Post-Apocalyptic "Feel"

Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 3:30 am

Actually, doom and gloom should define the post apocalyptic genre. If those aren't the defining elements then the the lines between "post-apocalypse" and "parallel universe" get blurred.


I don't think that's entirely accurate... Post apocolypse fiction simply requires that there is some kind of event that ends the majority of human life... Rapture is a great comic where many humans are taken up to heaven, but there is no explosive war or meteoric strike etc, that leaves the planet black and dreary, yet is post-apocalypse... Zombie stories like Dawn of the Dead or Walking Dead are also considered post-apocalyptic, yet don't have to be any darker than a film with living dead requires... No toxic clouds or collapsing buildings...
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Yvonne
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:26 pm

Another one of these threads?
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Marnesia Steele
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:55 am

you kno what was built in the last 200 years? Los Angeles...not to mention the invention of electricity. it could be reinvented by now. Everyone could have the internet. there could be forums in game if they wanted to.

Boy, this is not "don't know where to start" wrong, this is "don't know whether to start at all". ^_^
Is LA responsible for all the inventions in the last 200 years, completely on its own and with no trade connections, after being built on a nuclear devastated wasteland with hardly any agricultural options, roaming with fiends nastier than a whole pack of lions? :lol:
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Kelvin Diaz
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:39 pm

Actually, doom and gloom should define the post apocalyptic genre. If those aren't the defining elements then the the lines between "post-apocalypse" and "parallel universe" get blurred. OFC with fallout we have both, but my point is that Fallout, to me, is a virtual simulation of a life without organized civilation. It looks like NV has lost that anarchy rules feel that you get from anything from Mad Max, to The Road, to Fallout 1 & 3. I like playing fallout games because you get to feel what the world might be like if everything was destroyed and the characters who might exist in that realm. With F:NV there's some strange blend of wild west and alternate governments. Just doesn't seem post apocalyptic to me.

200 years is a very long time. IMO its a bit under developed but its perfect.
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Romy Welsch
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 3:09 am

Post Apocalyptia doesnt have to be eternally stuck in 'Mad Max' mode, at some point in time, the world gets back on track, The West Coast is a gleaming example of this, it was only 80 years or so before you saw fully developing settlements, and if the people in The Capital Wastelands got off their asses some, they'd be able to clear the rubble of D.C. and start rediscovering the old ways and the like.
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Luis Reyma
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 10:06 pm

200 years after bombs fell, and you want to talk realistic?

Okay, think about this,
You have a nuclear holocaust, civilization falls, 200 years later, and it's still moribund?
I doubt it, Society would've built back up, and to have guns? Firearms? It would've rusted over the course of 200yrs, and you would be fighting with whatever you could make or find, not being weapons, but sticks, and stones...

You cannot change what has already been set in motion, that is, being Fallout: New Vegas, you just have to svck it up, buy the game when it comes out, or wait for the reviews, and make your own decision on whether you should buy it, or not.

We can make assumptions all day on what it should be or shouldn't be, what fallout3 should've been, but fallout3 has already been made, it has already been played, and now we are awaiting the new Fallout: New Vegas
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Crystal Birch
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:52 am

Actually, doom and gloom should define the post apocalyptic genre. If those aren't the defining elements then the the lines between "post-apocalypse" and "parallel universe" get blurred.


You're making the mistake of assuming that one possible type of story has to define the entire genre. While most post apocalyptic stories focus on mere decades after the war, because that's what the writer wants to focus on, this isn't really necessary for the genre. Those are not the only brand of post apocalyptic stories out there. Post apocalyptic, as the name implies, merely means that the story is set after the apocalypse. New Vegas is set after the same nuclear war that all of the other Fallout games are set after, so yes it qualifies as post apocalyptic.

OFC with fallout we have both, but my point is that Fallout, to me, is a virtual simulation of a life without organized civilation. It looks like NV has lost that anarchy rules feel that you get from anything from Mad Max, to The Road, to Fallout 1 & 3. I like playing fallout games because you get to feel what the world might be like if everything was destroyed and the characters who might exist in that realm. With F:NV there's some strange blend of wild west and alternate governments. Just doesn't seem post apocalyptic to me.


