I agree, I personally think this series could use a few prequels that takes place just before or as the bombs are falling. Might not fit in with the fall out lore or the style but I think a "spin" off like that should be more plausable than seeing fallout take place in another country.

On a sarcastic note, why not go the whole hog and with the hardcoe mode change the game time so that it's 1:1, disable the 'ability' to save the game, ramp the damage way up so that it's on a par with real life, drastically reduce the amount of weight your character can carry etc. If they do still allow save games, put in a feature so that if your character dies the save game is deleted. Basically what I'm trying to say/gibber is that if people want more realistic realism why not go to the full realistic extreme and thus ensure the 'fun factor' is removed for everyone aka ubar reelizm for teh win, baby.


On a more serious note or at least less sarcastic, The 'hardcoe' mode is from what I understand of what's been said of it so far, for those who want a bit more 'survivalist' in the game while those who just want to putter around and play it without having to worry about the 'survivalist' aspect can also do so. As such increasing the weapon damage does not factor into that.

As someone who's been playing RPGs since Wizardry 1 & Ultima 1 (circa 1980)....




....we do? :confused:


(I mean, if "realism" was in my fantasy games, the first time my Hero? pulled out a sword and faced a dragon, he'd get stepped on and die. Or there'd be no magic - typical "low fantasy" settings, where everything's disease and mud & peasants and scrabbling to get food, no magic, no fancy metals, no Grand Quests. Yeah, some "low fantasy" pen&paper RPGs exist, but they're pretty much a minority thing. And I'm not familiar with any low fantasy cRPGs.)

You're being silly. People want more realism, so clearly they want stupidly over the top? You don't want realism, so obviously you want the game to be completely unrealistic, with characters flying around due to the power of dreams, and bullets bending in mid air to find their targets, who are defeated not by the bullet, but by the power of love.

Increasing damage definitely increases the survivalist aspect. Where's the feeling of just trying to get by if you know a bullet between the eyes takes off one, maybe two bars of heath? How can you feel like you're struggling if you have 300 rounds of ammo, simply because you need that much to kill any decent amount of foes?

This is where people need to stop and think before they speak. You are assuming that some people would find a ultra realistic version in the Fallout world to be unfun.

People have different ideas about fun. I am sure you wouldnt find the Silent Hunter series of WWII sub simulators fun like I do set all the way to 100% realisim. But that doesnt mean that I dont find it fun.

The same goes with those that want the game more realistic those people are wanting more because they enjoy hard games. Just because some people wouldnt enjoy it doesnt mean that it shouldnt be done. Thats why games have an easy setting for those that would otherwise rage quit because they got killed in a game. Thats why Fall Out New Vegas has hardcoe mode for those that want it to be a step towards realistic where eatting drinking and sleeping plays a major role over how FO3 was where you could roam for months at a time without sleeping once and not die.

So I think all this sarcastic talking down to others because they would like something in game that you dont want is kind of childish. If you dont want that fine just say you dont but no need to be a smart ass and talk about making it real life realistic and how unfun that would be because maybe some of us would find it fun.

Im happy its not realistic though, and Call of Duty isnt realistic.

It's like Gran Turismo vs. Super Mario Cart. Mario Cart is fun and you can get right into it, but its so shallow and repetitive that you'll get tired of it much quicker. But you can spend months just getting to know all of the features and nuances of Gran Turismo. Given the number of hours most players put into RPGs like Fallout, it's definitely better to be closer to the Gran Turismo side of the spectrum.

I'm generally in favor of realism because it allows you to add a great deal of depth to the game without being completely arbitrary. The beauty of games like Fallout and Oblivion though, with their sci-fi and fantasy settings, is that realism can be mitigated by plausible technology or magic wherever it interferes with gameplay. A great example of this is carrying capacity in Oblivion - when you first start out, you can't carry much more than your armor and a couple of weapons, which is realistic but a tremendous pain when you're trying to loot areas. But because its a fantasy game you can hugely increase your carrying capacity via spells, potions, and enchantments, which might not be realistic for the real world but makes plenty of sense within the context of the game.

With Fallout, you can achieve something similar via power armor, though in my opinion the player's default carry weight is a bit absurd from a realism perspective. There's no way anyone could spend all day running around with 350 lbs. keystered... There's also stimpack and the various chems to help explain why you can survive multiple gunshots, and I think that when you combine those with FWE's globally increased weapon damage its a great balance between satisfying realism and fun gameplay. Ultra realism without the tech would be like trying to play Counter-Strike single handed against a bunch of bots. Impossible.

