Obsidian making Fallout: New Vegas

[Gorth]

Start of old thread

 

End of old thread

 

Post nuclear discussion continued...

[jero cvmi]

Ninja'd post from previous thread:

 

 

Concerning religion, i don't think it would make sense to see a real world religion in the game, at least not in its current form.

It would make more sense to have cults like the Followers of the Apocalypse.

 

Thing is, with every major historical change in society, religion changes along with all major social structures. Sometimes new religions make their appearance, sometimes old religions cease to exist and so on. It would be reasonable to expect that after a nuclear holocaust, along with everything else, religions would be horribly mutated to something completely different and even under different names, just like the U.S. government became The Enclave for example.

 

And the ex-christians or muslims or whatever don't have to be the good guys. In fact, in the original games i didn't perceive anyone as "good guys".

[bhlaab]

Has anyone tried out the turn based mod for Fallout 3? It works surprisingly well-- not enough to actually play the game with though (buggy, not enough information displayed to be tactical, AI doesn't work with it 100% properly, nothing like initiatives and dodge chances) However, even gimped to hell and buggy I still find it way more fun than fo3's default combat. Oddly enough, more balanced too, since the enemy will just kick the bejeezus out of you during their turn if you don't keep a nice distance.

 

Like I said, though, I wouldn't play through the whole game with it. Just fun to mess around with.

[Gizmo]

Has anyone tried out the turn based mod for Fallout 3? It works surprisingly well-- not enough to actually play the game with though (buggy, not enough information displayed to be tactical, AI doesn't work with it 100% properly, nothing like initiatives and dodge chances) However, even gimped to hell and buggy I still find it way more fun than fo3's default combat. Oddly enough, more balanced too, since the enemy will just kick the bejeezus out of you during their turn if you don't keep a nice distance.

 

Like I said, though, I wouldn't play through the whole game with it. Just fun to mess around with.

Not yet (working on my own )

[TwinkieGorilla]

i agree that if religion were to be addressed it should remain in the fictional realm. as for what Sawyer says about the inanity of serious subjects being tackled in videogames...well, i could be wrong and would be the first to admit it but how many people really even want a video-game that tackles a subject like religion intellectually and seriously? even in cinema, a medium much more suited to the subject imo, some of the most satisfyingly effective attempts are through satire (think Louis Bunuel if you need an example of the perfect use of critical, intellectual humor). in this regard i think a Scientology parody like the Hubologists is topical, humorous, critical and much more intellectually stimulating (if not for any other reason than it's creative ingenuity in a videogame, however silly it may be in the context of the Fallout world) than something like elves vs. dwarves or some other sort of good vs. evil concept seen so often in the "dungeon" world of gaming.

 

also, i may get poked at for this...but i thought the idea of the Reaver Movement was intriguing in FO:Tactics and was handled with winking eye, but didn't feel too "wacky" to me.

[crakkie]

How about tackling political stereotypes instead of religion?

You mean like portraying the last vestiges of the US government after WWIII as a bunch of greedy, genocidal Republicans living on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean? Replete with Dan Quayle jokes? I don't think the world is ready for that kind of satire.

[Atreides]

Nah, that's old and cliche. Coming on a hard socialist community that sacrifices the self for the ambiguous greater good so you show the triumph of the indomitable human spirit is the way to go.

[GreasyDogMeat]

I think a good way to balance the stims without having to modify their frequency (like candy on Halloween) would be that every time a stim, food item or booster chem was used during battle or within the vicinity of a hostile a second (or more) long animation should play showing the use of the item (or simply lower the weapon in hand and play some sort of consistant sound with the item being used if it takes too long to animate the various items). Instead of being able to inject/down 5 Stims, 10 Nuka Colas, a Psycho and a Med X during a pipboy pause you would have to use one item at a time in real time.

 

Even better, allow you to eat in Vats mode. How cool would it be to have slow mo and a spinning camera as you scarf a Blamco burger?!?

Edited May 11, 2009 by GreasyDogMeat

[Slowtrain]

awhile back Josh was playing FO3 with a stimpack mod that changed the healing provided by a stimpack to a healing-over-time rather than a healing all at once thing

[TwinkieGorilla]

awhile back Josh was playing FO3 with a stimpack mod that changed the healing provided by a stimpack to a healing-over-time rather than a healing all at once thing

 

 

i liked that in the Witcher as well.