The old civilizations of the pre-war world collapsed during a nuclear war, and new ones are rising to take their places. Sounds post apocalyptic to me because the world did in fact end, and humanity is picking up the pieces. Rebuilding civilization is a part of the post apocalyptic genre, like it or not.
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Steph
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:48 pm

Actually, doom and gloom should define the post apocalyptic genre. If those aren't the defining elements then the the lines between "post-apocalypse" and "parallel universe" get blurred. OFC with fallout we have both, but my point is that Fallout, to me, is a virtual simulation of a life without organized civilation. It looks like NV has lost that anarchy rules feel that you get from anything from Mad Max, to The Road, to Fallout 1 & 3. I like playing fallout games because you get to feel what the world might be like if everything was destroyed and the characters who might exist in that realm. With F:NV there's some strange blend of wild west and alternate governments. Just doesn't seem post apocalyptic to me.


You could try to look at it through glasses that show you a humanity rising its head again - for better or worse. There is no legitimate government, just growing gangs and communities with their own perspectives and goals and means to those goals. The pains of rebuilding, to me, feel as post apoc as it should given the time that has passed.
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Ludivine Poussineau
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 7:05 pm

Boy, this is not "don't know where to start" wrong, this is "don't know whether to start at all". ^_^
Is LA responsible for all the inventions in the last 200 years, completely on its own and with no trade connections, after being built on a nuclear devastated wasteland with hardly any agricultural options, roaming with fiends nastier than a whole pack of lions? :lol:


wow, you completely missed my point all together. my point is, that the entire west of North America was settled in the last two hundred years. Electricity was invented in the last two hundred years. Maybe there are no signs of a war at all. That would make sense if they wanted to do it. Whether or not that's a good game is a different story.
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Dragonz Dancer
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 2:08 am

Yes I do... The user in question has only 23 topics made... Well less than many other members on here (you for example, have 47), so it`s not just a matter of the old topic being no longer listed...



Under the avatar, on the left. Those links will show you a dozen se7en pages.


I stand corrected. Thank you for the clarification :)
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Lil'.KiiDD
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 6:29 am

Don't get too upset. New Vegas is just like New Reno from FO2, it wasn't high priority for the Chinese so it survived relatively intact, even with a major AFB next to it.
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{Richies Mommy}
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:51 am

wow, you completely missed my point all together. my point is, that the entire west of North America was settled in the last two hundred years. Electricity was invented in the last two hundred years. Maybe there are no signs of a war at all. That would make sense if they wanted to do it. Whether or not that's a good game is a different story.

No, I did get what you were saying. The pre-conditions in the ruined world at the end of the Great War are much, much, much worse than anything settlers in America ever had to cope with. Heck, people take Brahmin for granted and think that one-headed ones would be freaks. That, after 200 years, they are already back forming countries and developing ways to use the old technology is already kind of a miracle. Ground-breaking new inventions would take lots more time, though. It just doesn't work if your settling ground is a radiated hell hole.
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Javier Borjas
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:42 pm

Maybe I wish it wasn't 200 years after. The point is I don't want a post-nuclear simulation to have a rebuilt world. What's the point of that?


And for those wondering I did make a similar thread about 2 weeks ago but I got over it.

Then I saw this video:
http://g4tv.com/videos/49184/Fallout-New-Vegas---Beyond-the-Beef-Quest-Exclusive/

And I got riled up again. Nothing in that video looks right to me. It's not so much the vegas as the characters. They all seem like characters taken from other times and just planted in this universe. You've got a rich rancher, a ranchers bratty son, a monkey suit-top hat wearing slickster, and robocop. THAT DOES NOT SEEM POST APOCALYPTIC TO ME.

My thought of post apocalyptic:
Mad Max, Book of Eli, The Road, Fallout 1, Fallout 3, Metro 2033, Doomsday and the like.

Compare those characters and atmospheres to the ones we've been exposed to in Fallout: NV.
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Ludivine Poussineau
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:50 am

Does it look like F: NV has lost that post apocalyptic feel?

If you ask me the game looks like it's set in a parallel world in the 1950s but with an 1870s "Wild West" twist and all the animals are different. It doesn't look like there's been a horrible nuclear war and everyone is eeking out their survival.


Sure. But I have played in a destroyed post-nuclear wasteland since the actual game Wasteland, Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, and 3. Dedicating one game towards a setting that isn't completely ravaged by nuclear warfare as the others is not going to be an unwelcome change. I just hope it won't become a regular thing in further sequels.
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R.I.P
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 8:06 am

Maybe I wish it wasn't 200 years after. The point is I don't want a post-nuclear simulation to have a rebuilt world. What's the point of that?


