The Perfect Setting of Fallout 4

[Orogun01]

But the setting must have some remarkable landmarks, so despite a lot of people being against it I'm putting New York forward. They already did Point Lookout, so...

A few of the landmarks might be different, but it would be too similar to Washington DC to feel "new". FO3 covered ruined metropolises, FO:NV covered desert/frontier style settings. We need more swamps in games, so the everglades would be interesting. Bring in the mutated alligators and lots of radiated water

 

Any significant landmarks on Hawaii?

You know I've seen the Everglades and that game would be really hard, and there would be no landmarks or buildings left since the structures are very weak. Plus mutated alligators? Them things sound scary man

 

Nah, they should go to Atlanta instead. Old city, underground railroad, and awful lotta African Americans there to become ghouls and add themes of racism to the game. A Martin Luther King ghoul for DLC

Edited October 4, 2011 by Orogun01

[WorstUsernameEver]

You know I've seen the Everglades and that game would be really hard, and there would be no landmarks or buildings left since the structures are very weak.

 

Going by that logic, we shouldn't have landmarks in New Vegas and Fallout 3 either since Obsidian and Bethesda didn't exactly make an effort to make them believable. Concrete doesn't work like that.

[HoonDing]

But the setting must have some remarkable landmarks, so despite a lot of people being against it I'm putting New York forward. They already did Point Lookout, so...

A few of the landmarks might be different, but it would be too similar to Washington DC to feel "new". FO3 covered ruined metropolises, FO:NV covered desert/frontier style settings. We need more swamps in games, so the everglades would be interesting. Bring in the mutated alligators and lots of radiated water

 

Any significant landmarks on Hawaii?

Point Lookout dealt with swamps. I would rather not see any more crazy tribals and hillbillies ever again.

[Gromnir]

am not a huge fo fan, so take with a grain o' salt, but our firstest choice would actual be buffalo, ny. proximity to kanada could be fun, and there is at least one international recognized landmark in the vicinity. the kanada aspect o' the fallout universe is worth exploring. buffalo architecture, as a whole, is pretty darn amazing, given the relative size and age o' the city. additionally, many o' the better known buffalo buildings is heavily art deco influenced which is perfect for fallout. furthermore, lake erie were once so polluted that it caught on fire, which could makes for interesting game material, no? burning lakes and a nuclear winter?

 

chicago is an obvious personal favorite city for Gromnir, and we thinks it would be an excellent locale, but is maybe too obvious... and is not as close to kanada as is buffalo.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[mkreku]

I actually think Miami is a good idea. They could break completely with the current design aesthetics of Fallout and let Miami be a ruined ghost town that nature is rapidly reclaiming for itself. I can imagine all those neon colours, now faded, partially overgrown with vines and weird mosses and stuff. Big trees growing everywhere, everything covered in plants, water in the streets.. Mutant crocodiles.

 

I'd like it. It would be very different.

[Orogun01]

I actually think Miami is a good idea. They could break completely with the current design aesthetics of Fallout and let Miami be a ruined ghost town that nature is rapidly reclaiming for itself. I can imagine all those neon colours, now faded, partially overgrown with vines and weird mosses and stuff. Big trees growing everywhere, everything covered in plants, water in the streets.. Mutant crocodiles.

 

I'd like it. It would be very different.

Hope you like Art Deco then.

 

I still think that aside from the Glades and South Beach we don't really have many landmarks but on the other hand FNV didn't use any of Vegas famed buildings so it could work with Miami in the same way.

 

If they do Miami: Devs, plz put my house in the game?

[Malcador]

Maybe there can be a subplot of Cuba as a Promised Land.

[Walsingham]

I could see Miami. Something like JG Ballards The Drowned World. Althoug hit's worth noting that Ballard's book works precisely because it's all tropical heat and lizards in central London.

[C2B]

No.

 

Sorry even as far as video game writers go there are several better writers in some way than Bethesdas crew.

There are good video game writers?

 

In my opinion?

 

Yes.