I dont think theres one modern FPS game that is realistic. Aside from that I would like to see fallout get alittle more realistic in the sense that if your not wearing head gear head shots have a higher chance of a critical kill. Like wise I would want it thrown in hardcoe mode, I mean lets face it hardcoe mode is supposed to make survival harder for those of us that like harder games. Well make it alittle more easier to get killed than we currently can, as stated in some of the newer articles New Vegas is different than FO3 where its way easier to get killed. Mainly thanks to the damage threshold which means low damage rounds wont have an effect on them.

Now while I would like to see more realistic, I hate all theses smart ass posts about making it real life realistic. Most people dont want that they just want the game to be harder than what we saw in FO3. I for one agree aside from them scraping the over powered supermutant overlord. I want to see silenced weapons that actually allows you to do a silent hit on someone in their bedroom without alerting the whole town that someone was just silently killed by a silenced pistol in their own room. That I think is my biggest negative about FO3 that I hope to see fixed in New Vegas. The only weapon good at doing silent hits was the dart gun but yet why have a silenced pistol if you can do a sneak critical kill with it and the whole town knows even if your in their bedroom and their asleep at the time.

When a lot of people here say "realism" they really mean "verisimilitude." They want self consistency, and they're just using the word realism to convey that.



Well, OFP/ARMA/ARMA2 gets fairly close, as far as FPS games go. Of course, they're billed as hyperrealistic games adapted from army training simulations or something.

True but I was talking about the traditional FPS game not games derrived from training simulators. I got alot of training simulators from fighter pilot sims to naval warfare sims and they can become very realistic.

For instance the naval warfar simulator I play it is basically you quietly sneeking up on a ship or convoy you located avoid detection from any escorts keep your periscope as low as possible then you have to thumb through your historically correct ID manual to ID the ship get the mast heigth, use the hashmarks on the periscope to gauge the distance. Then you send all that information to the TDC you then have to send the order to the bow to open each tube manually and constantly update the TDC with new input figures and then finally you launch. After launching you basically sit and wait while ordering a starboard knuckle while giving the order to go to 150 meters all ahead slow.

There is more to it than that but that is just the basics and it is very realistic it involves knowing math as well as relying on your own senses. I find the game very fun and enjoy playing it from time to time when I have the time. But I doubt many people find it fun and that is probably why UBI with their 5th installment of the same game basically has turned it into an arcade point and click shooter over the simulator aspect that it had for the first 4.

majority prefers easy games that arent hard to do just for fun when bored. But there are some like me that love a challenge and prefer hard games and theres just not many of those out there. Portal 2 looks to be pretty hard and when it comes out I will get it as well but I would like to see FO NV get alittle more realistic than it was in FO3.

Thing is, people mean a lot of different things by it. One person's "realistic" is another's "tedious micro-management." That I like character's to have "realistic" motivations doesn't mean at all that I'm eager to see features that someone else touts in the name of realism. "People generally prefer" lots of different things.

I wonder if this has anything to do with demos relating to game sales. You can get right into a point and click shooter, meaning someone demoing it is more likely to have a positive experience. A game with real depth though just can't be played with only a fraction of an hour to get familiar. "Deep" Games like Empire: Total War make the demos available for download though, so maybe that's not entirely it.

I'm happiest with an RPG that will immerse me. One that I can lose myself in, one that will maintain my suspension of disbelief. For me, a great RPG doesn't have to be realistic, exactly, but it does need to have an internal integrity. Story lines need to make sense. The laws that govern the game's universe need to be consistent. Once those laws are in place, they become the game's reality. When those laws are broken, it's unrealistic, and my immersion suffers from it.

I don't mind some complication, I'm looking forward to hardcoe mode in NV, but I don't need it to mirror real life either. I want it to mirror the other Fallouts.

I think the lack of demo`s hurt sales of most games. If a demo is out I usually download it and try it because it does two things. A. verify that the game will play on my system without any issues and B. let me get a taste of the game and if I will like it.

Sure there are videos on youtube you can watch of others playing the game but its not the same. Personally I have the Total war demo and the Napolen demo and lots didnt like the Napolen one and personally it was ok but it was alittle laggy for me on my pc on the map view moving troops but the Total war demo played flawlessly.

Thats just like Half Life and Fallout 3, I would have never bought them if I didnt see first hand someone else playing them and those games were brought to my attention. The box art like the box art of Metro 2033 never catches my eye because they to me at least dont do the game justic. For instance Metro 2033 I would have never guessed it takes place in a post nuclear war Moscow. The photo art makes me think that its some alternative alien fps game so I never picked it up.

Now if they had demos avalable for them on steam I would have came across it and downloaded them and gave it a try out of boredom.

Rusty_S85, those are some valid points about releasing a game demo for increased sales. Though from what I've seen, Fallout 3 was a massive hit, and FNV already has a lot of pre-orders. Even so, it's always nice to have a demo for those who might otherwise have no interest in Fallout. Before deciding to try Fallout 3, I feared it was a turn based game based on all the previews about VATS. When I found out it was real time combat as well, I gave it a try and now consider Fallout 3 my favorite game. But there was a chance, I might have not spent $60+ hard earned dollars to "see if it's worth the price".

On Topic:
Realism in the Storyline?
Fallout 3 had humor, thanks to all the mutations, like Harold the Tree mutant. When I first saw him, I thought it must have been a joke, as it didn't seem to fit in with the "more realistic, serious tone" of the rest of the game for the most part. In terms of story, I think Fallout will always include events and characters that defy realism for the sake of humor and a more light hearted approach. It's an alternate take on history/our universe afterall.

People are always talking about the humour in the Fallout franchise, but I didn't see any of it in Fallout 3. Maybe Bethesda just svcked. I hope Fallout: New Vegas shows why people consider the series to be funny, especially as it is made by the original creators.
In FO3, apart from the occassional funny line (not very often) and the easter egg type thing you might see, I didn't see much humour at all.

Exactly.... you know what? Give them what they really want and maybe they'll finally realize that the whole realism idea they're asking for is becoming too much and will remove some of the fun. You want realism, well here it is.... a head shot to the PC should kill them instantly. And not allow a re-load.... sorry, but you died... game over. Or maybe how about this.... the PC gets a flammer to the face and burns out their retinas... now their vision is drastically impaired, for the rest of the game.

Personally from what I've read, and seen... New Vegas is shaping up very well with a very good balance of realism and fun.

To be honest in a post-apocalyptic world, realism would get you killed pretty damn fast.

Oh no, you walked through a pocket of radiation, now the game let's you slowly deteriorate and eventually die in a hospital. Fun.
Or you see a group of bandits, you open fire, then die because it only takes a couple of shots to kill you and the cloth on that jumpsuit isn't bulletproof.
Or you run cripple a limb and can't walk anywhere because that's just not the type of thing that you can ignore IRL.

I mean don't get me wrong, a bit of realism is fine (I'd prefer it) because it would make the game more challenging and create greater immersion.

But if you want that much realism, GO LIVE LIFE. Maybe they should put a warning on the box saying "Warning: Fallout: New Vegas is NOT a substitute for real life"

That sums it up pretty well. Though I wonder who actually wants that much realism to the point they'd die every ten minutes in the game. Contra anyone?

Correct, but I was talking about games in general its hard to find demos for games now adays. Its like the devs want you to blow your money on it and it might be buggy or it might not work on your system or you might absolutely hate it. But their doing it for a cost stand point, it would be too costly to make a demo and take time away from the development of the game so they just ax it. Personally I dont buy a game unless I am atleast 95% sure I will like it and that it will work, other than that I save my money because games arent like they used to be. I remember buying brand new games that just came out day of release for $29.99 and now you cant even touch a 2 year old game for that price. I also remeber buying 1+ year old games some of the time for as little as $9.99. Not anymore its all about money so I try to be smart when it comes to games. But fallout Newvegas has already got me sold because I loved FO3.

To add to your point about demo discs/downloads: When making a demo for E3, I'm pretty sure I remember reading an article in Game Developer magazine how Insomniac was trying to create a demo for Resistance and had all kinds of problems, as the demo took a lot more time to customize and couldn't be put back into the final game as it stood.

Otherwise, they could always have a time limit and just box the gamer into a limited zone to play, like the Just Cause 2 demo at 30 minutes free play.

On Topic: Realism blended with exaggeration is a good thing IMO.

I think far too many people are taking "A little extra realism" for "Realism out the ass, if I can tell the difference between the game and reality it isn't realistic enough".

Stop doing that, you're looking silly.

Hah hah. I think all this Realism backlash has made the Realism devotee's scurry to their lairs.

this.

Hah hah. I think none of you actually understand what "realism" means in the context of this game and you should stop pretending.