[mkreku]

In the Gothic games, drinking a potion doesn't pause anything. In fact, you'll see your hero stop whatever it is he's doing, put away his weapon, reach for the potion in his backpack, slowly drink the potion and then redraw his weapon. By that time you're usually dead..

 

It means you're not supposed to be drinking potions in the middle of combat. Or inject Stimpacks.

[Slowtrain]

awhile back Josh was playing FO3 with a stimpack mod that changed the healing provided by a stimpack to a healing-over-time rather than a healing all at once thing

 

 

i liked that in the Witcher as well.

 

 

I like it as well. It's not a major change, but at least it forces you to think ahead a little bit when going for your healing.

 

You could also do as Beth did in Oblivion and simply limit the number of items you can injest at any one time.

 

 

Ultimately though I don't know if there is any real way to balance stimpack use, other than doing something similiar to what mkreku mentions and design the game so that stimpacks cannot be applied during combat and then balance the combat accordingly.

 

In FO3 stimpack use is mostly a war of attrtion: you either have enough stimpacks to survive or you don't. IF you use up a bunch you have to go find more. Such an approach works, but it is not very tactical.

Edited May 11, 2009 by CrashGirl

[Gorgon]

It's certainly pretty daft being able to go to full health in an instant with stimpacks. We need some non hostile wildlife as well. Radscorpions ruin the joy of exploration, like someone said they are the Cliffracers of FO2.

[TwinkieGorilla]

Ultimately though I don't know if there is any real way to balance stimpack use

 

sure there is. don't put a goddamn medkit filled with stimpacks in every damn room in every damn location.

[HoonDing]

Bethesda should've attributed a certain amount of AP to accessing your inventory during combat, and a certain amount of AP to using a stimpack during combat. Simple & elegant. Incomprehensibly not included.

 

As for the Witcher, there was a potion that immediately restored an amount of health, but this was balanced by the fact that the toxicity of the potion was very high.

Edited May 11, 2009 by virumor

[Killian Kalthorne]

Sheesh, people, they maide this game for mainstream casual gamers, not hardcore fanatics. All the stimpack mods, and turn base crap is gerat for mods, but lets keep them out of the main game. As much they may add to the difficulty for hard core gamers lets not forget that it is the mainstream gamers that keeps companies like Bethesda and Obsidian in business so they can make more games.

[Aristes]

Putting religion aside, we have to ask ourselves, what do we want as gamers? Do we want our bad guys to remain cardboard cut out shapes of badguys? I ask that question sincerely. Hubologists are a safe target because Scientology doesn't have enough of a voice to defend itself. Shall we use them as our stereotype? Like my Gorilla friend says, maybe we don't want real social commentary in our video games. Fair enough. ...But gamers and game designers see the industry as the surging new art form like film, but it's not even close. By using those impotent tools that Sawyer cites, paradoy and proxy, games have remained a parody in and of themselves, aping film but never aspiring to reach the same status. Hey, maybe it's simply a matter of sales. Maybe we have these sorts of stories in the computer game industry because that's what sells. Having made the argument for the commercial dominance in publishing, I have to accept the argument when it turns against me. ...But I don't think it's that games can't convey more meaningful social commentary. I just think that most game designers, when they put any commentary in the game in the first place, tend towards simplistic ideas with easy targets. We haven't tested the commercial viability yet. The publishers might resist the idea, but designers haven't even asked them in the first place.

 

In terms of bad guys, who can we consider "bad guys" in the game?

 

-Raiders

--This is tricky because some raiders might consider themselves a more of less legitimate group that's simply trying to survive. However, a lot of raiders will not have any pretense at all. They're cold, heartless killers who want to take what others have and are either completely willing to kill in order to take it or enjoy killing for its own sake. We don't have to call any such group bad, the players will simply know they're bad.

-Slavers

--Put the best argument you possibly can in the mouths of slavers and you still have someone the majority of current games will instinctively know is bad.

-feral ghouls

--impacable enemies of normal humans who simply try to kill you. I would almost consider these folks as simply animals instead of bad guys, but I suppose their former humanity can put them in this category.

 

I can't, at the moment, think of another bad guy group. Everyone else should have the case to make for themselves. The players can simply gravitate towards one or the other or maybe even habitually test and question their own preconceived notions. I don't even think Stereotypes are bad inasmuchas there are people who fit stereotypes in our world. Maybe most of the raiders are stereotypically bad. You know, cannibals, murderers, almost the same as our feral ghouls. I don't think it's necessary for the design team to reform the stereotype of raiders.

