Generally people (over at NMA) have been mentioning that they would lke to see a city like LA/Boneyard of fallout 1. A Ruined City with pockets(oasises :D) of life among the ruins. A Hub of trading that has grown around the bases of long range trader companies, A couple of Fortresses belonging to different para-military organizations (Some can even be called borderline raiders) and other odds and ends of civilisation on the ruins of Vegas. This way you could create a desolate empty city without having to overfill it like the Fallout 3. To give the illusion of vast emptyness, you could make the whole city only a small dot on the main world map with sattralite areas that contain other small settlements / quest locations which are outcide the "City". This way you could implement random encounters, give the feeling of vast emptyness and still have a compact well designed play area for the game.

 

Before I close off this wall of text I would like to voice 1 more opinion. We really don't need the old Factions like NCR, Bos, Enclave etc as primary players this time. Sure it would be cool if the "Giant" NCR or the "Fabled" City (A.k.a. Vault City) had some trade missions at the NV and you could obtain their backing by doing "business" for them. I know the storry is going to tie to these guys sooner or later but I would love to pass the first half of the game trying to save my own bacon out of the chain of troubles I am going to find myself in before being a pawn in the power politics of those guys with questionable parentage. (Oh and just a forward observation post with a handfull of personnel for BoS that are after some reamains please. No more paladins pretty please! :D)

Edited April 28, 2009 by cronicler

[TwinkieGorilla]

cronicler: gah, gah, gah, cha, cha, cha.

 

J.E. Sawyer: tl;dr

[cronicler]

Ot: Tl;dr?

 

Edit: TG strikes again!

 

Edit 2: It seems Obsidian boards use a time limited edit function as I am unable to edit my previous post. Anyway here is one last bit that I forgot to write about;

 

Mini games:

The mini games that we see in the modern games are a mixed bag. I think personally I encountered my first mini-game in Thief 3: Deadly Shadows.

Personally Fallout 3's lock picking game wasn't so bad. It only lacked a way to bypass the game if your skill was high enough (force the luck isn't actually the same thing) and it was way over used.

The Hacking game was on the other hand, plain boring. Find and Click the joker tiles then play mastermind was just plain make work. We have a pipboy on our arm. Why cant we mod it with some additional programming and input jacks and hard connect to the damn machine? Science could skill would regulate how complex hacking programming you could write for your pipboy and repair could be used to regulate what parts you can create to use as input jacks etc...

Also I really missed the old Tragic Card Game. I know it is streching things a bit but i would love to build myself a tragic deck like pazaak (sp?) in Kotor.

Similarly it would be nice if we could get our hands on some other games like the dragon-dice from Witcher or your regular checkers or chess...

 

Thanks for reading

Edited April 28, 2009 by cronicler

[Gfted1]

Ot: Tl;dr?

 

 

Too Long Didnt Read

[Slowtrain]

I read some of it.

 

I agreed with what I read, so I think it must be a good post.

 

GOOD POAST!

[TwinkieGorilla]

i prefer bite-sized chunks. it's like, don't post like it's going to be your one and only post, y'know? christ. we only have one thread...take it easy. we have time.

[cronicler]

You know me, When I get excited; walls of text is the result. I even worked on this one a couple of times to make it coherent instead of my usual jumps from here to there style

[TwinkieGorilla]

You know me, When I get excited; walls of text is the result. I even worked on this one a couple of times to make it coherent instead of my usual jumps from here to there style

 

now this one i read.

[IguanaBob]

@ cronicler

B&W wall of text,B&W avatar, you fit in with the Fallout 50's theme.

 

Good points, I

[Axier]

@cronicler

I read and I agree. Love Fallout 3, cant stop playing it. Exceptional IMHO, but exactly the best of what its trying to do. As for the bubble speech idea, Bethesda would never do it, they are obsessed with voice acting, and most "main stream" gamers are loosing the ability to read...

 

Combat IS quirky, and isn't as good as Oblivion, witch is sad... I would have liked to see more of a tactical FPS approach to a Post Apoc survival, where if the fallout doesn't kill you, a couple bullets would. I would have liked to see the depth of Fallout 2 paired with the shooter mechanics of something like FarCry 2, witch, while the online play was almost impossible, the way story mode played in FC2 was great.