 

Then again I don't follow the notion that ("good" = can compare with literaric classics) so I may act there on a different viewpoint than you.

 

 

Also Bethesda is subpar even for videogames. There are other gernes (Action-Games for example) that also don't focus on writing and even THEY have better dialouge and overall writing than Oblivion or Fallout 3.

 

(Also I'd strongly argue that writing isn't important for a Sandbox RPG. For creating a believable world is also in part the writing responsible. One of the main differences between F3 and F:NV for me)

Edited October 4, 2011 by C2B

[Calax]

They'd Probably do NYC first... but if they did do four, why not have the protagonist be a european exiled to America for whatever reason?

[Tale]

The best setting for a Fallout game would be Dark Sun, in my ever so humble opinion.

 

That slight troll out of the way. I don't really have this fascination with seeing new landmarks in rubble. I fancy the idea of following this larger developing narrative. I don't want to see New York. I want to see what the NCR does next. Or to see it transform into post-post-apocalypse. Where things start building up better. I want that narrative of seeing how Fallout 1 leads to Fallout 2 leads to Fallout New Vegas and even a bit of 3.

[CoM_Solaufein]

But the setting must have some remarkable landmarks, so despite a lot of people being against it I'm putting New York forward. They already did Point Lookout, so...

A few of the landmarks might be different, but it would be too similar to Washington DC to feel "new". FO3 covered ruined metropolises, FO:NV covered desert/frontier style settings. We need more swamps in games, so the everglades would be interesting. Bring in the mutated alligators and lots of radiated water

 

Any significant landmarks on Hawaii?

Point Lookout dealt with swamps. I would rather not see any more crazy tribals and hillbillies ever again.

This. PL didn't look or feel like Fallout. Fallout should take place in a destroyed city or out West like FNV. No swamps, snowy landscape, out of the USA, on an island, etc.

[Tigranes]

Meh. I think the "looks like Fallout" has been more or less exhausted with FO1,2,3,NV and various DLCs (even if large chunks of it was itself deviant from that definition). At that point, you either close the series and call it a day (which won't happen economically speaking), or move on and really adapt the Fallout world to new subsettings. That is actually a much healthier way to 'reinvent' Fallout than try to recreate the old setting exactly then make funky changes to it.

[Orogun01]

Maybe there can be a subplot of Cuba as a Promised Land.

If they do that they better get landmarks right and I will know But now that you mentioned Cuba shares the same weather with Miami so a lot of the effects would be the same with the advantage that it has better architecture.

Everything from colonial to modern you can find, you're walking in colonial pavement looking at stones that were dragged from the sea and used in buildings and next thing you know you have completely modern building on your face. Plus the Capitol is a (better) copy of the White House, more grand (ostentatious) which is a nice tie in to FO3

 

@C2B: Can you put any examples? inbf Hideo Kojima.

[C2B]

@C2B: Can you put any examples? inbf Hideo Kojima.

 

Two quick (and non Obsidian ones): Rhianna Prachett (Terry Prachetts daughter, Overlord + Heavenly Sword) and Amy Henning (though her recent work on Uncharted wasn't impressive it was still well done)

 

And again I'm talking about "good" here. Thats a B on a grade scale. Nothing amazing. Nothing that compares to literaric classics. Or are we talking in computer games terms?

Edited October 4, 2011 by C2B

[Orogun01]

Two quick (and non Obsidian ones): Rhianna Prachett (Terry Prachetts daughter, Overlord + Heavenly Sword) and Amy Henning (though her recent work on Uncharted wasn't impressive it was still well done)

 

And again I'm talking about "good" here. Thats a B on a grade scale. Nothing amazing. Nothing that compares to literaric classics. Or are we talking in computer games terms?

Amy is so-so, Rhianna is good but I feel that she would do better on other mediums. Is hard for me to think of a good game writer because the medium itself is not friendly to writing.

In movies, books, comics, you're recounting the events of a story in games you're reliving them is hard for writing to shine in games because the majority of the experience is gameplay and the writing is absent.

