Fallout: New Vegas

[Slowtrain]

@tep: my personal experience says otherwise. (I do see a huge difference in games released today vs 10 years ago), but its not a big deal.

[TwinkieGorilla]

Personally I haven't noticed them sucking anymore now than they did back in the days of the C64.

 

 

@tep: my personal experience says otherwise. (I do see a huge difference in games released today vs 10 years ago), but its not a big deal.

 

agreed. when the best answers to "What RPG in the past 5 years is as original and innovative as Fallout or Baldur's Gate" are either "Mass Effect!!!" or "Dragon Age!!!" i think we're in an obvious state of decline.

[Amentep]

@tep: my personal experience says otherwise. (I do see a huge difference in games released today vs 10 years ago), but its not a big deal.

 

The only difference I see is that there's a weaker market in PC then 10 years ago now (and I remember about 14 years ago the PCs were supposed to be dead, as they were about 10 years before that).

 

Gamewise, it seems like video games are still pretty much follow the leader in terms of creating new games in particular genres.

 

I do think that as technology has advanced, there's been less need for some genres (as their elements have been co-opted through technology - why do you need to create a game that's just a platformer when you can introduce platformer elements into your action-adventure game?)

 

Personally I haven't noticed them sucking anymore now than they did back in the days of the C64.

 

 

Ah. Well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT... NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY... NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?

 

@tep: my personal experience says otherwise. (I do see a huge difference in games released today vs 10 years ago), but its not a big deal.

 

agreed. when the best answers to "What RPG in the past 5 years is as original and innovative as Fallout or Baldur's Gate" are either "Mass Effect!!!" or "Dragon Age!!!" i think we're in an obvious state of decline.

 

Fallout and Baldur's Gate were really all that original and innovative? A game that would have been a sequel had they not lost the license and the umpteenth game in the D&D Forgotten Realms license? Don't get me wrong - I love both games. But I'm not sure I'd think of either as being totally groundbreaking. I'm willing to be convinced on the point, and both were really good...but...

[TwinkieGorilla]

Fallout and Baldur's Gate were really all that original and innovative?

 

what games before these had the same cRPG depth? in game mechanics, quests, c&c, the way the systems affected the characters (saying the S.P.E.C.I.A.L., Traits, and Skills systems weren't original and innovative in the cRPG genre is...a bit silly, imo)?

[Amentep]

Fallout and Baldur's Gate were really all that original and innovative?

 

what games before these had the same cRPG depth? in game mechanics, quests, c&c, the way the systems affected the characters (saying the S.P.E.C.I.A.L., Traits, and Skills systems weren't original and innovative in the cRPG genre is...a bit silly, imo)?

 

I was under the impression (perhaps wrongly) that the SPECIAL system wasn't the first system of its type - didn't Daggerfall use a skill based system the year before Fallout did? Wasn't Fallout supposed to use GURPS (and SPECIAL then does similar things to the GURPS system)? Didn't Wasteland (which Fallout started out as a sequel to) adopt the system from Tunnels and Trolls/Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes?

 

Look I'm not saying the games aren't good, or aren't worthy of being considered top of the line. Something doesn't need to create a new wheel to do that. But to me and from everything I've seen and read, Fallout and Baldur's Gate were logical steps building on everything that came before them. Not a "new concept" game but more a culmination of all the good stuff that came before them.

[TwinkieGorilla]

I was under the impression (perhaps wrongly) that the SPECIAL system wasn't the first system of its type - didn't Daggerfall use a skill based system the year before Fallout did? Wasn't Fallout supposed to use GURPS (and SPECIAL then does similar things to the GURPS system)? Didn't Wasteland (which Fallout started out as a sequel to) adopt the system from Tunnels and Trolls/Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes?

 

you realize you're reinforcing my original argument, yes?

 

EDIT: (the one about current games sucking, in contrast, to the amount of depth of older games. i only put 2 games in that list, but i could have easily put Wasteland or Daggerfall in the same list. it was an example of older quality vs current vacuousness...i didn't feel i needed to list every single game which came out before 2003)

Edited May 3, 2010 by TwinkieGorilla

[Amentep]

I'm agreeing with you to a certain extent.

