FALLOUT 76

[FaxModem1]

So, is it true that there are no NPCs whatsoever? The only way you can experience a story is through holotapes and terminals? Essentially, there is no story and you're just in a giant sandbox killing things, and nothing more?

[Marko Dash]

there's robots, and one traveling supermutant trader.

[Jub]

So, is it true that there are no NPCs whatsoever? The only way you can experience a story is through holotapes and terminals? Essentially, there is no story and you're just in a giant sandbox killing things, and nothing more?

I wouldn't say there's no story, it's more like you're hearing these holotapes and reading these logs while slowly finding out what killed everybody and where the Overseer went. Quests also often involve less fetch questing, beyond the early tutorial quests. Now it's go there, explore, find a holotape and some items,maybe do a side objective, then move on to the next point of interest.

[Vendetta]

Basically, there's a story but you're not involved in it. It's all already happened to other more interesting people before you arrived.

[Lonestar]

I almost wonder if Bethesda ran into significant performance problems with actual NPCs populating servers, and that's how we ended up with "only robots and audio recordings".

[LadyTevar]

Basically, there's a story but you're not involved in it. It's all already happened to other more interesting people before you arrived.

HA! I'm finding so many side quests just by visiting locations, I've only been to two of the Overseer's Towns! Since the first area is also equivalent to Fayette and Nicholas Counties, where my family's from and where I know most of the territory, I've been Exploring to see what they did with it!

Other local WVians have found things like Helvetia, a town settled by Swiss & Germans who keep the old traditions alive. They've found the converted bus restuarant of "Hillbilly Hotdogs". One found "Silva Farm", and wondered which of her relatives they were. I found the Fallout version of "TimberTrek" from my workplace Adventures on the Gorge. (And there's something on the last platform up there. Just have to find out how to do the obstacle course to get there!) I've found the "lookout tower" across the valley from the lighthouse, and it was like climbing the Gauley Mountain Fire Tower with my dad again. It's just as I remember it! Hell, even the Autumn Colors are RIGHT!
Seriously this is Old Home Week for me. Fuck the storyline, I'll get there eventually. I'm Adventuring!

[LaCroix]

I think it is funny that people complain about the (lack of) storyline, when traditionally, this is the very thing everybody ignores when playing any Fallout game...

Ironically - any normal story-driven singleplayer Fallout game is usually played like a storyless sandbox, but for story-lacking multiplayer sandbox game, everybody suddenly wants a storyline that everybody can follow, identically.

People just didn't get the concept, I think. The players are supposed to create the storyline...

[Steel]

People just didn't get the concept, I think. The players are supposed to create the storyline...

It doesn't look like there was anything to not get. Diablo 1 has more facilities to create storylines and player interactions than FO76, because Diablo 1 had a town to act as a hub. In FO76 there is just a big open space with nothing to do but loot and shoot.

[Vendetta]

I think it is funny that people complain about the (lack of) storyline, when traditionally, this is the very thing everybody ignores when playing any Fallout game...

Have you played a Fallout game before?

I mean a real one, not Post-Nuclear Elder Scrolls.

They're deeply story driven, with player choice and consequence being the driving force in how you interact with different people and places and the way you set those places on different paths to their future, delivered in epilogues that change based on your decisions for every area and major character. (Your toaster in New Vegas has more of one than the entire world of Allegedly Fallout 3).

[TheFeniX]

I've uh... heard a LOT of defenses for shitty Beth storytelling. But I think this is the first (non-troll) post I've seen where someone said players generally ignore the story. A whole HELL of a lot of Fatnerd complaints for the Beth Fallouts is that the stories are lacking and don't hold up to scrutiny, not that we'd be better off without them.

Elder Scrolls might have slipped a lot over the years, but I can't find a whole lot at fault with the storytelling or where the lore just gets tossed out the window with a comment from the devs like "who gives a shit, it's a game with handl-held nukes." But you can't even do 30 minutes of F4's Main Quest without being consistently clubbed over the head with inconsistencies, plot holes, and general idiocy.

If people don't want story in their Fallout RPGs, then that's only because Bethesda has cut out so much of the RPG over the years, they don't know any better except when Gamespot says stupid shit like "Fallout 4 is an argument for substance over style, and an excellent addition to the revered open-world series."

I almost wonder if Bethesda ran into significant performance problems with actual NPCs populating servers, and that's how we ended up with "only robots and audio recordings".