[Gorth]

In movies, books, comics, you're recounting the events of a story in games you're reliving them is hard for writing to shine in games because the majority of the experience is gameplay and the writing is absent.

What you need is some good screenwriting skills (combined with good writing skills for the bits and pieces that are conversation and exposition)

[Malcador]

If they do that they better get landmarks right and I will know But now that you mentioned Cuba shares the same weather with Miami so a lot of the effects would be the same with the advantage that it has better architecture.

Everything from colonial to modern you can find, you're walking in colonial pavement looking at stones that were dragged from the sea and used in buildings and next thing you know you have completely modern building on your face. Plus the Capitol is a (better) copy of the White House, more grand (ostentatious) which is a nice tie in to FO3

 

@C2B: Can you put any examples? inbf Hideo Kojima.

 

Well they don't have to put you in Cuba, could just have it as an endpoint or something or the other. That and was my lame attempt at wit, Americans trying to flee to Cuba, har har. Then again, I wonder what state Cuba is in in the Fallout universe.

[Gorth]

I wonder what state Cuba is in in the Fallout universe.

Well, in the "real world" 50'es, it was a military dictatorship the first half and a communist dictatorship the second half. Makes it open for interpretation in a Fallout scifi seen from the 50'es perspective. Having the corrupt, nepotist oligarchy of Batista ruling a feudal society when it got caught in the blasts would be a very differnt background setting from the "Americana".

[HoonDing]

Amy is so-so, Rhianna is good but I feel that she would do better on other mediums. Is hard for me to think of a good game writer because the medium itself is not friendly to writing.

In movies, books, comics, you're recounting the events of a story in games you're reliving them is hard for writing to shine in games because the majority of the experience is gameplay and the writing is absent.

Best video game writers of all time:

 

Steve Meretzky

Ragnar T

[C2B]

Two quick (and non Obsidian ones): Rhianna Prachett (Terry Prachetts daughter, Overlord + Heavenly Sword) and Amy Henning (though her recent work on Uncharted wasn't impressive it was still well done)

 

And again I'm talking about "good" here. Thats a B on a grade scale. Nothing amazing. Nothing that compares to literaric classics. Or are we talking in computer games terms?

Amy is so-so, Rhianna is good but I feel that she would do better on other mediums. Is hard for me to think of a good game writer because the medium itself is not friendly to writing.

In movies, books, comics, you're recounting the events of a story in games you're reliving them is hard for writing to shine in games because the majority of the experience is gameplay and the writing is absent.

 

......

 

What has all of that to do with writing itself and its quality? Yes, it will impact certain things (especially narrativly) due to different presentation, but..... Good writing will be good writing. (What does "shine" even mean here?)

 

Also I don't really get your last point. How has the writing to be absent? Writing also has a strong impact on gameplay and should be all around you. During gameplay its just mostly through visually storytelling. This isn't really different from long scenes in movies and comics where nobody really speaks. Of course in both cases this isn't the job of the writer. (And Bethesda did actually a fine job there with FO3...., if it wasn't colliding so much with other parts)

 

So in that case we should actually leave out the gameplay parts from the beginning and mainly judge the actual parts where writing is present. And yes, again, I think there are plenty "good" (again just "good" nothing else. B. Not a award for anything) in video games.

 

If video-gaming has one big problem regarding writing its not really the quality of its writers but its application. Like you said, in most cases the majority of the writing is absent and kept to cutscenes. Is a young medium and we still have much techniques to explore.

[Purkake]

The Moon or bust!

[Orogun01]

In movies, books, comics, you're recounting the events of a story in games you're reliving them is hard for writing to shine in games because the majority of the experience is gameplay and the writing is absent.

What you need is some good screenwriting skills (combined with good writing skills for the bits and pieces that are conversation and exposition)

I've seen that in games but it's not always enough other media has you experiencing things from another's perspective but games often leave a void for the player to insert themselves into the story (silent protagonist, choice & consequence, ect.) So while games are more immersive they do little in exploring the emotional spectrum, they cater to a small amount of it rather than presenting the plethora of existence because they have to deal with actions; they need to have gameplay.

