FO:NV didn't really feel post-apocalyptic : Fallout: New Vegas

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:53 am

as many of the things following have references to locations which actually appear in the game you'll need to click the "spoiler" button to see the whole topic. if there is anything about a location you have not yet visited...i warned you =)

i've already read lots of topics in the forum regarding things that spoiled the gaming experience for many people. since this topic might be a bit elaborate i thought i'd better post it as a new topic.

this topic is basically a list of things i hoped i'd see during the gameplay and some things i saw but wasn't satisfied with due to a lack of "realism" (in-game realism) that is. too much realism isn't wanted in a game. but some level of realism is needed in order to feel like beeing in a convincing set.
you might find some of the things i complain about nit picking but maybe u just felt the same. if so, go ahead and state it. nothing but a good feedback to make a game or its sequels better =)

btw:i'm german so cut me some slack if i made any harsh mistakes =)

generally:

compared to FO3 i didn't quite feel like i was roaming a post nuclear war world. let me explain why i feel this way

Spoiler

new vegas - the town itself

as stated in the in game dialogue new vegas wasn't hit by nukes. if this applies to the city itself or a wider area is unclear. the craters throughout the wasteland might just be warheads that have been "hit" by mr houses defense (whatever that might have been) and therefor have been unable to explode properly. a nuclear warhead in the 50s-60s and as far as i know today always has a load of regular explosives which are used to get the chain reaction started. that would explain the craters and the relatively low explosion radius as well as the local soncentration of the radiation. an atomic bomb (if its not a bunker killer) usually explodes high above the surface and won't leave a crater which would be visible 200 years later. it would have eroded away.
but why is there so much destruction around the city then? maybe some nukes got through you might say. but why is it so inconsistent? the vegas highway is wrecked beyond anything that 200 years would do to concrete while there are houses next to it which are completely intact.

new vegas - surroundings

i kind felt disappointed that there were just 4 casinos (5 if you count the wrangler). i understand that it would have been to much on the engine to put much more in the game with all the lights and so on. but why not include some ruins? las vegas before the war wasn't just 4 casinos! gimme some ruins to explore. would have come in handy for doing quests for the strip too. a little looting for the casinos on the strip and michael angelo. slot machine parts or some rare wine or some neon sign stuff or pictures of it like in the classic inspiration quest.

nellis afb

wee, a military base! an airfield even. but just one lousy plane in a hangar? and one later on salvaged from the bottom of a lake? i felt like nellis is just 2 hangars and a lot of runway. you can't even enter most of the buildings. a military base is bound to have its own bunker (not just that ammo storage under the arrays). i read somewhere that there are no planes there since they all took off to china to deliver bombs and never returned. but there is no such thing as an airbase with ALL (-1) planes ready to take off. there are always some undergoing maintenance. some more plane wreckade would have really spiced up the place. might have even made a decent quest for scavenging parts from them. maybe with some of the personal turned into ghouls and still roaming some far off corner of the base. they could've kept the quest with the plane from the lake. saluaging some electronics that didn't get fried by the emp from the bomb or something. overall, nellis looks just like a groomed military air base with the planes missing. not much post apocalyptic about that.

MOST IMPORTANT: nellis afb is also the place where are 51 is located, can't believe this has not been included

h&h tooling/vegas steel/cerulean robotics

i felt like those places should resemble factories. but one conveyour belt (cerulean), some forging machines and a pot of molten metal (vegas steel) or a half submerged room with metal walkways just doesn't do it. those places felt kinda incomplete and quickly whipped up. repconn test facility and the sunset sarsaparilla plant felt much more like a real place. better not to include something like that at all than putting them in the game and making the player feel like he/she is looking at a rather half hearted attempt.

searchlight airport

nothing there but some suitcases and boxes with clothes and caps. creates some atmosphere looting stuff from people who in the end still didn't make it or had to leave it behind. but no buildings to enter. a whole landmark without a building to enter? and its an airport? u gotta be kiddin me.

old nuclear test site

nothing but a shack, a truck, some authority glasses and ghouls. a nuclear test site is something more than a couple of chairs for generals who are watching an atomic bomb going off in the middle of nowhere. i would have loved to search an old nuclear test site for something to scavenge. some bunkers with tech and radiation suits and logs and so on. but unfortunately this is just a hole in the ground with some minor loot.

places and stuff i would have liked to see but weren't in the game

abandoned rocket silo - when i think nuclear war and desert i think rocket launch site. usually located in remote areas and pretty iconic when it comes to nuclear warfare. could have put even 2 or 3 of them in the game, no one would have argued i think.