Possible. F76 is F4 with a hacked in idtech netcode. NPCs, especially the way they are implemented in the Creation Engine, are a performance premium. The other issue is the engine build is definitely a single-player one and something tells me papyrus bloat would be a major concern. Basically, because they've only developed SP games for it the engine and made improvements to it based around that SP idea: they're pretty deep in the shit when it comes passing data around easily.

But really, I'd go with laziness. Designing towns or Raider Bases with multiple NPCs takes time and effort. Just spawning in some enemies that charge right at you when they have vision is a lot easier. Or random events. Sounds like Eureka in FFXIV and that wasn't fun either.

[Lonestar]

I mean, the world struggles with more than 4 people in a given area doing a bunch of stuff and three nukes can apperently crash a server, so I don't think it's really built for being robust.

also goddammit people friend me on PC I'm Gruntyginman

[TheFeniX]

I mean, the world struggles with more than 4 people in a given area doing a bunch of stuff and three nukes can apperently crash a server, so I don't think it's really built for being robust.

I could see it. "Bots" rely on simplistic decision making as they run a "track" around the map. They may maintain X distance while they have Y weapon equipped or fall back if player weapon has a higher priority than theirs. NPCs OTOH can (and do) have multiple packages they will pull from randomly or on set intervals. This eats up a lot of CPU time back when we messed around with it in Jedi-Oucast/Academy. You could "hack in" NPCs from the single-player game and they were a lot more "robust" (if not random) about how they would approach a situation and would rely on more of the advanced movement mechanics of the game.

They could also bring your server to it's knees if you spawned 10+ of them. Raven explicitly said they were disabled by default because the AI code for NPCs was considerably larger and more processor intensive than the bots.

Just having NPCs using "sandbox" packages eats up resources on a level straight scipted NPCs doesn't. Like, WoW can have dozens of NPCs on screen (with players) because "Alliance Guard X" is going to path to X, say Y line, and play Z animation, GOTO10 until the day the servers go down. But Beth NPCs constantly scanning for objects to sandbox to (be they crafting stations, idle markers (such as stand her, play Guardman pose), and deal with their aggro package is another story.

It's funny to me because Beth actually does have a whole lot of fun little AI packages to mess around with, but I like to bag on Diamond City for being an MMO hub because seemingly the only NPCs that do more than "walk home after 8pm" are "Diamond City Resident." Mr. Resident must be a very popular man with the ladies and not to good at picking names.

[Zaune]

Oh, and just to add insult to injury, has anyone else seen the stories about how badly they half-arsed the pre-order feelies? The "canvas" bag containing everything is actually nylon, the "physical copy" in the case is a cardboard disc with a Steam code...

[Lonestar]

Oh, and just to add insult to injury, has anyone else seen the stories about how badly they half-arsed the pre-order feelies? The "canvas" bag containing everything is actually nylon, the "physical copy" in the case is a cardboard disc with a Steam code...

Bethesda launcher code, but yeah, that's how I got my pre-ordered code when I had pre-ordered from amazon. Meanwhile everyone else just went to Bethesda.com and did a digital order.

[Gandalf]

Isn't that grounds for some sort of false advertising refund?

[Zaune]

Isn't that grounds for some sort of false advertising refund?

I expect the Federal Trade Commission, the Advertising Standards Agency here in the UK and their regional equivalents in every country where the Deluxe Edition was offered are already looking into that.

[LadyTevar]

File under "West Virginia Pride":

There is now a petition to add a recipe for Pepperoni Rolls to the options available. For those who don't know what this WV delicacy is, see here.

So far, it's got 5000 signatures.

[Civil War Man]

Oh, and just to add insult to injury, has anyone else seen the stories about how badly they half-arsed the pre-order feelies? The "canvas" bag containing everything is actually nylon, the "physical copy" in the case is a cardboard disc with a Steam code...

I don't play since I'm generally not able to get into Bethesda games, but I've heard of this. Apparently company reps are claiming that they did nylon instead of canvas because of a shortage of materials. Try not to think about that too hard or you might start bleeding from your ears. Didn't stop them from continuing to advertise the collector's edition bag as canvas and charging accordingly, though. Would not be particularly surprised if we started hearing grumblings of a class-action suit before too long.

Also, after complaints about the bag really started to pick up, Bethesda is apparently giving 500 Atoms to people who ordered the collector's edition as compensation. The punchline to this: the postman costume, which has a canvas bag in the model, costs 700 Atoms. So players who are pissed that they aren't getting the canvas bag they were promised aren't even being given enough in-game money to buy a digital canvas bag.

[bilateralrope]

Let me guess: Agreeing to the 500 atoms "compensation" requires agreeing to not pursue them for false advertising. Or at least that's how Bethesda plans to spin it in court.

