So, the next Fallout ?...

[Mr Bean]

It's even worse when you throw jumping puzzles into your FPS and your still a floating camera looking down trying to figure out where the edge of the ledge is in relation to your invisible feet.

[Panzersharkcat]

It's even worse when you throw jumping puzzles into your FPS and your still a floating camera looking down trying to figure out where the edge of the ledge is in relation to your invisible feet.

This was one the worst things about the mod, Cube. It's an excellent mod but goddamnit, why do you force me into first-person view where I can't see my damn feet while setting me up in a place where I have to jump around like Mario? But yeah, I can do without the Brotherhood showing up again. I also kind of want to see the MEC Gauss Minigun.

[Stark]

It's even worse when you throw jumping puzzles into your FPS and your still a floating camera looking down trying to figure out where the edge of the ledge is in relation to your invisible feet.

Contextual jumping and mantling immediately remove this... but nerds complain that they need to be able to mash jump for some reason. Clearly, 'role playing' and 'adventure' are about rubbing your crotch on a waist high barrier until you find the one spot you can jump up, or finding the one part of a slope that doesn't make you slide down.

But yeah, Gamebryo sucks, etc etc, Bethesda can't animate to save their lives, etc etc.

[Zixinus]

Well, here's an idea:

You are a Vault Dweller, the one chosen for whatever reason to be the first one to leave the Vault. Instead of being sent off to some MacGuffin task, you are sent simply to collect soil samples and explore what the outside world is like.

Thing is, when you come back and find that the Vault has been sacked, except for the lowest and most secure levels. The exact method and people who do this, I am not sure yet, but there is a potential for a plot here.

Your job? Rebuild the Vault into a workable city and civilization.

People love to build stuff. But this is a Fallout game and a RPG, so how would this work?

Your job is to go back out into the Wasteland and receive stuff, get them back to the Vault and help get the thing operational. Skills like repair and science will have their own mini-games (perhaps with other skills too). You would help plan the building layouts, security, logistics (water), etc.
Your basic task is to collect various stuff and people. You need to find things like sources of water, people that know farming, various irreplaceable machine parts, etc.

You don't get sent out to get a Water Chip. You are sent out as someone to gather resources to build a city.
You are already everybody's courier in most Beth games, let's build around that and improve that.

As for a story, you need to be someone special. Perhaps you are someone that an intelligent Super Mutant from the higher echelons of the Master's army experimented upon, hoping to step into the Master's footsteps? Or maybe some unique cyber-augmentation?

Hell, it doesn't necessarily have to be a Vault per-say, it could be an Enclave settlement that has gone rouge.

[Stark]

You mean Farmville right, only with a main menu you have to walk around in first person?

[Bakustra]

You mean Farmville right, only with a main menu you have to walk around in first person?

Farmville, only with more pandering, and apparently AAA. Or maybe we could do this like ActRaiser, and you're split between city management and shoot-em-up/FPS/RPG segments.

[Stark]

If the gameworld was dynamic, it could have some interesting emergent shit going on, but then the game woudln't be 'build your castle' it'd be 'keep a low profile so you don't get attacked'. Imagine how broken itd be without a dynamic economy.

[Enigma]

Hell, it doesn't necessarily have to be a Vault per-say, it could be an Enclave settlement that has gone rouge.

They've gone red? They've become communists?

[Bakustra]

Why are people so enamored with the Enclave? They were a pretty good joke, but there's nothing else to them besides that joke. You might as well make the antagonists based on the deleted EPA section from FO2, because at least that uses a slightly different joke.

[Panzersharkcat]

Because they have awesome armor and because people like rooting for the Empire.

[Stark]

Whats awesome about the armour? The stupid horns?

Did the Enclave ever do anything interesting beyond 'have stuff that worked'? All their plans were the dumbest kind of garbage and the more games showed us what they coudl do the more useless they were. A deadly assault squad of FOUR GUYS! An orgnaisiation so advanced, so dangerous, they can't stop ONE DUDE killing LITERALLY ALL OF THEM in ten minutes!

Wow, give us more of those jokers.

[Bakustra]

Because they have awesome armor and because people like rooting for the Empire.

Let me correct that: because Fallout fans are about as intelligent as 40k fans. Oh, wait, you won't get that, will you?

Whats awesome about the armour? The stupid horns?

