FO: NV (General Discussion)

[Tale]

Playing Fallout 3, I miss the Enclave a bit.

 

Hear me out here. There's something to be said for faceless stormtrooper mooks in heavy armor. I don't really care about the genocide or any of their plans. I miss their mooks.

 

As a compromise, I hope that we get DLC that introduces a brand new group of heavy armored jackalopes to fight.

[LadyCrimson]

Stupid question....in combat, that "boom" sound:does that just signify an enemy death? Or a critical? Or....?

 

...I think I need to stop wearing the headphones. Instead of ringing in my ears, I've begun hearing that timed sound of bangbangbangbangbang:reload:bangbangbangbangbang of the game rifles inside my head.

[Cantousent]

The combined Fallout 3 critic score is a little higher than the combined New Vegas score. I think the former is 91 and the latter is 86, so five points. Both games have been commercially successful. I simply don't have a lot of interest in making a blow by blow comparison between the games.

 

It's difficult to quantify terms like 'breathing' and 'immersive.' I believe we've come to agree that those particular ideas tend to be highly personal. However, from a literary perspective, I cannot see how folks don't favor the npcs and story in New Vegas. No, it's not a Russian novel. Fair enough, but I tend to believe that New Vegas would fare better under academic scrutiny than Fallout 3. That's my gut instinct after putting in over a hundred hours in each game, but I'd be willing to take a crack at defending that position. I mean, I guess one

[Tigranes]

I believe FNV is superior just for the fact that it doesn't have Three Dawg or M-something-lady-that's-writing-wasteland-journal, and doesn't want you to kill yourself for NO REASON at the end.

[Tale]

I prefer New Vegas because it doesn't make sneak mandatory to prevent constant Giant Radscorpion attacks.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I believe FNV is superior just for the fact that it doesn't have Three Dawg or M-something-lady-that's-writing-wasteland-journal, and doesn't want you to kill yourself for NO REASON at the end.

 

I wish I didnt have a clue about what happened there

 

Bethesda design meeting:

 

-Then you go into the chamber and sacrifice yourself.

-Dude, that ****ing sucks. You think the players likes playing through 100h only to die in the end no matter what they do?

-What the **** are you talking about, the player will love it. It's ****ing drama, man!

-No they wont, and what if you have that dude Farnsworth with you thats friggin immune to radioactivity? Then its just pointless.

-****, well Ill just write some **** about fate and stuff, they'll buy that.

-No they wont.

-Oh yeah, well whatever! Im the ****ing lead game designer and we do whatever the **** I say, ok? If you dont like it then you can go **** yourselves!!

[Gorgon]

That's not the retarded bit. That would be having a companion who is friggin' immune to radiation and an all around good guy who wouldn't take two steps inside the room and install the maguffin into the thingie.

 

EDIT: eyah and that's what you wrote.

Edited November 15, 2010 by Gorgon

[Tale]

They seemed pretty strict about their narrative in Fallout 3. In that regard, it makes sense. In a "it was a writer decision, not a designer decision" sense.

 

The game was pretty railroaded all down the line. You could sequence break, but all dialogue revolved around "I miss my daddy" "do you know where my dad is?" and "hurry up and tell me about my father, dang you!" Until he died and then it was all about how you miss him.

 

So there was definitely a "the narrative" they were wanting to follow. They defined the player character's birth and his motive. It's little wonder that they define the player character's death. It lacked openess, even to interpretation, except by minor degrees.

 

 

I give this analysis without hostility. I wasn't actually bothered by the death or the inability of a companion to circumvent it. I've seen sillier stuff.

Edited November 15, 2010 by Tale

[Enoch]

They seemed pretty strict about their narrative in Fallout 3. In that regard, it makes sense. In a "it was a writer decision, not a designer decision" sense.

 

The game was pretty railroaded all down the line. You could sequence break, but all dialogue revolved around "I miss my daddy" "do you know where my dad is?" and "hurry up and tell me about my father, dang you!" Until he died and then it was all about how you miss him.

 

So there was definitely a "the narrative" they were wanting to follow. They defined the player character's birth and his motive. It's little wonder that they define the player character's death. It lacked openess, even to interpretation, except by minor degrees.

