Bethesda Fallout 3 forum open

[Vympel]

CRY HAVOC AND LET SLIP THE FANBOYS!

Link

[Resinence]

You will be the large majority buying the game, and the definite majority buying the likely, higher selling X-Box version. There is absolutely no sound, financial reason why Bethesda should listen to us, the true fans of the original series, and we know this. We don't like this. At all.

Fucking No Mutants Allowed retards are already there in full force. "true fans" HAHAHAHAHA sure.

[Vendetta]

And once again the shrill cries of the Fallout fan community begin about how Bethesda are Going To Get It All Wrong.

Seriously, I love Fallout, but the Fallout fans are some of the worst examples of mindless fanboys ever. They literally want Fallout 2 again, and any concession to the nine years that have passed since it's release will be anathema.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I hate these peoples' guts. They spoiled any chance a good game had for success once. Bethesda has too much name recognition for them to do it again here, but I do think opening the forums early was a mistake. Just gives these assclowns months and months to poison the well.

[Vendetta]

I remember the howls when the Brotherhood of Steel forums (the console one, not FO Tactics) were first opened (and closed again a day later, never to return).

Of course, Brotherhood did turn out shit, and had only a passing resemblance to Fallout, but I suspect that an interested and supportive forum presence during development would have turned it into a) a better game, and b) a closer resemblance to the real thing. The parallel developlment, and Black Isle's last product, Dark Alliance II, had a really good forum community all throughout development, and the ideas and comments of the forum were represented well in the game. (Snowblind's games, Champions of Norrath and Justice League Heroes, have also benefitted from this, since most of the DAII community decamped to their forums, and the same level of developer interest in the community prevails.)

The screeching flocks don't realise though that simply telling developers what you don't want and not what you do want means you have almost no chance of seeing the product you wanted.

If Fallout 3 doesn't live up to the rabid fans' expectations, it's because they fucked up presenting their case for how to make Fallout work.

[loomer]

Fuckers. The true fans are the ones who want a Fallout experience. It doesn't have to be as good in terms of gameplay as either of the first two. It just needs to be fun, and immersive. It needs to have the flavour, and preferably the quality and gameplay. The first is a must, though, and if THAT is taken out and Fallout 3 is just a Generic Post-Apoc RPG, then they can bitch and whine.

[Vympel]

I hate these peoples' guts. They spoiled any chance a good game had for success once. Bethesda has too much name recognition for them to do it again here, but I do think opening the forums early was a mistake. Just gives these assclowns months and months to poison the well.

Dude- Bethesda already tried opening Fallout forums back in 2004 after the announcement and they promptly closed them.

Methinks Bethesda is ready now- they probably know they won't make the whiner community happy so they'll hopefully ignore them completely (except for justified complaints like "Fallout 3 better not have Oblivion's lame-ass scaling ...")

[SirNitram]

I've said it before. All I want from Fallout 3 is three things.

1) 50s kitsch.
2) Lethal combat.
3) Adult Content. Not BEWBIES, but the sort of grit that you would find in post-apoc. Drugs, slavery, immorality, and the sort of horrors humans do to one another.

I'd prefer no first-person, but I'm open to them doing a good job on it.

[Vendetta]

I'd prefer no first-person, but I'm open to them doing a good job on it.

FPRPGs are good for a number of things, Fallout is not one of them. They tend to border on being action RPGs, with the majority of the solutions to problems being physical in some way, rather than cerebral. Part of the beauty of Fallout is the range of approaches to any given problem, up to and including avoiding all combat and pretty much all direct physical solutions.

I'm not saying it FPV games can't include those options, but they will by their nature tend to emphasise the physical solution over anything else. (Hence, for almost every quest in Oblivion that wasn't a fedex or fetch quest you were generally required to thump something or make sneaky at some point)

So, a shit hot third person isometric engine, and either full realtime or full turn based action. (I'm coming to dislike turn based systems that pretend to be anything else, at least when turns are globally imposed. FFXII survived because turns are individual, giving individual character actions rather than everyone do something at once then wait six seconds to do something again)

[Ghost Rider]

If they try to at least keep with some things of Fallout, primarily the ability to have different solutions to problems and as a side note some of the humor and ribaldness of the first two...then hell they can do whatever they want. Literally there is little else to Fallout series, even then the Fallout tactics was mainly the gameplay system and threw away the RPG elements, and was still decent(Though the fanboys destroyed that thing in their unmitigated hatred that it wasn't Fallout).