Did the Enclave ever do anything interesting beyond 'have stuff that worked'? All their plans were the dumbest kind of garbage and the more games showed us what they coudl do the more useless they were. A deadly assault squad of FOUR GUYS! An orgnaisiation so advanced, so dangerous, they can't stop ONE DUDE killing LITERALLY ALL OF THEM in ten minutes!

Wow, give us more of those jokers.

Well, you know, they had that computer who pretended to be a bunch of presidents, and that was AWESUM, much like how all of Fallout is AWESUM and DEDD SERIUS.

[Panzersharkcat]

Whats awesome about the armour? The stupid horns?

Did the Enclave ever do anything interesting beyond 'have stuff that worked'? All their plans were the dumbest kind of garbage and the more games showed us what they coudl do the more useless they were. A deadly assault squad of FOUR GUYS! An orgnaisiation so advanced, so dangerous, they can't stop ONE DUDE killing LITERALLY ALL OF THEM in ten minutes!

Wow, give us more of those jokers.

The eyes and the sparks on Tesla armor. Horns were meh. Hellfire armor looked damn good, too. Wish they'd close the damn gap in the back of Tesla and ordinary Enclave armor, though. That was annoying to look at. The shoulders on regular Enclave armor look dorky.

I'd say trying to kill everybody would be doing something interesting. And really, the last bit can be said about most video game antagonists e.g. mowing through a thousand Heartless in five minutes in Kingdom Hearts 2 or wiping out a bunch of Sith troops on the way to Darth Malak in KOTOR.

Let me correct that: because Fallout fans are about as intelligent as 40k fans. Oh, wait, you won't get that, will you?

Considering that I don't really pay attention to Warhammer 40K or its fanbase, no, I wouldn't. Unless you're referring to the guys at No Mutants Allowed.

Well, you know, they had that computer who pretended to be a bunch of presidents, and that was AWESUM, much like how all of Fallout is AWESUM and DEDD SERIUS.

Meh. Eden was a disappointing character, what with beating him with only one measly speech check. He had a good voice actor in Malcolm MacDowell, who did a pretty good job of it with what he had to work with. As for "hur hur all of Fallout is AWESUM and DEDD SERIUS," exactly where did I say that?

[Bakustra]

Meh. Eden was a disappointing character, what with beating him with only one measly speech check. He had a good voice actor in Malcolm MacDowell, who did a pretty good job of it with what he had to work with. As for "hur hur all of Fallout is AWESUM and DEDD SERIUS," exactly where did I say that?

You didn't say it. I said it. Are you suggesting that I had some sort of satirical intent? That I was doing it to amuse and make a point at the same time? That I'm being sarcastic? Am I being sarcastic towards you? Huh? Tell me.

I'd say trying to kill everybody would be doing something interesting. And really, the last bit can be said about most video game antagonists e.g. mowing through a thousand Heartless in five minutes in Kingdom Hearts 2 or wiping out a bunch of Sith troops on the way to Darth Malak in KOTOR.

Jesus wept.

[Panzersharkcat]

You didn't say it. I said it. Are you suggesting that I had some sort of satirical intent? That I was doing it to amuse and make a point at the same time? That I'm being sarcastic? Am I being sarcastic towards you? Huh? Tell me.

No, I was suggesting that you were putting words in my mouth because I've never said anything of the sort about all of Fallout being awesome.

[Bakustra]

You didn't say it. I said it. Are you suggesting that I had some sort of satirical intent? That I was doing it to amuse and make a point at the same time? That I'm being sarcastic? Am I being sarcastic towards you? Huh? Tell me.

No, I was suggesting that you were putting words in my mouth because I've never said anything of the sort about all of Fallout being awesome.

How can I be putting words in your mouth when it's my handle on the post? Think, man, think!

PS: You're missing the overall point about the Enclave by about a mile, especially with the comparisons you provided, but you're showing so little ability to think critically that I find myself unable to articulate it in a way that you might understand.

[Panzersharkcat]

Well, I am an absolute idiot with social cues. Explain it in a way that even an idiot like me would understand because I fail to see why a trait shared by most video game antagonists, being mowed down by the fuckton by the hero, would necessarily make them jokes.

[Stark]

'Is advanced and military' + 'is brutalised by man with bolt action rifle' = 'joke'

Its not really their fault, Beth just can't make decent gunfighting or game balance. Even that aside, the Enclave have never had a good plan or done anything other than 'show up, try to be hard, have a president'. They're just not very interesting, so why bring them back when you can just use someone else who HASN'T had their credibility totally destroyed (and isn't linked to the abortion that is the vault experiment)?