And for those wondering I did make a similar thread about 2 weeks ago but I got over it.

Then I saw this video:
http://g4tv.com/videos/49184/Fallout-New-Vegas---Beyond-the-Beef-Quest-Exclusive/

And I got riled up again. Nothing in that video looks right to me. It's not so much the vegas as the characters. They all seem like characters taken from other times and just planted in this universe. You've got a rich rancher, a ranchers bratty son, a monkey suit-top hat wearing slickster, and robocop. THAT DOES NOT SEEM POST APOCALYPTIC TO ME.

My thought of post apocalyptic:
Mad Max, Book of Eli, The Road, Fallout 1, Fallout 3, Metro 2033, Doomsday and the like.

Compare those characters and atmospheres to the ones we've been exposed to in Fallout: NV.

This is a Fallout game and it hasn't been released yet. Why are you going off one video. Your in this forum so your obviously a fallout fan meaning you should know that before its released you shouldn't speculate and say its to civilized because you saw the inside of one building and the sky is blue...
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RObert loVes MOmmy
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 12:07 am

Considering this is in actual fact what a nuclear wasteland really looks like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pripyat_panorama_2009-001.jpg

It is worth clicking the pic again and seeing it full size.
If you look on the far right horizon of that photo you can see the reactor that ruptured and exploded. It amazes me how close it is and how well nature has recovered in just 24 years.

And yes I realise that isn't a full scale nuclear war, but it's the closest thing in mankind's experience to date.
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Nikki Lawrence
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 6:02 am

Actually, doom and gloom should define the post apocalyptic genre. If those aren't the defining elements then the the lines between "post-apocalypse" and "parallel universe" get blurred. OFC with fallout we have both, but my point is that Fallout, to me, is a virtual simulation of a life without organized civilation. It looks like NV has lost that anarchy rules feel that you get from anything from Mad Max, to The Road, to Fallout 1 & 3. I like playing fallout games because you get to feel what the world might be like if everything was destroyed and the characters who might exist in that realm. With F:NV there's some strange blend of wild west and alternate governments. Just doesn't seem post apocalyptic to me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Japan a post apocalyptic setting? (in the nuclear sense)


In 200 years... No one ~no one is going to live their entire life in a make shift tin shack eating cram and dog food.
(and that is without having access to micro-fusion power, and robotic labor.)
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Lisha Boo
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 10:48 pm

Considering this is in actual fact what a nuclear wasteland really looks like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pripyat_panorama_2009-001.jpg

It is worth clicking the pic again and seeing it full size.
If you look on the far right horizon of that photo you can see the reactor that ruptured and exploded. It amazes me how close it is and how well nature has recovered in just 24 years.

And yes I realise that isn't a full scale nuclear war, but it's the closest thing in mankind's experience to date.

Chernobyl was not the same as an Atomic bomb, though.
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vanuza
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:56 pm

Maybe I wish it wasn't 200 years after. The point is I don't want a post-nuclear simulation to have a rebuilt world. What's the point of that?


Don't take this the wrong way, but if this bothers you that much then you're better off replaying Fallout or Fallout 3. It would be more ridiculous if there was no rebuilding at all after all this time.

And for those wondering I did make a similar thread about 2 weeks ago but I got over it.

Then I saw this video:
http://g4tv.com/videos/49184/Fallout-New-Vegas---Beyond-the-Beef-Quest-Exclusive/

And I got riled up again. Nothing in that video looks right to me. It's not so much the vegas as the characters. They all seem like characters taken from other times and just planted in this universe. You've got a rich rancher, a ranchers bratty son, a monkey suit-top hat wearing slickster, and robocop. THAT DOES NOT SEEM POST APOCALYPTIC TO ME.


You're talking about a side quest set in Vegas. Vegas is going to be more "civilized" than the outside world due to all of the restrictions and laws in place. You also seem to be ignoring the fact that the person you get the quest from
Spoiler
is a cannibal. That is certainly a trope of the post apocalyptic genre.


My thought of post apocalyptic:
Mad Max, Book of Eli, The Road, Fallout 1, Fallout 3, Metro 2033, Doomsday and the like.

Compare those characters and atmospheres to the ones we've been exposed to in Fallout: NV.


Why would I do that? The only story in that list that is set even remotely close to the same time frame as New Vegas is Fallout 3, and Fallout 3 was the one that seemed out of place to me.
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chloe hampson
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 10:41 pm

Chernobyl was not the same as an Atomic bomb, though.