 

 

I give this analysis without hostility. I wasn't actually bothered by the death or the inability of a companion to circumvent it. I've seen sillier stuff.

I don't know that it's necessarily that. I mean, outside of the "getting dipped" option to end to FO1, the player's birth, death, and motivations are similarly scripted.

 

Actually, I think FO1-mimicry is behind a lot of the FO3 plot. The ending seemed specifically designed to emulate the bittersweet ending of Fallout 1 (for a "good" Vault Dweller). They just didn't do it very well. The game up to that point really hadn't succeeded in convincing the player that the gameworld outside his/her character was worth saving (or, for that matter, what difference having abundant clean water would make). So the "sweet" part was missing, and the player was left chewing on the bitterness of losing the character that he/she had invested hours and hours of attention and care to.

[Tigranes]

There's nothing wrong with the look for your daddy hook, per se - I mean in FNV you spend a lot of time chasing down people who shot you. The problem is that both story-wise, and gameplay-wise, it was just a series of uninteresting mehs. Your dad wasn't exciting or interesting at all - neither when you didn't know, nor when you met him and got the explanation afterwards, did you feel that all this was particularly intriguing or significant. This ties into what Enoch says, in that at the end of the game, you don't really end up with any vested interest (unless you have a low tolerance for bad stories).

 

Hell, I don't even mind my character dying. But the sheer nonsense behind why he had to die, and the obviousness of the deus ex machina (here we'll just make this room super radioactive just so you can die a heroic death) makes you vomit. Sadly, now that's really the only part of the game I remember clearly, even though while I was playign I thought some areas were quite interesting.

[entrerix]

i felt like fallout 3 was written with the intent to make the player feel a certain way when the credits rolled, that kind of emotional hit that fallout 1 so ably evoked on its completion. That part 3 completely and embarrassingly fell on its face in attempting it is better left forgotten for the sake of everyone involved... just be glad we have new vegas (which although it doesnt pack much of an emotional punch compared to the original either, it certainly didn't miserably fail to ape it, but merely went a different direction altogether).

 

 

on a personal note: fallout 1's ending is quite possibly my favorite game ending of all time. which gives me an idea for a thread....

[HoonDing]

Bethesda came up with that ending to rattle the fans enough so they would be easier inticed to acquire Broken Steel (and other DLCs) later on. As usual, it was just a brilliant marketing ploy.

[Gizmo]

That's not the retarded bit. That would be having a companion who is friggin' immune to radiation and an all around good guy who wouldn't take two steps inside the room and install the maguffin into the thingie.

 

EDIT: eyah and that's what you wrote.

Actually... As I understand it, its really ironic... See Fallout (1) was never supposed to have NPC party members, but they hacked them in late in development (this is why the AI is so odd, and why you have to steal from them to trade equipment).

 

In Fallout 3 (as I heard it), there were never supposed to be NPC party members, but they hacked them in late in development ~this is why the ending turned out to not make sense if you had Fawkes.

Edited November 16, 2010 by Gizmo

[Enoch]

Miniscule nitpick department: The guy who runs the co-op in Westside: The text is inconsistent on whether his name is "Etienne" or "Ettienne" (the former is likely correct). Also, the voiceover for the Followers dude who is helping him calls him something that sounds like "Entenee."

[Cantousent]

I think the most glaring mistake I saw was when the boy does the voice over for one of the factions and not only where there errors in the text, he made other, different errors in the voiceover.

 

...And I'm in the minority around these parts in that I liked dear ol' dad in Fallout 3. I was sad at the end. Of coruse, I agree that the ending with the whole 'sacrifice' imperative was ridiculous, forced, cheap, and trite. I still liked most of the NPCs in Fallout 3. Moire was funny. Three Dog was a goofy and entertaining. I took them for what they were and had fun with them.

[Spider]

I simply refused to sacrifice myself. The brotherhood girl could take that heroic route.

 

Worse part for me though is how she called me out on it. I mean it's not like she volunteered in the first place. The logical way of handling it would be to just draw straws or something. Or send in the ghoul who is standing right behind us...