more skeletons - didn't it give you the creeps when you opened a pelowski shelter in FO 3 and saw a dead skeleton inside? or when you checked the manholes near the radio transmission towers and found the remains of people down there who tried to save their lives by hiding there? even though vegas wasn't hit by any bombs the fallout in the atmosphere would have forced people to hide underground or indoors for quite a while. maybe longer than they could sustain themselfes in some areas. so why are there hardly any victims of the war in this game? kicked the atmosphere down a notch for me.

makeshift farmhouse shelter - you know it from every movie. what does a farmer family do in case of tornados/aliens/nuclear war? hiding in the basemant (right after searching for billy or some other idiot kid who was wandering around outside to watch the storm/ufos/mushroom clouds). there are lots of farmhouses around. but none with a makeshift fallout shelter. shame on you for not including that cliche =P

traffic jams on the roads - what would people do after a nuclear war that didn't hit them too hard? drive off to look for their loved ones (no kidding,many people who know nothing about radiation and fallout around) only to die within a couple of hours or days from the radioactive fallout from the bombs that exploded elsewhere. besides the emp from an atomic blast (even far away) would have shut down the cars in a wide area (i know,cars in fallout are powered by some sort of reactor but no matter what tech,its pretty sure that it would stop working after an emp). so why are there hardly any cars on the streets in the desert?

well, so far about the things that have been bugging me while playing fallout new vegas. maybe some of you feel the same. maybe i'm just a bit nit picky. i just wanted to state these things and see if it would be a good thing to include them in future games or if it would be a waste of time. maybe someone from bethesda will read this and they'll keep some of those things in mind. lets see what you are thinking about the things i wrote.

thx for reading and thx bethesda for making a great game (even though i've been ranting about lots of stuff =) )

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:40 am

I dunno. To me it only made sense that not everything was withered and dying anymore and most of the things in the open had been scavenged (over 200 years after the war, afterall), and the post apoc feel came from the struggle of rebuilding (the different factions and their powerplay with no ruling government, the almost total anarchy, nigh independent settlementstates, the harshness of the wilds etc).

Fallout 3 got the bleak and devastated landscapes right, that's a given. But that world looked more like 50, or so, years after the war instead of 200 years - which kinda put off some of it's feeling, since the west coast was already a century ahead in the progress of rebuilding.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:34 pm

In New Vegas people have started rebuilding, not just surviving. It's post apocalyptic enough to not make the apocalypse the top story

It was really hard to believe in Fallout 3 that the war was 200 years ago, in New Vegas it is much easier. I often almost forget that it is post-apocalyptic.

But as far as "post-apocalyptic feeling" goes, Fallout 3 does it better.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:54 am

If they keep using 'whoop, we can't rebuild cause a war happened' I'd have to kill some people. I mean, it's 200+ years after the Great War, I don't give a damn if some people think 'I MISS THE DEPRESSING FEELING OF FALLOUT 3' then go play Fallout 3. Seriously, Fallout 3 is a good game in it's own right, but New Vegas shows a more accurate description of what track humanity should be on. Just because it's called 'Fallout' does not mean the game should be in an endless limbo of brown desert, 2 maybe 3 nonhostile settlements, and little if any human interaction in the world outside a town.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:20 am

i see your point. but 200 years after a nuclear war isn't that long. sure, some things are bound to be scavenged in the meantime and there would also be some small towns. but i kinda feel like someone took a huge vacuum cleaner und svcked everything that might remind someone of the war up and away. for all what it looks like it could have just been like 99% of the population suddenly fell asleep or disappeared. i really liked all the factions/towns etc in FO:NV. and surely in the vicinity of the towns and the main roads there wouldn't be much to scavenge anymore. but the whole damn map is like that.

besides,there is still the topic about the locations and the way they were designed to discuss. so let me know whats on your minds folks. would be much appreciated.

thx for the replies so far

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:28 pm

New Vegas takes more cues from FO2 in this regard. It's more Vault City and San Francisco, not so much Megaton.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:00 pm

hei, guys, plz not discuss about 200 years or 400 years later or after. this is a game, human made of imagination in order to capture player imagination.

we can not change about NV. but we are just hope DLC do much better than NV.

I already stop playing NV and ignore the Achivement. waitting for DLC to come. i will be the first to buy it. lol.

I began to suspect that the producer is purposely do it. in order for us to spent more money on DLC. keep make you add more and buy more. good fishing.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:32 pm

I can't think of a game that would capture my imagination more than a post-apocalyptic societies efforts to reclaim civilization and peace-of-mind in the face of savagery and wild mutations.
Admittedly Fallout 3 was pretty magical but really it didn't make much sense in some regards.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:24 am

Spacebriks,

I agree what you say bro.

we are all gamer after all, as a place for escaping the real world. i am a die hard fan of the post apocalyptic game, movie, you named it. i think most player like to be surounded by smell of death, visually destruction, massive suffering, felling lonelyness, darkness, and uncertain in the apocalyptic game.and we are buliding up skill and knowledge to fight and survive it.