I want a good game foremost, but fanboys want THEIR game foremost, and it will be good only to them.

Though I do agree with Vympel on one thing. I do not want Oblivion's POS leveling system. Sorry when I'm decked out, I do not need to see some random group of thugs capable of assraping me when the final area monsters cannot.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Tycho worded it quite well.

The forums for the new Bethesda interpretation of Fallout are now open, and the sound is like a hundred thousand bats shrieking as they swirl around a jutting spire of obsidian. When I speak with fervor on topics that interest me, do I sound like them? It makes a strong case for a monastic existence.

Acting as their own publisher, Bethesda has the power to do what Denis Dyack has (perhaps correctly) suggested is the optimal scenario: withhold materials from a game until a developer can show it on their terms. In practice, it has been like shaking a soda bottle continuously for more than a year, so that when an opportunity to relieve the pressure was presented the result is volatile.

[Netko]

So, a shit hot third person isometric engine, and either full realtime or full turn based action. (I'm coming to dislike turn based systems that pretend to be anything else, at least when turns are globally imposed. FFXII survived because turns are individual, giving individual character actions rather than everyone do something at once then wait six seconds to do something again)

At this point I'm thinking some sort of pausable faux-real time in the style of Bioware games (Infinity engine, NWN, KotR) is probably the best way to go. It has a proven track record on both the PC and consoles, and hasn't got the negative association with marketing people that turned based has, while still offering most of the advantages of turned based over some sort of "true" real time.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

The "continuous turn-based" system in Fallout Tactics worked very well, I thought. It's basically real time with action points that can run out, but constantly replenish. I wouldn't say it's necessarily better or worse than pure real-time, but it does work and still allows them to retain the concept of action points.

[PainRack]

The "continuous turn-based" system in Fallout Tactics worked very well, I thought. It's basically real time with action points that can run out, but constantly replenish. I wouldn't say it's necessarily better or worse than pure real-time, but it does work and still allows them to retain the concept of action points.

I think the only thing that could be improved was the vehicles code.
Fighting from vehicles in tactics was quite badly bugged. Hanging wasn't uncommon.

It would be interesting to see how CTB would work in an RPG setting though.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The "continuous turn-based" system in Fallout Tactics worked very well, I thought. It's basically real time with action points that can run out, but constantly replenish. I wouldn't say it's necessarily better or worse than pure real-time, but it does work and still allows them to retain the concept of action points.

Agreed. I'd love to see CTB in Fallout 3. Actually, I'd love to see the way they did it in Fallout Tactics entirely -- CTB by default with options to play in traditional turn-based, either as squads or as individuals per turn (trying to do a hostage situation takedown in CTB is a recipe for pain).

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Well, it's probably a moot point since turn-based wouldn't work with Obsidian's graphics engine and CTB wouldn't feel very natural with the over-the-shoulder 3rd person camera that F3 is likely to use.

But in general I'm not really a fan of selectable turn-based / real-time. 3 games have tried it that I know of, X-Com Apocalypse, Arcanum, and Fallout Tactics, and all three played pretty well in real-time, but not so well in turn-based. And I bet if they had played well in turn-based, then they wouldn't have played well in real-time. They're too different to do both in one game and expect it to work well.

[Vympel]

One thing I'd like Bethesda to get right is the weapons- a mistake that Fallout Tactics made was that there were far too many real weapons from the 20th century in circulation. Given Fallout's timeline as to when the world basically came to an end, it made no sense to have large numbers of WW2-onward weapons in circulation.

That's why Fallout had hardly any real weapons- you had the 10mm pistol and 10mm SMG, the assault rifle (some sort of futuristic AK), gauss rifle, various energy weapons, shotguns, lightweight personal miniguns, etc and so forth. I belive there was a Desert Eagle floating around as well, but that's about it.

Fallout 2 went a few steps in the wrong direction, and Fallout Tactics took it to extremes.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

One thing I'd like Bethesda to get right is the weapons- a mistake that Fallout Tactics made was that there were far too many real weapons from the 20th century in circulation. Given Fallout's timeline as to when the world basically came to an end, it made no sense to have large numbers of WW2-onward weapons in circulation.