I know, I was just using it to highlight peoples misconceptions to what a nuclear wasteland should look like.
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Your Mum
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 11:32 pm

Well, you'd think that, being by the Hoover Dam, and having not been hit by a bomb that New Vegas would have the perfect conditions to rebuild.
I mean, if New Vegas was destroyed and in ruin, then it would show that, the people are verrrryyy lazy and literally do not care much for a good life.
That's just me considering I just spent $93.40 on the collectors edition so...... :cheat:
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bimsy
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 10:01 pm

If you google "ground zero Hiroshima Nagasaki" and then select Images, you can see what a nuclear strike looks like...just from a single early incarnation of the bomb. I'm thinking the DC area would have had multiple strikes from later, stronger bombs. With the numbers of people killed and the soil and water contamination, I can imagine it taking an extremely long time to recover. Survival would have been the first priority. Rebuilding would take a lot of organization and a lot of people with enough food supply to support a large population. How long before there was leadership in place to rebuild infrastructure? Imagining these things ... well, it's mind-boggling.
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Natasha Biss
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:27 am

All in all I agree with those missing the "Wasteland"-look, and the "bombs didn't hit Vegas/200 years past"-arguments fall flat when explaining the pretty colourful look. After 200-years, neon-signs won't look like they were installed yesterday, posters won't just be bleached, but dried and brittled away decades ago; we still have to wait and see if there's a working neon-sign factory or some off-set-print shop around Vegas, of course. 200 years, or about 6 generations, is not much time to rebuild a world whose surface was practically sand-blasted - even if you don't have to start from zero. The most realistic encounters would probably be farming communities, trading stations and nomadic tribes.

On the other hand, Fallout is Fiction and in many ways cartoon-like, so I don't mind caricature characters and settings. It has always been a vital part of the Fallout-Universe to pin satiric or comic elements way above realism. I am pretty sure I will enjoy New Vegas even if it shines slightly too bright.
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Kahli St Dennis
 
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Post » Wed Nov 30, 2011 6:19 am

I blame Fallout 3 for this. It's absolutely ridiculous for humanity to have done absolutely nothing in the 200 years since the war; one of Fallout 3's problems was that it felt like it was set around the time of Fallout 1, not two centuries after the war. There should be a lot of rebuilding and populated cities by now.



I think an exception can be made for the Capital Wasteland, seeing as it would have been one of the hardest-hit areas on the entire planet. I'm surprised anything is remaining standing at all there, to be honest.

Pretty much everyone currently living in the DC ruins either came out of a Vault, or moved to the area from nearby. Doesn't seem like anything really survived at ground zero except for the Ghouls.

Sure, it's ridiculous for no rebuilding to happen whatosever, but when the nation has descended into complete anarchy whilst simultaneously being blasted back to the Stone Age, it's very understandable for the DC Ruins to be in the primitive state they are.
Remember, Rivet City is the largest and most powerful settlement in the area, and it's only been in existence for forty years. Same goes for the Citadel. People just haven't been alive in the DC ruins long enough to build anything significant.

Regarding Chernobyl, there's a HUGE difference between a reactor exploding and throwing radiation over an area, and a saturation nuclear bombardment of an entire nation. DC probably took multiple direct hits from nuclear warheads; Chernobyl is simply not a valid example here. It was certainly a great tragedy, but a global thermonuclear war is on a whole nother plane of destruction compared to a single reactor overheating and blowing up.
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Pawel Platek
 
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Post » Tue Nov 29, 2011 8:06 pm

After 200-years, neon-signs won't look like they were installed yesterday, posters won't just be bleached, but dried and brittled away decades ago; we still have to wait and see if there's a working neon-sign factory or some off-set-print shop around Vegas, of course. 200 years, or about 6 generations, is not much time to rebuild a world whose surface was practically sand-blasted - even if you don't have to start from zero. The most realistic encounters would probably be farming communities, trading stations and nomadic tribes.
This world has access to micro-fusion and robotic labor. Its practically littered with working computers ~and even a some factories, and foundries... Ignore that and just consider that Fallout 2 showed the world in recovery at a stage well beyond Fallout 3 (some will attribute this to being harder hit in DC, but I don't buy it ~if people survived, it wasn't hit that hard, and if people moved there :bonk:, then it either had things they valued, or they would have brought stuff with them ~more likely both).

DC itself should have been like NCR, or at least like the HUB.
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Bedford White
 
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