[TheFeniX]

I don't play since I'm generally not able to get into Bethesda games, but I've heard of this. Apparently company reps are claiming that they did nylon instead of canvas because of a shortage of materials. Try not to think about that too hard or you might start bleeding from your ears. Didn't stop them from continuing to advertise the collector's edition bag as canvas and charging accordingly, though. Would not be particularly surprised if we started hearing grumblings of a class-action suit before too long.

It's actually worse than that. Their original response:

We are sorry that you aren't happy with the bag. The bag shown in the
media was a prototype and was too expensive to make.

We aren't planning on doing anything about it.

Bethesda says it was a temp employee, not SOP, etc etc. But their follow up response of "fuck you, have some compensation that costs us nothing" is pretty damning.

Also, after complaints about the bag really started to pick up, Bethesda is apparently giving 500 Atoms to people who ordered the collector's edition as compensation. The punchline to this: the postman costume, which has a canvas bag in the model, costs 700 Atoms. So players who are pissed that they aren't getting the canvas bag they were promised aren't even being given enough in-game money to buy a digital canvas bag.

I have laughed audibly about this whole fisaco so many times. And you have provided another one. Thanks to you, sir.

Luckily, this will get the Internet to DEMAND change and they'll never get fooled aga.... ELDER SCROLLS 6 JUST CONFIRMED! Shut up and take my money!

[Vendetta]

Bethesda says it was a temp employee, not SOP, etc etc. But their follow up response of "fuck you, have some compensation that costs us nothing" is pretty damning.

What they actually mean is "A real Bethesda employee would never have been that honest".

[Lord Revan]

It almost been like Bethesda PR-people took course which "thing you don't do as PR-person" and took those things as a dare. I'd expect this level of incompetense from an Indie "developer" who slapped from pre-bought assets together with minimal effort to make something that you barely called a game and threw a hissy fit when called on it, but I wouldn't expect this from company with an actual hired PR-department.

[Civil War Man]

It's actually worse than that. Their original response:

We are sorry that you aren't happy with the bag. The bag shown in the
media was a prototype and was too expensive to make.

We aren't planning on doing anything about it.

Bethesda says it was a temp employee, not SOP, etc etc. But their follow up response of "fuck you, have some compensation that costs us nothing" is pretty damning.

I do remember seeing that. I just kind of lumped it in with the official "materials shortage" excuse they cooked up later. The materials shortage thing is what really got me, like Bethesda thinks canvas is woven from the undercoat fur of white tigers or something.

[TheFeniX]

Eh, I lump Beth into the "Terrible at being Terrible" group. I recall some dust-up about the Skyrim map which was supposed to be cloth, but turned out to just be some high-quality printer paper. I guess not enough people complained so Beth figured they could get away with it again.

But really it was probably just some suit saying "order whatever, no one will care" not realizing the people who pay money for that kind of shit actually DO care.

It almost been like Bethesda PR-people took course which "thing you don't do as PR-person" and took those things as a dare. I'd expect this level of incompetense from an Indie "developer" who slapped from pre-bought assets together with minimal effort to make something that you barely called a game and threw a hissy fit when called on it, but I wouldn't expect this from company with an actual hired PR-department.

It's funny because F76 is just a cobbled together F4 with idtech netcode done because, I assume, they needed to give their coders gruntwork. I don't think I'm totally off base here: Skyrim 64-bit exists solely because Xbone and PS4 were 64-bit and they had to get their engine updated. So they did it by porting Skyrim to 64-bit with the intention of doing it because it was easy and the coders already knew the game, the game was done (so they could already see a bunch of quests, NPCs, etc in action under the new build).

With Fallout 76: they came up with somewhat, an actually... fairly decent idea... kinda. Then put in the bare minimum of work to try and enter a genre already overpopulated with trash, at a premium price point, and doing the bare minimum to break in, relying solely on Brand Recognition. FallScrolls games have always had that "zero to hero SP experience" bit going for them. Every single one of their games will be compared solely to the last game with only maybe a mention of something like "in contrast to The Witcher." That's it and that's a powerful tool in order to convince people the game is great when it isn't. For a counter-example: A Saint's Row game WILL be compared to GTA and the reviews and scores will reflect how it matches up to it.

Anyways, Fallout 76 is paying AAA price for something that is akin to Conan Exiles with an actual quest UI. Conan technically has quests, there's just no tracker and nothing is fleshed out outside some voice acted lines. I got Conan Exiles for $20.... On top of that, doing something like painting your power armor is almost $20 motherfucking dollars in F76. And knowing Beth, I have to wonder if it's a one-time deal or if you own that paint outright.