 

To sort of round off my thought, let me put it this way - a lot of the "depth" you mention is just making the games to reflect the pnp roots that they were building upon. Certainly the scope of Baldur's Gate or Fallout had already been done two decades prior in a variety of pnp sessions - possibly using GURPS, Tunnels and Trolls or Dungeons and Dragons as their system.

 

So I don't see "being more like a pnp game than previous cRPGs" as being terribly innovative. Increased scope and depth are good, but again its building on the things that have already happened and seems to me to be a natural progression for cRPGs whose existence really stem from those pnp games.

 

EDIT: About the games sucking or not - well hindsight is always 20-20. Its very easy to point to the past and say 'these games were great'. But give us ten years and we might see a lot of gems that right now we don't have proper perspective on. Or we may all agree it was a crappy period for games. That happens occasionally.

Edited May 3, 2010 by Amentep

[TwinkieGorilla]

I'm agreeing with you to a certain extent.

 

To sort of round off my thought, let me put it this way - a lot of the "depth" you mention is just making the games to reflect the pnp roots that they were building upon. Certainly the scope of Baldur's Gate or Fallout had already been done two decades prior in a variety of pnp sessions - possibly using GURPS, Tunnels and Trolls or Dungeons and Dragons as their system.

 

since pnp games are the mainstream root of RPG's as we know them (i.e. where most of us as kids were introduced to the concept), so add a c to rpg and you'd probably want something which gives you a similar feeling of depth, right?

 

So I don't see "being more like a pnp game than previous cRPGs" as being terribly innovative. Increased scope and depth are good, but again its building on the things that have already happened and seems to me to be a natural progression for cRPGs whose existence really stem from those pnp games.

 

this: being more like a pnp game than previous cRPGs doesn't make any of those games innovative, it gives them greater...as you mentioned...scope and depth as an RPG. what made a game like Fallout or Daggerfall innovative wasn't one thing, it was a combination of many things. there really weren't games like them before-hand. so now...even if we disagreed on the word "innovative" the thing which i suppose i maybe should have emphasized instead of originality was scope and depth. the genre has nearly all but faded into watered-down, bite-sized pieces that are all too easy to swallow.

 

i hate when people rag on the word "pop-a-mole" constantly...but that's really all Mass Effect is, with some added teenage fantasy relationship larping added in.

[Amentep]

Now that I can see; I think that has been a contraction in scope and depth in video games. I'm not sure if this is because of games being more popular (and thus supposedly "dumbed down" for the LCD player) or if its because of the weight of things that are expected (3D graphics, spoken dialogue, etc) compromises how much time can be spent bringing the story into a less narrow focus.

 

While I enjoyed Dragon Age I did feel a bit like "this is it?" when I played it. I expected something much bigger in scope than what I got. Now I tend to mitigate my experience; I enjoyed what I got but what I got wasn't what I expected.

 

I also wonder how much the slow merger of genres has effected things as well; does a modern RPG being realtime action has to also appeal to an action gamer as much as an RPGer in this day and age?

Edited May 3, 2010 by Amentep

[TwinkieGorilla]

Now that I can see; I think that has been a contraction in scope and depth in video games. I'm not sure if this is because of games being more popular (and thus supposedly "dumbed down" for the LCD player) or if its because of the weight of things that are expected (3D graphics, spoken dialogue, etc) compromises how much time can be spent bringing the story into a less narrow focus.

 

While I enjoyed Dragon Age I did feel a bit like "this is it?" when I played it. I expected something much bigger in scope than what I got. Now I tend to mitigate my experience; I enjoyed what I got but what I got wasn't what I expected.

 

I also wonder how much the slow merger of genres has effected things as well; does a modern RPG being realtime action has to also appeal to an action gamer as much as an RPGer in this day and age?

 

yeah, it's hard to say "why", and to be honest...i'm not really concerned with the "why's". i started off with games like ME2 and DA:O thinking "oh, hey! this is pretty cool. seems like there's a lot to this!" and eventually realized that after my first hour i was just running around in what felt like a bowl of copy-pasta of either dungeon-grinding/fetch quests in DA or the rinse/repeat of ME2. i'm currently playing Call of Pripyat and amazingly, i haven't turned it off or gotten tired of it. so here's a modern game which obviously spent less time on voice-acting and next-gen-ifying everything and more time on atmosphere and story development. so, while it doesn't have much to offer as a traditional character-building RPG...for some strange reason it feels like a much less patronizing experience over-all. and that's a big part of what i feel the difference between the games i played back in the day and most of the games coming out now.