That's why Fallout had hardly any real weapons- you had the 10mm pistol and 10mm SMG, the assault rifle (some sort of futuristic AK), gauss rifle, various energy weapons, shotguns, lightweight personal miniguns, etc and so forth. I belive there was a Desert Eagle floating around as well, but that's about it.

Fallout 2 went a few steps in the wrong direction, and Fallout Tactics took it to extremes.

Well, in Fallout, the nuclear war happened sometime around 2070-ish. It makes sense, to me at least, that most of the weapons left would be antiques, guns thrown haphazardly thrown together out of other shit, and stuff made by people like the Brotherhood of Steel, so I don't mind a few real-world guns being thrown in the mix, but I agree that there were a few too many of them in Tactics. I was quite fond of the 14mm handgun in FO1 and FO2. It made big holes in peoples heads.

My favourite weapon, though? The Super-Sledge. With 10 Strength, high Melee skill and some perks to boost your melee combat, and you're a fucking monster. I'm not sure if I have a favourite gun, though.

[DPDarkPrimus]

It actually makes sense that some of the older weapons would survive while newer ones would not, as older weapons were generally constructed out of less fragile materials and are simpler to maintain.

[brianeyci]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the goofy. Real world weapons, a focus on realism, would take away from that. If you look at Fallout carefully it's just one big joke (thanks Stark for showing me it lol) and even tearing people apart to pieces was never serious. Water chip, what a joke, soldiers who look like aliens, all the fucked up weapons. Probably one of the reasons I won't like a FPS view.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

I wonder, how many people got to Vault City in Fallout 2, found out about the hundreds of Water Chips that were supposed to be sent to Vault 13 but were sent to Vault 8 instead and simultaneously laughed their ass off and shook their fist at the monitor. That was probably one of my favourite moments in Fallout 2.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Some older weapons were built pretty durable, but I really don't think most would still be around after so long and after everyone's forgotten how to maintain them, especially after so many years. How many unrestored flintlock muskets can still be fired? They're so rare that a genuine one would go for thousands of dollars. And a flintlock musket was built to last a lot longer than even an AK, Thompson, or other highly reliable 20th century firearm.

Honestly, after 80 years of people hiding in vaults, it would probably be mostly spears and bows.

[Vympel]

Some older weapons were built pretty durable, but I really don't think most would still be around after so long and after everyone's forgotten how to maintain them, especially after so many years. How many unrestored flintlock muskets can still be fired? They're so rare that a genuine one would go for thousands of dollars. And a flintlock musket was built to last a lot longer than even an AK, Thompson, or other highly reliable 20th century firearm.

Honestly, after 80 years of people hiding in vaults, it would probably be mostly spears and bows.

Remember that the Vaults were a fully functioning city- with a security department and armory. When they came out, of course they'd bring their guns, and the knowledge to maintain them, with them.

So guns and such aren't a problem, I just don't buy that almost 70 years from now the most common gun in the Wastes would be an M16 or something.

[brianeyci]

The vast majority of people who survived don't live in vaults. Or at least they shouldn't. Who knows in Fallout, radiation can somehow change people into mutants instead of killing people, and the bombs seemed to kill almost everyone on the planet leaving small pockets of resistance and no cities at all, when we know in real life a nuclear war would leave a lot of people around and huge ruins.

I'm hoping for huge fucking cities, deserted cities to loot. And I'm hoping to fight Chinese soldiers in their version of powered armor, and Canadian terrorists. And the big one I didn't get to do in Fallout. Launch an ICBM. Not set off some bomb in a basement by sneaking past a dozen mutants who need new glasses. I want a FMV with an ICBM leaving its silo, complete with a score that makes James Horner wet, and nuking whoever the bad guys are as one option for the "sneaky" character type. The fighter, maybe he could run in and kill the bad guys. Who I hope are Chinese or Russian army. Enclave is old.

[Vympel]

The war was between the US and China- why would the Russians be involved? The President in Fallout 2 said nothing of the kind.

As for the Enclave getting old- erm, they've only been used once, AFAIK. That's like saying The Master and his Super Mutants were getting old as well.

China was likely even more devastated than the United States.

In any event, the only Chinese we saw was in San Francisco in Fallout 2, so it's highly unlikely we'd see them at all as an organized faction- certainly not in the area covered by Fallout and Fallout 2 and even less likely if the game is set further East in the United States.