For the record, I would kick Beth a few bucks for some Mr. Handy's in Fallout Shelter (I feel I owe them a few bucks for time spent and enjoyment), but the shit you buy is ONLY FOR 1 VAULT! Savegame get corrupted? Delete the game? = Fuck you! Pure assholishness.

tl;dr: I'll respond to the idea of this coming out of an indie dev using pre-bought assets: that's pretty much what F76s. Yes, they came up with the assets themselves, but for another game. Then cannibalized that game to give you the MP version, removing everything they could in the process. They were COMPLETELY upfront about this. Sure, they didn't say it outright, but it's a given if you kept up with their marketing blitz.

So I don't know what's worse: Bethesda being brutally honest they are selling you shit (like when they posted a letter stating damn near outright F76 is not finished, would qualify as early access, but they are still launching) and fans are like "Please PLEASE, dump more shit on me" or that they commit fraud (which the bag fiasco would easily qualify under consumer protection laws) like this without seemingly a care about the negative PR.

Stop paying full price for Bethsda products: they really aren't worth it. There's thousands of games out there, play those until the price drops. If they release more bullshit like F76, it won't even take that long. Bethesda is ALSO pretty good about NOT keeping their games at a premium price forever.

[Lord Revan]

It almost been like Bethesda PR-people took course which "thing you don't do as PR-person" and took those things as a dare. I'd expect this level of incompetense from an Indie "developer" who slapped from pre-bought assets together with minimal effort to make something that you barely called a game and threw a hissy fit when called on it, but I wouldn't expect this from company with an actual hired PR-department.

It's funny because F76 is just a cobbled together F4 with idtech netcode done because, I assume, they needed to give their coders gruntwork. I don't think I'm totally off base here: Skyrim 64-bit exists solely because Xbone and PS4 were 64-bit and they had to get their engine updated. So they did it by porting Skyrim to 64-bit with the intention of doing it because it was easy and the coders already knew the game, the game was done (so they could already see a bunch of quests, NPCs, etc in action under the new build).

With Fallout 76: they came up with somewhat, an actually... fairly decent idea... kinda. Then put in the bare minimum of work to try and enter a genre already overpopulated with trash, at a premium price point, and doing the bare minimum to break in, relying solely on Brand Recognition. FallScrolls games have always had that "zero to hero SP experience" bit going for them. Every single one of their games will be compared solely to the last game with only maybe a mention of something like "in contrast to The Witcher." That's it and that's a powerful tool in order to convince people the game is great when it isn't. For a counter-example: A Saint's Row game WILL be compared to GTA and the reviews and scores will reflect how it matches up to it.

Anyways, Fallout 76 is paying AAA price for something that is akin to Conan Exiles with an actual quest UI. Conan technically has quests, there's just no tracker and nothing is fleshed out outside some voice acted lines. I got Conan Exiles for $20.... On top of that, doing something like painting your power armor is almost $20 motherfucking dollars in F76. And knowing Beth, I have to wonder if it's a one-time deal or if you own that paint outright.

For the record, I would kick Beth a few bucks for some Mr. Handy's in Fallout Shelter (I feel I owe them a few bucks for time spent and enjoyment), but the shit you buy is ONLY FOR 1 VAULT! Savegame get corrupted? Delete the game? = Fuck you! Pure assholishness.

tl;dr: I'll respond to the idea of this coming out of an indie dev using pre-bought assets: that's pretty much what F76s. Yes, they came up with the assets themselves, but for another game. Then cannibalized that game to give you the MP version, removing everything they could in the process. They were COMPLETELY upfront about this. Sure, they didn't say it outright, but it's a given if you kept up with their marketing blitz.

So I don't know what's worse: Bethesda being brutally honest they are selling you shit (like when they posted a letter stating damn near outright F76 is not finished, would qualify as early access, but they are still launching) and fans are like "Please PLEASE, dump more shit on me" or that they commit fraud (which the bag fiasco would easily qualify under consumer protection laws) like this without seemingly a care about the negative PR.

Stop paying full price for Bethsda products: they really aren't worth it. There's thousands of games out there, play those until the price drops. If they release more bullshit like F76, it won't even take that long. Bethesda is ALSO pretty good about NOT keeping their games at a premium price forever.

What I meant by "indie 'developer' who throws few pre-bought assets together" isn't the level of effort which is clearly minimal, but the level of resources avaible since those asset flip "developers" are typically solo or less then 10 people for a whole team, while Bethesda is a reasonbly sized company so they should have the resources avaible for a proper PR-department.