Edited May 3, 2010 by TwinkieGorilla

[Amentep]

Sorry. Consider me chagrined and silenced on the point of the topic drift.

 

Back to Fallout: New Vegas discussion!

 

I personally have no problem with the red shield display as part of the abstraction of combat information and interaction.

[Rosbjerg]

Thread pruned a bit.

[Calax]

Generally when one mentions "Spork" one means that It tries to be both things but is ok at what it's daddy did (the spoon) but is bloody terrible at mommy's job.

 

then you're missing a very simple metaphor. a spork is a compromise of a spoon and a fork. it is great at neither job but ok at both. as to the rest of your bawwwing post, you obviously don't get it, so just drop it. what the **** does it matter to you what i'd prefer?

A) I have yet to meet a spork that does ANYTHING remotely close to stabbation very well. (you know, what a fork is supposed to do?)

B)It's not a matter of preference per se, I'm just wondering why you think having less information = more handholding. Of course you've said "I've revised my opinion" So many times in three posts that it's really unclear WHAT you think at this point so I'd suggest you either clear it all up exactly what you mean, and then promptly shut up because you assume that anything that contradicts you is "Bawwwwwing" when you're the one who seems to be doing the most moaning about various mechanics around these parts in the little of this thread I have read.

[TwinkieGorilla]

bawwww

 

A) i've revised nothing. only attempted to explain it for the hard of hearing reading.

 

B) what part of "drop it" don't you get? here's another way i can phrase it to you: "i'm neither interested enough in this topic nor in explaining anything to you beyond what i already have, now shoo."

 

C) alsoplustoo: you obviously missed the "spork" meme of Beth-boards circa '07 which is what i was referring to. i couldn't care less how much success you've had with either use of the aforementioned metaphoric vehicle.

[Calax]

bawwww

 

A) i've revised nothing. only attempted to explain it for the hard of hearing reading.

 

B) what part of "drop it" don't you get? here's another way i can phrase it to you: "i'm neither interested enough in this topic nor in explaining anything to you beyond what i already have, now shoo."

 

C) alsoplustoo: you obviously missed the "spork" meme of Beth-boards circa '07 which is what i was referring to. i couldn't care less how much success you've had with either use of the aforementioned metaphoric vehicle.

You appear to assume that somebody obviously knows of something that's in a tiny pigeon hole of the interwebz, and think less of them because they don't know that you're trying to use a meme that only exists in said tiny corner of the interwebz.

 

Kinda funny you say "I'm not interested" but only respond to my solitary comment, rather than say something about the game and then address me.. You know, demonstrating that you're actually not interested, rather than saying "I'm not interested, but if I WAS... (insert 6 lines of crying and whining and demeaning mentionings)".

 

And you did revise things. You specifically said "I didn't like the red sheild, it was explained and I was ok with it" then "I thought something else, but it was explained and changed my mind". The second one felt like you were saying that the red shield was to "hand holdy" for you and you might have changed your mind to something else, but I'm not sure what you changed your mind to, or if that's even what you said because of the way you framed your previous statements.

 

Rule one of discussion: Don't assume that somebody knows a meme from another board. That's like me telling you "Oh, 6-ft tall invisible rabbit says..." And expecting you to know who that is.

[TwinkieGorilla]

...

 

what part of "drop it" don't you get?

 

i'm neither reading nor responding to you about this subject after this point. i'm not interested. i shrugged my shoulders about the issue 3 pages ago, quite obviously. you missed the point about the spork, my take on the shield, and whatever else you might be talking about (sorry i'm not really reading your bawwws at this point). if you're trolling me in order to get me to continue talking about things i don't really care about, sorry...but the game's over.

[Calax]

It's impressive when somebody expects memes to be transmitted across time and space to suit ones particular tastes. Particularly if their only response to a question is "QUIT *random noise*!"

 

Anyway, I'm interested in the game. Trying to slap myself to actually work on my GoTY version of three. And honestly think the red shield is a good idea. The only other thing would be to somehow show the bullet richochet or whatever, but I think that might be either to subtle or technically difficult.