NV is apocalyptic game, but lack of the feel here.

the reason i have been complainning so much is because i have been on the net day by day, reading, seraching the new vegas news everyday. downloading the pic, trailer, story and so on. i have even have the poster on my room. i have been expecting so much. and this is what i got.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:35 pm

Spacebriks,

I agree what you say bro.

we are all gamer after all, as a place for escaping the real world. i am a die hard fan of the post apocalyptic game, movie, you named it. i think most player like to be surounded by smell of death, visually destruction, massive suffering, felling lonelyness, darkness, and uncertain in the apocalyptic game.and we are buliding up skill and knowledge to fight and survive it.

NV is apocalyptic game, but lack of the feel here.

the reason i have been complainning so much is because i have been on the net day by day, reading, seraching the new vegas news everyday. downloading the pic, trailer, story and so on. i have even have the poster on my room. i have been expecting so much. and this is what i got.

It sounds like you burnt yourself out before playing it
I had a similar experience with Bioshock. I had followed its development in and out of vaporware, and had all sorts of expectations buillt up. Like maybe Bioshock would reclaim some of what System Shock 2 made special for me. When it did come out I was pretty disappointed, not because the game wasn't good, but because I had built up expectations about what a spiritual sequel to SS2 should be about.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:24 am

Personally, as much as I love FONV (it's vying with Morrowind for my favourite game ever), I would like to see the next Fallout game be set chronologically earlier, in a locale that existing lore hasn't really yet explored. Simply because I think there is more mileage that could yet be had from being set in the near aftermath of the war, and I find devastation and survival more interesting than rebuilding....

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:48 am

Personally, as much as I love FONV (it's vying with Morrowind for my favourite game ever), I would like to see the next Fallout game be set chronologically earlier, in a locale that existing lore hasn't really yet explored. Simply because I think there is more mileage that could yet be had from being set in the near aftermath of the war, and I find devastation and survival more interesting than rebuilding....

I'm with you. I think the further away from the "War" we get, the harder to it is to stay consistent with what feels like Fallout. I loved FO3, but the time frame felt off. It felt more like 20-50 years later. Like maybe your grandfather was the first of your family to live in a Vault. But then there's all of these mutations and other things going on that would have taken 100s of years.

FNV feels like it's 100s of years later, but then why is there even anything left to scavenge? If society is rebuilding, I'd expect all unused buildings to have been demolished and the parts used to build new structures (although maybe that's why we have remnants of old houses). The vibe is less Post-Apocalypse and more of a Rebuilding. And FNV does a fairly good job of that at the expense of the Apocalyptic feeling.

The originals, FO1 and 2, hit that cool niche of, humanity has been hiding underground for generations, only to find that life goes on at the surface.

So, for me, I think a several days after the Apocalypse setting would be the next step. Maybe have your character attempting to survive in a dying city. I think New York would be a great place, especially for it's wealth of landmarks. Have enemies that are less Road Warrior and more Ward Cleaver trying to save his family. This would be the game where your motivation is to get to the Vault, not leave the Vault. Anyways, just some whimsy from a guy that probably likes Fallout a little too much.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:08 am

OP: The problem here is that I bet you never played Fallout 1 and 2. Fallout 1 had more of that post-apocalyptic feel of a wasteland devastated by a nuclear war. This is because, chronologically, Fallout 1 happened closest to when the bombs fell. Fallout 2 happened 80 years after Fallout 1, and in Fallout 2 the world finally began to rebuild. All throughout Fallout 1 and 2, you could have a direct impact on how well communities did which would effect how they prospered. In fact, you could even make the case that you are DIRECTLY responsible for the NCR being born because of your possible actions in Fallout 1.

So after all that great stuff a player did in Fallout 1 and 2, long time fans of the series would be expecting to see some progress. And they have - New Vegas, to me, was a logical progression of what happened after Fallout 1 and 2. I will grant you that New Vegas is more "post post-apocalyptic" rather than just "post apocalyptic", if that makes any sense. But again: We're on the 4th game in the series - time moves on and things change.