 

Weapons degraded, and inevitably blew up in your face if you used them too much. The way you healed in that game would have been a great idea too, Stimpaks shouldn't be able to be injected in an instant, and you shouldn't be able to find that many! And using some pliers to pull out bullets and poking them through your arm with your finger is just kinda cool. And a whole bottle of Buffout should kill you from an OD... How the hell does Psycho boost bullets? Why does your 96345 5.56 rounds weigh less than your lunchbox!?! I feel FC2 had more combat FPS depth than Fallout 3, and more RPG depth would have been nice.

 

Also, where the heck is the critical phailurez! -Caps

 

Other than that, I still love and play FO3 like its crack.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Axier

[cronicler]

Ty Mr Bob. I would also like an Iguana on stick please.

As you might have noticed more than 3 quarters of the post is about the problems based on the FO3 engine Obsidian will have to handle if they want to create a decent game. I didn't even go into the story and style ideas we are rolling around at NMA. Obsidian have enough creative talent without me going too much fanboi on them

 

..... And the coin drops and this users blood pressure goes sky high. Those rat bastards... Who wants to bet we will see "every" correction Obsidian makes to the game play and engine used in the next B.soft title? Kind of clever I have to admit, let the professionals correct your mistakes and then have them pay for it too....

Edited April 28, 2009 by cronicler

[Axier]

Ty Mr Bob. I would also like an Iguana on stick please.

As you might have noticed more than 3 quarters of the post is about the problems based on the FO3 engine Obsidian will have to handle if they want to create a decent game.

 

..... And the coin drops and this users blood pressure goes sky high. Those rat bastards... Who wants to bet we will see "every" correction Obsidian makes to the game play and engine used in the next B.soft title? Kind of clever I have to admit, let the professionals correct your mistakes and then have them pay for it too....

 

Well, this is all going to be based on the general reception of the game. I also find your sense of alterior motives to be quite, how should I say..., cynical? If the game sucks, FO4 will likely have a similar problem, however, at current estimates, 2011/2012 will be the presumed release of any FO4, Bethesda or no. By then almost every problem here will prolly be fixed because the engine they use will be likely a perfection of their current system. You have to remember, most of these problems isn't exactly their fault, they're only doing what they can with their software, and making new software isn't exactly going to help when it comes to release dates. I mean, hell, the work they did on the engine before Fallout 3 after Oblivion was actually well done. A lot of issues with Oblivion's core where resolved in FO3. I figure they will likely have a fantastic engine by the time TES:V comes out, so Fallout 4 will likely be fantastic. Of course, they still should have re-balanced the game.

 

V.A.T.S. I love, but if it didn't boost Crit chance, and it's minor bugs were fixed, it would balance the game much better... Ammo weight, stimpak rarity, and more NPC interaction would have made it perfect, if you take into account the limitations of the software and hardware itself.

[cronicler]

Oh boy... Please don't bait me or if you would like to really discuss this in a more lenghty way we should go to another topic. We are OT enough already...

[Axier]

Oh boy... Please don't bait me or if you would like to really discuss this in a more lenghty way we should go to another topic. We are OT enough already...

 

 

I do beg your pardon for my ignorance on such matters, but, "OT", means what exactly?

 

Off topic... Yea Im stupid.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Axier

[IguanaBob]

Ty Mr Bob. I would also like an Iguana on stick please.

As you might have noticed more than 3 quarters of the post is about the problems based on the FO3 engine Obsidian will have to handle if they want to create a decent game. I didn't even go into the story and style ideas we are rolling around at NMA. Obsidian have enough creative talent without me going too much fanboi on them

 

..... And the coin drops and this users blood pressure goes sky high. Those rat bastards... Who wants to bet we will see "every" correction Obsidian makes to the game play and engine used in the next B.soft title? Kind of clever I have to admit, let the professionals correct your mistakes and then have them pay for it too....

 

-One Iguana-on-a-stick for the guy with the

[Pidesco]

Off topic.