afaik Fallout was always about "man leaves shelter, man finds chaos, man sorts out chaos via futuristic gadgetry, man goes back into shelter". It wasn't about Texas Rangers with bolt-action rifles and stetsons herding their brahmin over the range. When did it turn into that? FO3 wasn't like that.

Yeah, but the logic of most Capital Wasteland citizens was 'let's sit on our asses and hop the Brotherhood will do it'

There is a lot of friction here that I don't understand... I mean, on the one hand you've got people saying the setting is starting to get too post-post-apocalyptic, and on the other hand, people who are saying that's how society would be 200 years after the war. The thing is, I don't think you guys actually have opposing view points; it's just a matter of opposing preferences. If you ask me, the state of humanity as of FNV not post-post-apocalyptic enough for being 200 years after the war. I mean, look how far we came since the early 1800s; granted, you won't see nearly as much development in a post-apocalyptic world, but the fact that they've got robots to do everything for them should counter that at least somewhat, especially so close to the United States' one real center of civilization (that is, the NCR). At any rate, if they keep moving the series forward, it's going to stretch credibility even more unless they focus on a part of the country that has struggled and failed to set up a functioning society/government (I'm sure there are lots of regions of the US that would have a lot of trouble with that after a nuclear war, particularly those away from major metropolitan centres). Either that or they could take us back in time a little; it's not like most Fallout games are in sequence except for the fact that they take place chronologically one after the other, after all.

Personally, I'm in favour of doing a little of both. Show us something new, first of all; I'm so tired of the NCR and even the Brotherhood to some extent. There's a whole lot of country out there besides California and Nevada, especially since the US annexed Canada. Second, take us back to something more like 100 years after the war, or maybe even less. It's already stretching believability to think that any part of the country should be so underdeveloped 200 years after the war, even nuclear though it was. You might find something, but it would be easier and more interesting to take us back in time and show us the burgeoning formation of new governments and regions, rather than expecting us to suspend our disbelief about why they're still so raggedy 200 years later.

Think of FO3 as a new Fallout series set on the East coast that bares little connection to the storyline of FO1, FO2, & FONV on the West coast.

While FO3 itself was/is pretty cool, the best thing FO3 did IMO was re-interduce a generation of gamers to the Fallout series.

I agree. Except for the Brotherhood and New Vegas casino people, most people in the Fallout world has lost their sense of cleanliness. Maybe this kind of behavior has been passed on through generations after the war. Over the years, the lack of neatness has become normal.

Eh... Honestly, Fallout was never about mystery per se. In every past game you had a clear purpose. Find the water chip/find the GECK. Any "plumbing prewar mysteries" subplot was always towards that end.



We already know how the Brotherhood and Enclave emerged, due to previous games. The Brotherhood came from California while the Enclave is the prewar government who fled underneath their hardened bunkers and didn't come out until centuries later.

You'd be much better off creating your own factions. For instance, the commonwealth is an almost criminally underutilized idea. It's an original faction that Bethesda made themselves, and it sounds relatively interesting. I have my doubts that Bethesda has the writing chops to flesh it out after Oblivion and Fo3, but the potential is there.

I can understand the OP. NV was not nearly as depressing looking compared to FO3, but tht is not a bad thing. NV jsut showed some light in places where the war didnt really take a tole on the structures.

To me the FO time line doesnt really matter because just remember the FO theme "war...war never changes."

You have a very narrow idea of what "Fallout was always about." Even Fallout 2 didn't start in a shelter. And there was a distinct tendency to never go back to the shelter.

Fallout 1 was somewhat chaotic. Fallout 2 was more organized. A continuing progressive trend along that line is only contrary to what it "was always about" if you define "always" as the first and third games.

This, the writing in FO3 was abysmal and utterly un-compelling. FO3 just stole original ideas from the original Fallout settings and generated virtually nothing new.

At their core these are RPG games, so story should come first. Exploring is great and I wish there was more in NV but I prefer giving a crap about what's going on in the sandbox than just having more sand.

Commonwealth would kick ass.

What this man said. :mohawk:

I could not quite put my finger on it until I read the OPs post, there was something missing in NV, it's the lack of distruction, but then we have to keep in mind that the mojave is not DC, it's vast plains of nothing for the most part, very little that would have been destroyed.

I know few disagree with this, but I would like to see the next game either take place in the time of fallout 2 or just after it, my reason being is that I have fallout 2 but am unable to play it, the isometric view and turned based action cause me to grind my teeth, and yet I know it has a good story, I would like to be able to see that story through to the end.

Not to mention that thanks to Mr. House, next to no Nuclear Warheads fell on DC, out of the 77 warheads, only 6-7 got past him and those fell in the outer sectors of the Mojave.

Ideas from Van Buren made their way into NV--it possesses a certain degree of spiritual continuity that is integral to the franchise. There's a decent balance in this game between the post-nuclear desert environs and the beginning to burgeon strip. You get a good feel for the various groups vying to influence the region.

I imagine that there are stories remaining to be told. They can be about the large and small-scale destinies of people and places. The setting cannot remain static, or as another person said--stuck in a crater. The alternate post WWII history as originally conceived offers many avenues for exploring how humanity chooses to elevate itself from the ruins. That doesn’t mean that the setting has to take place in absolute devastation because the beings, animals and plant-life carry the ramifications of that devastation within them.