All that said, I'm not begrudging you or anyone else a desire to see Fallout return to a more recently-nuked, post apocalyptic feel. As people before have mentioned, this can easily be done by making a "prequel" game that happens earlier in the series. I'd be all for that.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:01 pm

So, for me, I think a several days after the Apocalypse setting would be the next step. Maybe have your character attempting to survive in a dying city. I think New York would be a great place, especially for it's wealth of landmarks. Have enemies that are less Road Warrior and more Ward Cleaver trying to save his family. This would be the game where your motivation is to get to the Vault, not leave the Vault. Anyways, just some whimsy from a guy that probably likes Fallout a little too much.

I bet Ward Cleaver would be looking pretty ghoulish by the time he rocked up to that vault.

This "post-apocalyptic feeling" is sort of ill-defined. A ruined landscape does not define the post-apocalyptic genre.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:07 pm

I totally agree about the locations you mention that had nothing to offer. I was really disappointed by the lack of interiors and barred buildings.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:04 am

If they keep using 'whoop, we can't rebuild cause a war happened' I'd have to kill some people. I mean, it's 200+ years after the Great War, I don't give a damn if some people think 'I MISS THE DEPRESSING FEELING OF FALLOUT 3' then go play Fallout 3. Seriously, Fallout 3 is a good game in it's own right, but New Vegas shows a more accurate description of what track humanity should be on. Just because it's called 'Fallout' does not mean the game should be in an endless limbo of brown desert, 2 maybe 3 nonhostile settlements, and little if any human interaction in the world outside a town.

Pretty much this. Plus it clearly states why bombs didnt drop on vegas in the game, so thats another reason why NV feels less depressing. but i dont mind, i love both games for their own different reasons.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 11:30 am

I think rebuilding and thriving are key points in the Fallout franchise, the canon endings have always been the one where the world has had so much good done by the PC, and because of him, humanity starts to rebuild.

Another problem is people who want a prequel-sequel is that it'd have to be VERY, and I can't put emphasis on the word 'VERY' enough, carefully written, and it definetely cannot be set in the West Coast region, because otherwise it would likely step on the toes of the established history of Fallout, which would piss off ALOT of die hard fans of the franchise. Setting a prequel on the East Coast/the South are only the viable options for a sequel or prequel since the DC region is the only thing across the Mississippi with any established history in terms of Fallout Cannon.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:46 am

http://cdn.blogs.sheknows.com/thewire.sheknows.com/2010/10/snooki-south-park.jpg hooray!!

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:49 am

http://cdn.blogs.sheknows.com/thewire.sheknows.com/2010/10/snooki-south-park.jpg hooray!!

I thought that was a standard denizen of Jersey. :whistling:

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:18 pm

I think rebuilding and thriving are key points in the Fallout franchise, the canon endings have always been the one where the world has had so much good done by the PC, and because of him, humanity starts to rebuild.

Another problem is people who want a prequel-sequel is that it'd have to be VERY, and I can't put emphasis on the word 'VERY' enough, carefully written, and it definetely cannot be set in the West Coast region, because otherwise it would likely step on the toes of the established history of Fallout, which would piss off ALOT of die hard fans of the franchise. Setting a prequel on the East Coast/the South are only the viable options for a sequel or prequel since the DC region is the only thing across the Mississippi with any established history in terms of Fallout Cannon.

Not necessarily, if the developer does their research it wouldn't be much of a problem. If the developer just does whatever they want with no regard to the established history of the Fallout world (Tactics, BoS) then yes a lot of hardcoe fans would be upset.

I don't think we'll see a Fallout game set earlier in the time line though. Feargus Urquhart stated in one of his interviews (I think it was his Escapist interview) that Obsidian originally wanted to set New Vegas between Fallout 2 and 3, but Bethesda said no because they like to always be moving forward. That certainly implies that we'll never see a Fallout game set earlier than the last one.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:51 am

Well, Fallout is past the apocalypse, and it only makes sense that a region that already was mostly desert to begin with recovers earlier.

But 200 years... I mean, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima 65 years after the bomb, or Germany's cities that were utterly destroyed by conventional bombs and mostly rebuilt in the late 50ies.

That Fallout's Washington DC was razed to the ground and is uninhabitable for centuries to come, makes sense, but why should anyone strife to live there? If the Lone Wanderer left the vault to stumble into an irradiated desert inhabitated only by Ghouls and Super Mutants I'd be fine, but I have no idea what all those humans still want there and how they even manage to survive .