 

Well they don't have to put you in Cuba, could just have it as an endpoint or something or the other. That and was my lame attempt at wit, Americans trying to flee to Cuba, har har. Then again, I wonder what state Cuba is in in the Fallout universe.

This may come as a surprise but people actually immigrated into Cuba back in the depression at which point Batista's economic policies were doing extremely well.

As for the state, there is some suspension of disbelief (at least for me) knowing which landmarks are more likely to have survived a nuclear fallout and Cuba has a lot the old durable architecture that was built to last.

 

I wonder what state Cuba is in in the Fallout universe.

Well, in the "real world" 50'es, it was a military dictatorship the first half and a communist dictatorship the second half. Makes it open for interpretation in a Fallout scifi seen from the 50'es perspective. Having the corrupt, nepotist oligarchy of Batista ruling a feudal society when it got caught in the blasts would be a very differnt background setting from the "Americana".

I would assume that since the revolution never happened it would still be at that point. But since the Cuban middle class at the point lived well beyond the middle class standards of first world countries, there is a cheap copy of "Americana". They wanted the same comforts and luxuries that people in the States so a lot of the culture reflected a mix of that high living with the extreme level of poverty caused by the regime.

There is also the ganster angle, this was the tropical resort of many family heads and famed US gansters. Who modeled the place to cater to their need for debauchery; Vegas style, you ever gone to Tropicana?

[Orogun01]

......

 

What has all of that to do with writing itself and its quality? Yes, it will impact certain things (especially narrativly) due to different presentation, but..... Good writing will be good writing. (What does "shine" even mean here?)

 

Also I don't really get your last point. How has the writing to be absent? Writing also has a strong impact on gameplay and should be all around you. During gameplay its just mostly through visually storytelling. This isn't really different from long scenes in movies and comics where nobody really speaks. Of course in both cases this isn't the job of the writer. (And Bethesda did actually a fine job there with FO3...., if it wasn't colliding so much with other parts)

 

So in that case we should actually leave out the gameplay parts from the beginning and mainly judge the actual parts where writing is present. And yes, again, I think there are plenty "good" (again just "good" nothing else. B. Not a award for anything) in video games.

 

If video-gaming has one big problem regarding writing its not really the quality of its writers but its application. Like you said, in most cases the majority of the writing is absent and kept to cutscenes. Is a young medium and we still have much techniques to explore.

Shine means that you could have the most awesome screenplay ever written that would fail because of a bad director/producer/actor. That for a story to do its best it has to adapt to the medium of presentation.

The writing is somewhat absent because the writer is absent and this separation doesn't help in the least bit. Is one of those things where the writing is going one way and the game completely another way. It happens a lot with comic books, because of the same reason.

 

I agree with you the fault lies not with the quality of the writers, which why I said that Rhianna Pratchett could do better in other mediums. While I do believe that some game writing is "good" that isn't good enough for me, I don't want good as in "adventure/action flick" good I want Kubrick/Spielberg/ (insert your favorite director) good.

 

For the medium to change, move forward, become art writing should find its place in games. Before that it should be define what its purpose is and what the particular of the medium are.

[Gorth]

I would assume that since the revolution never happened it would still be at that point. But since the Cuban middle class at the point lived well beyond the middle class standards of first world countries, there is a cheap copy of "Americana". They wanted the same comforts and luxuries that people in the States so a lot of the culture reflected a mix of that high living with the extreme level of poverty caused by the regime.

There is also the ganster angle, this was the tropical resort of many family heads and famed US gansters. Who modeled the place to cater to their need for debauchery; Vegas style, you ever gone to Tropicana?

I've never been there, but when seeing the pictures in the news every now and then, it does look like Cuba is the 50's trapped in amber, like time stood still since it got isolated and blockaded. As for the rest I don't know if it makes a good Fallout game, but it sure as heck has potential for an interesting game of some kind