If there was an emergent resource game like z was talking about above, they could bring something to the table, but if you're just married to the idea of shooting dark green guys instead of light green guys, the franchise should probably just go die.

[Bakustra]

Well, I am an absolute idiot with social cues. Explain it in a way that even an idiot like me would understand because I fail to see why a trait shared by most video game antagonists, being mowed down by the fuckton by the hero, would necessarily make them jokes.

That's not why they're jokes, it's why they're pathetic and not credible.

They're a massive joke about the US government and its militaristic, oo-rah side, and the unpleasant implications of that. President Dick Richardson in FO2 is basically Nixon, while Daniel Bird is Dan Quayle. Frank Horrigan is Special Agent Horrigan of the US Secret Service. And so on, and so forth. Even their ideology is all about Real Americans. But there's only so much play you can get out of that before it becomes overplayed, and they're really just "militaristic tendencies in the US government, turned up to 11". The joke is largely dead.

But they lose credibility because they're part and parcel of a game where you've gotta tell the insipid, insecure players that Beth believes is their playerbase that their avatar is the best thing since sliced bread, and so you've gotta be able to tear through them and wipe them all out, so they can't be intimidating at all, and their plans are stupid- at least initially this was on purpose, as part of the joke, but "kill everybody" is a dumb plan and always will be.

[Bakustra]

'Is advanced and military' + 'is brutalised by man with bolt action rifle' = 'joke'

Its not really their fault, Beth just can't make decent gunfighting or game balance. Even that aside, the Enclave have never had a good plan or done anything other than 'show up, try to be hard, have a president'. They're just not very interesting, so why bring them back when you can just use someone else who HASN'T had their credibility totally destroyed (and isn't linked to the abortion that is the vault experiment)?

If there was an emergent resource game like z was talking about above, they could bring something to the table, but if you're just married to the idea of shooting dark green guys instead of light green guys, the franchise should probably just go die.

For sure the next guy shouldn't come from a vault and there probably shouldn't be too many vaults in the game, if any. Honestly, I wonder if they're going to do FO1's basic plot again. I wonder what gewgaw will be the objective of the first half of the game, and how it will shift in the second half! New Vegas switched it up a little bit, but still.

Also, lol:

The game contains around 65,000 lines of dialogue, beating its predecessor and previous record holder Fallout 3 which contained 8 lines of dialogue.

[Panzersharkcat]

Ah, I see. Thank you for hitting me on the head with the common sense mallet because I had completely missed the point about that part being the joke. I knew much of the whole series was making fun of the moral guardians' view of the 50's, but you know, idiot with social cues.

Also, it probably didn't help that I heavily modded Fallout 3 where pretty much all guys in power armor are really hard to kill. A boosted DR for the armor with another 40 DR stacked on top of that for NPCs wearing power armor along with another mod that raises max DR to 95 resulted in said bolt-action rifles barely scratching them, while another mod that gave them tri-beam laser rifles, Tesla cannons, Gauss miniguns, and Gauss rifles with increased magazine capacity made them much more capable of killing the player.

[Grumman]

And because we're in GEC and it is going to be discussed anyway :

So, what changes in gameplay or in story-telling/quest design do you think should be made to improve the next Fallout ? Where would you like the game to take place ? What story would you like the main quest to be ?

There's one thing that I'd love to see in the next Fallout game, and that's a working atomic car. I'm thinking of something like the muscle car segment from Half Life 2: Episode 2 transplanted into a sandbox game, but with a trunk to put stuff in so that transporting something like, say, a garden gnome isn't a curse-inducing exercise in frustration.

[aieeegrunt]

Rather than grinding for XP and allocating points when you level up, have the majority of your skill points come from you special pics. If you want to improve a skill, you have to actually use it in the game world, like every time you pick or attempt to pick a lock your lock pick skill goes up.

[Vendetta]

You mean that system that has been consistently broken and shit in every game it has ever appeared in, starting at least as early as Final Fantasy 2, which forces you into mindless grinding of every skill seperately, usually doing bullshit boring useless crap for hours before you get to do any of the fun things tied to that skill?

How about no.

The craptastic skill system was what made me give up Skyrim and play Fallout 3 again.

Grind-by-repetition has never been fun.

[Julhelm]

They should dump levels altogether. If Stalker did one thing right, it's how you only ever get better equipment but the threat is never dialled down. Oh and I'd like it if they'd make some decent 1st person combat. There's really no reason why RPG = must be dicerolls and crits.