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:29 pm

I can empathize with what the topic author had to say: Fallout 3 and NV have not been logically consistent in the extent of the destruction. Unless they were actually hit by massive ordnance, the highways would be in very good shape. They are monolithic constructions of concrete and rebar, and this is the middle of the desert so there isn't even any ice or serious rainfall to erode them. Buildings made of wood would either be dessicated husks, or scavenged to the foundation for firewood. There would not be *anything* useful, let alone valuable, left in any of the buildings after 200 years. All those crates of empty bottles? Those would have been scavenged mere months after the war to hold and boil water, or shattered to make knives and arrow and spear points for the more handcraft-inclined. The food; who keeps stocking the refrigerators? Why hasn't all the war-era food left on counters rotted away by now? Who keeps making all this more-valuable-than-ammo RadX and RadAway and leaves it laying around in office desks in half-collapsed buildings? Unless you believe that stuff is 200 years old, in which case, it shouldn't even be remotely safe to still use it (how many medicines would *you* trust after 200 years).

You could write a thousand word thesis on all the ways Fallout makes no sense whatsoever. The bottom line is, compromises are made that sacrifice realism for the sake of playability. How much fun would it be if everything was already scavenged ten generations ago, and there was nothing at all to find by wandering through ruins?

But 200 years... I mean, look at Hiroshima 65 years after the bomb, or Germany's cities that were utterly destroyed by conventional bombs and mostly rebuilt in the late 50ies.

Not a relevant comparison. Those places were rebuilt using manpower and resources from other places that were not devastated. The point of Fallout is that *everything* is blown to hell. There's nobody left with the materials and manpower and machinery to rebuild a city in that kind of time frame. Mr. House was some kind of uber-wealthy hyper-intelligent guy who knew what was going to happen beforehand, and even for him, all he's been able to do is rebuild one small part of one city.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:09 am

I would agree that the feel is less nuclear wasteland, more frontier. I started with FO3, then went back and played FO, and most of FO2 (on hold once FO:NV was released). That being said, I don't see either Bethesda game as out of character with the series; FO:NV just continues the theme of rebuilding and renewal while FO3 explores other areas of the country.

FO3 always struck me as a little too barren for 200 years after the war. To put this into perspective we really don't run across a lot of buildings and loot from the American Revolution or the Napoleonic Wars. Yes, these wars were much less globally devastating but still...

I do occasionally miss the moral freedom of FO3 where it felt like every encounter was hostile, instead of worrying about your reputation. Not much (I really enjoy the interaction and the consequences of decisions), but my trigger finger twitches at times to just take them all out. I guess that's for my next run through.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:10 am

I think you've made some good points. The points that I don't quite agree with are still made in a respectful way which is rare in itself. Great job!

House's robots could have done a lot of work to clean up and rebuild and most likely did most of the building of the walls around NV. I was disappointed that you could gamble in only 4 casinos. The lucky 38 should have had a robot dealing black jack or spinning the wheel or just let me play slots on one of those machines.

This is kind of off topic I suppose but I thought hardcoe mode didn't really make the game harder just more annoying. I like ammo having weight but it got old carrying around 15lbs of water and food just so I could go out and explore. I'm glad they made that optional.

As for the feel of the game, IMO it still felt post apocalyptic because of the struggles to rebuild and have law and order in many places even on the strip you can pull out your gun and kill some (Vulpes and the Bounty hunter) people and the securitrons don't care. So there is still a feeling of anarchy. NV did feel more like F2 than F3 but that's not a bad thing.

I can't wait to see what kind of government arises from the east and starts to spread west. Maybe Bethesda and Obsidian can tag team a game in the future where the NCR meets the Government from the East and a battle begins.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:51 am

The difference between NV and FO3 in terms of setting is the fact that in Fallout 3 the Capital wasteland was hit hard by atomic bombs, meaning that most of the environment in FO3 feels post-apocalyptic. New Vegas however, wasn't hit nearly as hard by the bombs and it's major factor to the game's setting is neglect. Rather than being destroyed by bombings the buildings and environment in FO NV suffer from many years of neglect.

FO NV feels like it's more on track to recovery than FO3 does, but the capital wasteland lost alot more than the Mojave did to the great war.

Well, Fallout is past the apocalypse, and it only makes sense that a region that already was mostly desert to begin with recovers earlier.

But 200 years... I mean, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima 65 years after the bomb, or Germany's cities that were utterly destroyed by conventional bombs and mostly rebuilt in the late 50ies.

That Fallout's Washington DC was razed to the ground and is uninhabitable for centuries to come, makes sense, but why should anyone strife to live there? If the Lone Wanderer left the vault to stumble into an irradiated desert inhabitated only by Ghouls and Super Mutants I'd be fine, but I have no idea what all those humans still want there and how they even manage to survive .

Here is the key factor, while Hiroshima was completely annihilated as well as Nagasaki, there was still a country to rebuild these cities. In Fallout, America gets entirely wiped out, there is no country left to rebuild the cities.