 

As for the discussion of setting. I'm not from the US and haven't been to either location, but I vastly prefer the setting in new Vegas. I thought fo3 did good and I really liked the game, but the setting felt more like a series of "cool" locations randomly inserted into the map. There was no connection between the different places with a few exceptions.

 

New Vegas has a whole other level of cohesiveness. The different locations really feel like they're part of the same world. I also find a lot of them to be much more interesting than the fo3 ones. Sure, fo3 had more recognizable vistas, but apart from the visuals, there was very little meat to the locations (again with a few exceptions).

 

Or to put it simply, Bethesda is much better at visual story telling, Obsidian are better writers. I prefer well written locations visually interesting ones.

[Gizmo]

Is it just me or was that ending sort of a rip off of Spock's "death" in Wrath of Khan?

[Rosbjerg]

As for the discussion of setting. I'm not from the US and haven't been to either location, but I vastly prefer the setting in new Vegas. I thought fo3 did good and I really liked the game, but the setting felt more like a series of "cool" locations randomly inserted into the map. There was no connection between the different places with a few exceptions.

 

New Vegas has a whole other level of cohesiveness. The different locations really feel like they're part of the same world. I also find a lot of them to be much more interesting than the fo3 ones. Sure, fo3 had more recognizable vistas, but apart from the visuals, there was very little meat to the locations (again with a few exceptions).

 

I agree completely - Washington D.C felt more like a kinda cameo or "wouldn't that be cool" rather than a well thought out setting. There were no farms, no self-sustaining towns or signs of even nomadic industry and it's unbelievable that a society can exist solely on scavenging for 200+ years. While in NV you have sharecrops, farms, hunters, livestock and import - it felt like Obz thought about and at least tried to justify the existence of a growing community. This made the Mojave setting a lot more enjoyable to me - and I find Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam as recognisable as the Washington monument or Parliament.

[HoonDing]

Rivet City was self-sustaining.

 

There's a point about the lack of crops & farms, though. After all, Morrowind and even Oblivion had plenty of those... must've been due to the giant radscorpions & deathclaws running rampant everywhere once your character went over a certain level.

Edited November 16, 2010 by virumor

[Guest Slinky]

When patch 1.1 and 1.2 came out I saw a lot of posts all around where people where getting a lot more crashes than before. Well guess what? I haven't had a single crash with 1.2 in 6h of gameplay. With 1.0 it crashed once in every 2 hours.

 

Also, I never ever saw enemies using dynamite or stimpacks with 1.0. With 1.2 they use both!

[Tigranes]

Yeah, I loved how in most early game FNV towns, they would all be obsessed with the question of supplies and business and population flow, etc. Still didn't really see a lot of working the land going on, though, but I think again that relates back to the devs wanting to risk shaking the Fallouty feel too much.

[LadyCrimson]

Except for my constantly crashing 1st character, I haven't had too many crashes since w/others. A few here and there, but tolerable. Now if they'd just reliably get rid of the cowboy repeater/revolver action GUI bug....

For me enemies have always used dynamite, and grenades, and spears. Usually crippling one my limbs if it hits. Haven't seen too many heal themselves. Usually only when they run away.

 

Edit:And yes, I agree that I like how NV area feels like one world. Visually and town wise etc. it makes sense as I go from place to place.

Edited November 16, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[Gorgon]

Am I the only one who thought the level design was particularly bad in FONW. Hoover Dam, Camp Macarren, Nelis AFB. Constant trucking around in huge areas with only a vague sense of where anything was.

[LadyCrimson]

Outdoors, it gave me the sense of marching around an area I was unfamiliar with. I'd been shot in the head after all....probably amnesia.

But I did find the indoor/building/Vault areas to be confusing, because much of the hallways etc. felt the same & the maps were terrible with multiple floors so I'd get all turned around/lost when trying to find one particular room or NPC.

Edited November 16, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[Gorgon]

Same as FO3, because the pipboy map is worse than useless with multiple levels. They could have cut the above areas in half though, and they still would have been too big.

 

Why is the trader the furthers possible distance from the entrance at Camp Macarren. I mean, yes I do prefer outdoor to vaults, and thankfully there weren't that many of those, but still.