Well I played FO 1 & 2 before FO 3 and NV and I prefer sandbox
Node-based takes away the stumbling on something unexpected feeling you can get in sandbox
Sure nodes can be big but you know somewhere in a node theres something interesting to find, otherwise the developers wouldn't have made a node for the area
I do wish they would take out the markers for undiscovered locations though. They rather defeat the point of sandbox

You can alter time via the console, set timescale to (number), 30 is default, setting it to 1 would make the game world run in real time. That wouldn't stop Olney being a short walk up the road though but neither would putting it in a separate node, that would merely substitute a loading screen and a progress bar for the walk. How a loading screen is more realistic because it lacks the possibility of an encounter baffles me.

A node system would destroy the sandbox feel to the game, which would take a lot out of the game for me. Exploring a vast open world is my favorite part.

And with a map node system we start running out of states.
Everything from Texas over has pretty much been addressed thanks to the first two games covering so much unnecessary ground. There are some bits and pieces in the northwest which haven't been covered, but I couldn't imagine any location up in the northwest being that much fun to play anyways..Everything else has been either played through, or addressed by lore..
I'd rather run out of vaults than run out of space to have new Fallout games..

We need an asteroid to nuke all the dinosaurs up in this bread.

Is this serious? Because that's just ridiculous.





What about the Northwest would make it unfun? It's a great place, and Fallout can make adjustments due to it being . . . fiction. I'd advocate a game with New Arroyo in it, personally. That's a location that we have been to, except it is completely different after FO2.
Anyway the country is massive, and as Canada became part of the U.S., we can have games there too. We have lots of the South, Canada, New England, Northwest, Southwest, Texas (BOS doesn't count, even according to gamesas). And eventually the games have to end anyway. We have plenty of ground to cover. So I don't think that argument has much weight for no map node system. Besides, who says the area that it covers has to necessarily be as large as FO1/2? It can be larger than a centralized area, but it doesn't have to be most of one of our largest states again.

That's a good point, I hadn't put that together, the developers have said the game won't be set outside the US but in FO terms that includes Canada and brings up a whole lot of possibilities.

Who said we couldn't go back to a place we have been before after such time has passed? The node map don't show every city in a state so the ones not shown may be used later. Old settlements disappear and new ones appear. Broken Hills and Jacobstown respectively.
Also the first two games have only taken place in all of California, southern Oregon and western Nevada. Exaggerating much?

Tribal Hosers!

That's an odd thing to worry about.

The map doesn't need to cover a quarter of the country. A single state, if even that, would well suffice. There's plenty of space to go around for at least 10 more Fallout games (and even more) - by which time -- if that time is ever even reached -- I don't believe you or I or any of these hobos here are playing games anymore.

How about a poll option for this?

And I want nodes.
I don't care for sandbox so that could be cut entirely, but I wouldn't mind it either as long as there is a node system.

Wow, really? You want a game like Crysis or Bioshock with linear stories an few options? Both are fine games but they are very restrictive compared to the with the sandbox worlds of F3 & NV.

The map style has absolutely nothing to do with the story, genius.

Hey hey. Why we getting all worked up?

Because he acted in surprise and made an accusation in his own mistake, a misplaced condescending view.

No need to get all worked up about. Keep it coooooooool like ice cubes.

No need to keep acting like a moderator, Ace. Stop nagging me.

I don't give a flying [censored] about a sandbox world when it comes to Fallout, I'm in it to see what evolved from the ashes of the old world, to see what new societies were built, to see what new cultures developed, to see what the morality and ethics people have and what "justice" really is in the wasteland, I'm not in it to fight a bunch of deathclaws at dungeon #42 with my Plasma Power Armor (Oh there'll be one, mark my words...) and Tesla Rifle MK VIII.
Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 had node systems and they worked perfectly fine with that and were not linear so you're wrong.
Why a node system would be far superior imo is because of the things I said above, in order to see as many different variations of those as possible a node system to put distance between societies makes it realistic and we can have far more realistically sized towns/cities/settlements.
I mean, come one, NV had one city, one!
Same with FO3, and that city was overrun by yellow ogres.
And look at NV, did we get to see any civilized Legion towns? Nope. Why? Cause they had a sandbox map that is already stuffed with crap.
So a sandbox map?
You can't have realistically sized places in that.
Everything just clutters up; there's no realistic distance between places at all. And towns, cities and settlements will all be minimized just so that the map isn't 85% civilized city and 15% wasteland.
So sandbox?
[censored] that.
FO1 and FO2 did just fine without that crap so I'm all for ditching it completely for a map node system.
BUT! I wouldn't mind it if each node had around the same amount of sandbox as Zion did.
Yknow, a compromise.
We get both a good amount of exploration AND a map node system to put space between stuff.

[edit]

Let's continue shall we?
Republic of Dave like 300 meters from a deathclaw nest with only a mere fence to protect them.
Megaton surrounded by raiders.
Rivet City a stonethrow away from ogres.
188 Trading Post a stonethrow away from a Super Mutant raiding colony.
The Fort on the [censored] cliff at Hoover Dam. (Yeah uhm, how come "no one" has bought a GMG and rain hell on it yet?)
Camp McCarran a stonethrow away from Fiends.
Giant Radscorpions, seemingly trapped in that canyon at the cemetery in Goodsprings, how do they get food? There's like a dozen of them there? How come Goodsprings hasn't been overrun yet? What's keeping the radscorpions away? Cause the moment they see me they attack directly.
Remember in All Roads how they traveled like a day to get to The Courier? Yeah? That was like less than a kilometer in the game...
That some caravans in a certain quest got killed by a certain company instead of cazadors. (Cazadors, (pre-patch, which I will consider canon over the patch which [censored] the Cazador sight distance up) are hella deadly, and the caravans, walking buffés, was killed by, ahem, over cazadors?)

The distance between stuff doesn't make sense, at all. (imo I guess)

Hell, yknow what?
I'd be okay with one giant sandbox map, then several off-site towns, cities, outposts and bases that you travel to The Pitt/PL/HH style which are in the vanilla game. (Though no epic sidequest like those DLC's...)
That way we could still get realistic distances between realistically sized civilized places AND a sandbox map for dungeon crawling and crap.

As long as "some" form of node system is in place in the Vanilla.

Tisk tisk you cant even act polite...

I'm not sure if I agree. Having alleged major locations as "satellites" for the "main ground" means as much a downscale as having them just set behing a door in an enclosed space like Megaton. Not to mention, taking the traveling and encounters out would diminish the sense of distance. Meaning, the "main ground" eating up valuable space that could be invested in those "satellites". Better, if the used space was evenly spared with each location according to their needs -- no needless restrictions to the sizes because one certain landmass just "needs" to be unnecessarily "huge". Would take nothing major away from exploring and still add the variety from different regions. Imo.



What's your story? What's with the stance changes? At points you act like someone molested your dog, and at other points like you're standing on a moral high ground. Honest question (no ill-intent involved), as I remember you teaming up with West when he was still around, and being as ignorant and indelicate as he was -- and now you're lecturing peolpe about politeness and civility.

Gang up with West? I didnt gang up with him. Me and him shared similar points. I didnt insult people if they didnt like something in particular.
Whats your beef with me?

It's not something I like but if that's the only way to get fleshed out decently sized towns and cities that don't clutter up the map completely then so be it.

No beef. Nor stake. Just asking. As I said, no ill-intent involved. The contrast just picked my eye. As you were, soldier.



Better than nothing, I guess.
I'd still push for a bit more defined system, though -- as what you describe is something we basically already have (with the DLC's) and I don't personally see it too much as a substitute.

Node-based is the way of the past, there will be no going back and this is a good thing.

Well the fault with the DLC's is that they aren't part of the main game in any way really.
They're just epic side adventures with stuff to shoot.
These places would be actual towns/cities with tons of characters and quests that deal with other node locations or maybe back at the main game.

But yes, I would like something better.
How about the FO1/2 world map stuff, but in the middle is a huge node, which is the giant sandbox map?
When you travel outside of this giant map you get the FO1/2 system and can travel to the other locations, and through talking to NPC's and listening in on conversations and reading notes you can find additional map nodes that can be anything from a shack to a dungeon, places that are only reachable by certain conditions.
Then if you get the "You encounter a blabla, do you wish to? [Encounter] [Run away]" you get new options if your skills are high enough.
With high Traps (if it's back) you get an automatically rigged area with traps.
With high Sneak you can choose to enter the random encounter in sneak mode away from the hostiles.
With high Persuasion or Deception with a disguise you can choose to enter it peacefully when it's humanoids.