[TwinkieGorilla]

It's impressive when somebody expects memes to be transmitted across time and space to suit ones particular tastes.

 

don't put words in my mouth, partner. the meme obviously started because enough people got the very simple idea that a spork is a compromise of a spoon and a fork (i.e. FPS + RPG = compromise/spork). remember, calax, you're the one who kept digging through my posts like a treasure hunter looking for something to argue about. not me. and you did this after i admitted that i wasn't really bothered by the subject at hand after it was explained. as for your persistent question, you got it 3-4 pages ago in one of my first posts. remember, not liking/not satisfied with an answer is not synonymous with a poster not having given one.

 

now, i have a final exam to take for the next 2 hours. color me done with this red shield conversation.

[Calax]

It's impressive when somebody expects memes to be transmitted across time and space to suit ones particular tastes.

 

don't put words in my mouth, partner. the meme obviously started because enough people got the very simple idea that a spork is a compromise of a spoon and a fork (i.e. FPS + RPG = compromise/spork). remember, calax, you're the one who kept digging through my posts like a treasure hunter looking for something to argue about. not me. and you did this after i admitted that i wasn't really bothered by the subject at hand after it was explained. as for your persistent question, you got it 3-4 pages ago in one of my first posts. remember, not liking/not satisfied with an answer is not synonymous with a poster not having given one.

 

now, i have a final exam to take for the next 2 hours. color me done with this red shield conversation.

Except that memes don't work when they're not in the culture that created them. To quote you "the spork meme from the bethesda boards" THIS is not the bethesda boards, get that through your head. If you want to talk about something, don't use something that people might not have an understanding of. You think a spork is a simple combination, while in my head a spork is something that tried to combine two objects, and utterly failed at it's sole task. I wasn't "around" for the creation of this meme on ANOTHER BOARD from 2 years ago.

 

As to your change of heart, I said in my post that I had NO CLUE what your feelings were because you left so much ambiguity in your previous posts (to me) that you could have had a change of heart and thought that the red shield was fried chicken, and you brought up the fact that you liked the fallout 1&2 text boxes because they felt different, and you'd mentioned that the red shield felt like it was holding your hand to much, which begot my question of "Why does a red shield seem more like hand holding than text that tells you what's going on?"

 

Add to that your childish antics of converting somebody entirely into a single noise that sounds like it was made by gutting a moose, and you have a reason for my anger/fixation.

Edited May 3, 2010 by Calax

[Gorth]

I think that ought to be the end of that particular line of dicussion (otherwise I'll have to find my pair of scissors and start trimming). Looks like people are running out of full stops.

 

Here are some for cut and pasting "......."

[Calax]

I think that ought to be the end of that particular line of dicussion (otherwise I'll have to find my pair of scissors and start trimming). Looks like people are running out of full stops.

 

Here are some for cut and pasting "......."

I'm under the effects of magic (see my sig) what can I say?

 

Part of me is wondering if it's gonna be a bit of a night mare trying to deal with 3 separate gauges (HP, Dehydration and Rads) at the same time to keep yourself alive and capable.

[jero cvmi]

I just remembered you could find sporks in many places in fallout 3. That was hilarious.

[Gorth]

Spork... thats sort of like "Action RPG" or "Realtime Strategy", trying to put everything in one package

[Sannom]

New preview at MTV Multiplayer, I think they explain a little better chat the iron sight is about :

 

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/05/03/...t-of-fallout-3/

[TwinkieGorilla]

Except that memes don't work when they're not in the culture that created them.

 

ok, dude? you're missing the point. a spork isn't a very difficult metaphor to figure out without context. trust me, i'm an english major...i have to decipher things without meme-context all the time. it's pretty darn-tootin' obvious. i now petition you change your screen-name to Spork.

 

I just remembered you could find sporks in many places in fallout 3. That was hilarious.

 

especially after the whole spork debacle on the Bethsoft forums, yes. i lol'ed pretty hard and thought "if this be a coincidence, it be a very funny one."

 

Spork... thats sort of like "Action RPG" or "Realtime Strategy", trying to put everything in one package

 

exactly.

Edited May 4, 2010 by TwinkieGorilla