 

However, that doesn't mean it's impossible. Most raiders can be twenty kinds of ugly, bad to the core, etc. However, some raider groups could be different. For example, one group of raiders started because they were part of a settlement that was in contention with another settlement for decent crop lands. Since good, arable land is scarce, the two settlements fought over it. There just wasn't enough land for both and each fought for survival. One group wasn't good, the other wasn't bad. However, one group won and the other lost. Now, the first settlement did take in some of the losers of the first group, mostly children but also some young women. There were brutalities and cruelties on both sides. The remnants of the losers pulled back and resorted to the only thing they could do in the situation. They raided. The winning settlers have created a town and have successfully beaten back the raiders, but some of the raiders have managed to survive and even taken in other outcasts. Because of the nature of a raider group that takes in stragglers, there is a lot of variety and contention in within the raider group. Meanwhile, there are other groups in the vicinity. One group, raiders who are being muscled out of the larger metropolitan settlement area, has come into the struggle. This new raider group is our stereotypical bad guy. Just like ugly assed raiders have existed in human history, this group has no moral or ethical compulsions. They aren't just out to survive. They're happy to murder folks. While the question of 'good' and 'bad' might not enter into the discussion, these folks are just plain cruel and nasty and, of late, desperate.

 

So, we have one group of raiders (displaced settlers), one group of raiders (thugs), and one group of settlers who fought for and hold the arable land (the town). There could be all sorts of ways to deal with these groups. The PC could simply work for one group to destroy the others. The PC could negotiate a deal between one of the raider groups and the town wherein the town pays off one group of raiders in return for killing off the other raider group. The PC could negotiate a deal between the raider groups wherein the thugs help the displaced settlers kill off the town, the new settlers take the arable land and provide a base for the thugs to operate.

 

The point is, stereotypes are fine, but no group need necessarily be depicted as a stereotype. If a player sees slavery as inherently and irrevocably evil (as I do), then that world view will govern his judgement. It won't matter what argument the design team puts in the mouth of NPC. Even slavers need not be stereotypically evil, even though some of us will never accept any argument, no matter how clever or well crafted, that springs from the mouth of a slaver.

[Killian Kalthorne]

If you played "The Pitt" DLC the slavers and slaves have a very fine grey area once you learn the entire story. My very good Last, Best Hope For Humanity sided with the slavers.

[TwinkieGorilla]

Sheesh, people, they maide this game for mainstream casual gamers, not hardcore fanatics. All the stimpack mods, and turn base crap is gerat for mods, but lets keep them out of the main game. As much they may add to the difficulty for hard core gamers lets not forget that it is the mainstream gamers that keeps companies like Bethesda and Obsidian in business so they can make more games.

 

 

what? the? hell?

 

 

so you're here to say "hey, Bethie totally consolized the franchise which i'm totally ok with and you just have to accept that and Obsidian should totally compromise themselves in the same way, wheeee!"

 

again:

 

what? the? hell?

[Amentep]

"Consolized"? Did the franchize need much consoling? What was it bereft of?

[Niten_Ryu]

That's how it should be in these days. Very easy difficulty (weak enemies, plenty of ammo and healthpacks) for the casual majority. Higher in-game difficulty levels and mods for us more hardcore players.

[TwinkieGorilla]

"Consolized"? Did the franchize need much consoling? What was it bereft of?

 

stfu wise-ass

[Killian Kalthorne]

what? the? hell?

 

 

so you're here to say "hey, Bethie totally consolized the franchise which i'm totally ok with and you just have to accept that and Obsidian should totally compromise themselves in the same way, wheeee!"

 

again:

 

what? the? hell?

 

What I am saying is that I don't want to see Bethesda and Obsidian commit financial suicide. Making niche games will not pay the bills nor their employees. Want proof? Troika.

Edited May 11, 2009 by Killian Kalthorne

[TwinkieGorilla]

What I am saying is that I don't want to see Bethesda and Obsidian commit financial suicide. Making niche games will not pay the bills nor their employees. Want proof? Troika.

 

Bethesda is fine. they can do what they want. but the day Obsidian makes a game like Bethesda i'm turning around and walking the other way.

[Killian Kalthorne]

That's how it should be in these days. Very easy difficulty (weak enemies, plenty of ammo and healthpacks) for the casual majority. Higher in-game difficulty levels and mods for us more hardcore players.

 

That is why they gavem Fallout 3 the Construction set.