While I love Fallout and all it's games, the whole idea seems pretty far fetched in my eyes. Most of the vaults were set to open after 20 years, and the longest one opened after maybe 40? And out of the at least 116 vaults, only Vault 12 stayed open? And at least one of them having 10,000 people in it. It seems to me that after all the vaults opened, there would still be first generation people (scientists, doctors, architects, interior designers, manual labourers) to be able to rebuild society quite quickly after emerging. Sure the soil would have been irradiated and the water contaminated, but at least for the water, people (again, skilled people who would only be ~25 years older) could rig the water purifier(s) from the vault to get clean water outside.

That's basically my whole issue with the series as a whole given what we know and what I think the human race as a whole is capable of. Even though the whole thing is fiction.


On a side note, I'd like to see a game that takes place outside the States, maybe China, or what's left of it, or maybe Russia or anywhere in Europe. Possible some island somewhere, but I feel like that's be too small a map, unless it was Australia or Japan. I feel like there wouldn't be enough content or story if it were South America or Africa. But there's probably not enough canon or lore to even do a game outside of where all teh major companies came from (Vault Tech, Rob-Co, Nuka Cola).

See, the vaults were never meant to actually rebuild society. They're basically containers to hold human lab rats. As such, we have the occupants chosen not because they'd actually contribute to rebuilding society, but because of other criteria. Take vault 69. 999 women and 1 guy. That's not going to create a viable society. One hell of an orgy, but no viable society. Vault 70 (or was that 68?) is worse. 999 guys and 1 woman. Or the population of Vault 15, chosen for a wide range of nationalities and religious beliefs (in order to cause friction.)

Only a precious few vaults were actually meant to work as advertised - Vault 8 in Vault City, for instance.

And that's what I love. I would love to just see the messed up experiments we did to people.

You are correct, my use of the term "generic sci-fi" is sloppy and innacurate - I was certainly not seeking to draw comparisons with space operas like Star Trek! :laugh: I was just struggling to articulate the difference between a Mad Max-style setting and something more developed and as a result less obviously immediately post-apocalyptic. For instance from New Vegas and your talk of trains (and I suppose Fallout 2 too) I get a strong sense of the Western as much as I do anything else. I'm not so overly enamoured with this vibe, but this is entirely a personal opinion and there are indeed many good arguments why this should be more plausible given the chronology as it stands, and if it's true that Bethesda intend to keep moving forward in the timeline then it's going to get increasingly difficult to maintain a Fallout 3-style link to or echo of the pre-war world - let's face it 3 already stretched credibility in that regard. Personally, I worry that the shift from post-apocalyptica to post-post apocalyptica will result in the loss of that "Omega Man" vibe that I love so much, but hopefully a balance can be found between frontier and civilization.

I still want the remains of the old world to be visible through the construction of the new though, and it's in this regard that NV slightly disappoints, and why for credibility's sake a jump back in the timeline might not be such a bad thing.

my thing is tho just pick the trash off the floor of you house. or like the NCR place at least you would think at least some of the people that are in whats left of the world would like stuff to be clean i think the lucky 38 is the cleanest place of any Fallout. because its been sealed for 200 years!

im not talking on about having the whole wasteland go on a cleaning frenzy but at least some of the more major place should look a little bit better

Agree 100%, even in FO3, Tenpenny Tower had the nicest sinks and toilets I have ever seen, but there was still peeling wallpaper and rubble everywhere.

I can understand the mentality 'it's a wasteland, so I don't care where my mess goes' but even then, most people would probably sweep out their house or wherever they stay and put the mess outside somewhere.

One of my biggest peeves in New Vegas was walking through Freeside and Westside and seeing the car wrecks still in the middle of the street. They could have easily moved them into an alley or used them as part of a perimeter wall. I mean, there's even a super mutant in Westside... Other than that, my main problem was like some of the other people's in the thread - way too much dirt inside supposedly nice places.


The nicest looking places I think were probably the Lucky 38 cocktail lounge and suite, the Tops presidential suite, and BoS bunkers.

I think the time frame is fine, since even Fallout 1 felt like society was rebuilding. Setting it closer to the great war or right after the bombs would be a completely different game.

Personally I would like them to set the next game in Chicago, I think there's more to be explored in that area.

Thank you like i said i don't think you need to clean every building, house so on. But even some of the place on the strip are nasty looking inside. And like you said free side needs to be cleaned up a lot i know its the trashy side of NV but still you think they could at least put all there garbage outside the door or the ally. Even the military place had trash every where come on for real if i was a Major or what not id be like CLEAN THAT @$&* up. then just have one BIG #$% dump area where they burned all the trash at and one big cloud of smoke coming from it. i don't Al gore and his eco freaks will care much now that world is extra CRISPY.

come on you waste landers take some pride in your crappy houses. just saying.

i think it should be in a Southern state have some swamps and beaches or something.

Chicago is where the Midwestern BOS is located and I'd rather not see more of them until after a break... even though the Midwest BOS have become some kind of hybrid between BOS and Caesar's Legion on Jet. They'd be different from either of the BOS groups we've seen so far but I'd like to see Bethesda or Obsidian come up with some new factions and flesh out the world a bit more.

I think the time frame is fine, but I'd go for a change of style/venue...

They could buy the rights to Roger Zelazny's novel and do Fallout: Damnation Alley.

The Player must carry plague serum from New California to the Commonwealth before half of known humanity dies... It's a natural with plenty of gameplay possibilities.

The east is still pretty "post-apocalyptic". I like the contrast of the west flourishing and the east struggling with both being featured in modern games.