» Mon Aug 24, 2009 9:07 pm Was Fallout 3 based on a misunderstanding?
I've wondered this from the start.
The original game presented an alternate Earth with a timeline split in or around the nineteen fifties. A shift where their view of the "nuclear future paradise" actually came to pass ~but fell apart and then ended with a bang. (I won't dredge further into the known premise, but the games did not seem to imply that the world itself was an entirely different one).
Fallout had it's bastions of humanity, and it's harsh remnants of the war [including Ghouls] and the wasteland. In Fallout the player seemed to be given the apprehensive notion that "Anything" [no matter how crazy] might happen "out there in the wastes".
The game's Special encounters {as they are called} were never explained (of course). They could have been real, they might have been hallucination ~they could have been a bit of both. Several encounters let you leave with something (Like the Blaster if you found it) so they were not all completely imagined. But none of these strange events were relevant in town and I always got the impression that once out of the wastes you've again returned to what passes for sanity in the PA remains of human world. {well... until I saw the chess playing scorpion in F2}
~But it appears [to me anyway], that the original game's sense of "anything" could happen "out there in the wastes" (that included weird stuff like aliens and dead whales in the desert), was later taken as canon and the Fallout world perceived as a wacky reality because of the shift. I think this is a mistake, a misunderstanding on the part of the Fallout 3 writers. It has turned the recovering survivors, into a collection of static/ timeless asylum nations full of nuts that you can't take seriously. Compare even Lucas Sims to Vree or Killian Darkwater from the original series (actually he's most like Rhombus, a ranking officer in a cult). They all have more dialog, but if ever there was a case of Less is More, then this is it [IMO]. So far almost nothing I've seen can be taken seriously, and everything has that bit of wackiness that {IMO at least} should have been restricted to events out in the wastes. (away from town, and with no other witnesses).
So, I'm asking... Does anyone feel the same, or have others noticed any of this and thought it odd or out of place? Things like this tend to exaggerate with time, and I can only assume that Fallout 4 will expand on it, and its setting become even less like the original.
Note: The Fallout world version 3 is now set in stone, but I wrote this after I had the thought that there would be some modders that had no prior experience with the series and would likely design their content under a slightly skewed perception of the setting.
I would heartily recommend that if you intend to write new fiction and story mods, that you play the original (and now somewhat free ~From Gametap) Fallout 1, to get a baseline idea of the setting from the source.
I've wondered this from the start.
The original game presented an alternate Earth with a timeline split in or around the nineteen fifties. A shift where their view of the "nuclear future paradise" actually came to pass ~but fell apart and then ended with a bang. (I won't dredge further into the known premise, but the games did not seem to imply that the world itself was an entirely different one).
Fallout had it's bastions of humanity, and it's harsh remnants of the war [including Ghouls] and the wasteland. In Fallout the player seemed to be given the apprehensive notion that "Anything" [no matter how crazy] might happen "out there in the wastes".
The game's Special encounters {as they are called} were never explained (of course). They could have been real, they might have been hallucination ~they could have been a bit of both. Several encounters let you leave with something (Like the Blaster if you found it) so they were not all completely imagined. But none of these strange events were relevant in town and I always got the impression that once out of the wastes you've again returned to what passes for sanity in the PA remains of human world. {well... until I saw the chess playing scorpion in F2}
~But it appears [to me anyway], that the original game's sense of "anything" could happen "out there in the wastes" (that included weird stuff like aliens and dead whales in the desert), was later taken as canon and the Fallout world perceived as a wacky reality because of the shift. I think this is a mistake, a misunderstanding on the part of the Fallout 3 writers. It has turned the recovering survivors, into a collection of static/ timeless asylum nations full of nuts that you can't take seriously. Compare even Lucas Sims to Vree or Killian Darkwater from the original series (actually he's most like Rhombus, a ranking officer in a cult). They all have more dialog, but if ever there was a case of Less is More, then this is it [IMO]. So far almost nothing I've seen can be taken seriously, and everything has that bit of wackiness that {IMO at least} should have been restricted to events out in the wastes. (away from town, and with no other witnesses).
So, I'm asking... Does anyone feel the same, or have others noticed any of this and thought it odd or out of place? Things like this tend to exaggerate with time, and I can only assume that Fallout 4 will expand on it, and its setting become even less like the original.
Note: The Fallout world version 3 is now set in stone, but I wrote this after I had the thought that there would be some modders that had no prior experience with the series and would likely design their content under a slightly skewed perception of the setting.
I would heartily recommend that if you intend to write new fiction and story mods, that you play the original (and now somewhat free ~From Gametap) Fallout 1, to get a baseline idea of the setting from the source.
OK, I hate when I go to post and the thread is closed, so I had to start a new one. As per summer's request it's in the Fallout Series section of the boards. And remember folks, we got this far without a close from flaming or otherwise unnecessary junk, let's keep it that way.
Things that are worthwhile typically don't start easy...they are usually things that require a person to learn something or put forth some sort of effort. I understand the appeal of easily accessible games that don't require any skill or improvement from the player (there are times that they are exactly the type of game I'm in the mood for), but the trend of most games going in this direction is really troubling. What happened to games that involve overcoming some obstacle rather than just being along for the ride? I'm really getting bored playing games that won't allow me to fail and don't require me to get better at the game to succeed. In the case of an FPS, the game should be sufficiently difficult that it forces me to learn to use cover, use suppressing fire, draw/flush enemies out of cover, improve my twitch aiming skills, get better at movement, etc. to survive. In the case of an RPG I should have to learn how to develop my character in a way that makes him/her effective toward succeeding in the game, use tactics in combat, play up my character's strengths, etc. Obviously many games involve combinations of many of these mechanics, but I'm just trying to lay out some examples.
First off, good read and well stated. Attempting to address the bolded bits in order:
*Indeed. I remember a friend of mine not making it past the rats because he wasn't used to the style of gaming yet.
*Yes, I brought this up yesterday actually. There are moments in both FO1 & 2 where you really have to pay for your decisions, yet it's not necessarily clear at the moment you make the decision and if you forgot to save in-between...well, tough luck!
*A humongous and impossible to overlook bit for me right there. I just felt like no matter what my stats were I'd be able to get through any situation in just about the same way. No brick walls, really.
I enjoy Fallout 3...I just have a laundry list of things that also really disappoint me about it. It's ok to be critical of something...it doesn't mean we hate it. Some of the writing is pretty good, but a lot of it stops short of what I would consider "deep", and the main quest feels like they got 1/3 of the way through implementing it and ran out of time.
Again, a "QFT" moment for me. I feel exactly the same.
I don't think this has to be an either/or situation, though. When I go to a new location I haven't seen before, surely a lot of that excitement is about seeing what's around the next corner. And I definately got that in Fallout 3. Don't me wrong. Bethesda certainly deserves kudos for that. Each "dungeon" I explored was different than the next and there was something new to see there. Each abandoned factory wasn't "just another factory, let's kill everything and move on to the next." It was "this factory" and each had it's own little elements to discover. But few had any real "souvenirs" to take away with me. Something to link that memory.
Hmm, see...I actually felt like all that dungeon-crawling was tedious and repetitive. Tedious in some respects I love but these just felt like excuses to force the player into yet another generic "dungeon crawl" and it all felt very copy/pasted to me. I never got that feeling from the areas of the originals.
Fallout 3 is certainly about the journey. And that's a very fun journey. But it has to end somewhere to give it meaning. (Even if you were allowed to play after beating the Main Quest, it would work the same way.) And that ending is what gives it that meaning. I can have a really fun road trip just for the sake of it, but at the end of that road trip I'd like to have come to a place that was worth all that driving.
It's a fun journey at times, admittedly...but not a whole lot to do or see along the way and when you get to your destination you kinda wish you never stopped driving. :rolleyes:
