Care to explain why it is a way of the past?

Because it's been made by Bethesda, and there won't be any going back.

Well Bethesda might surprise us and turn out to not be incompetent developers who knows only how to do one thing over and over. :wink_smile:

So the sandbox thingie that they've been doing for roughly about 15 years (and lately regardless of the franchise) is not a thing of the past as much as the node system?




That sounds much better already. Although, I'm still a bit puzzeled why does there need to be one area which is inherently larger than others for the sake of being larger. If the given amount of space is evenly shared with three or so "larger" areas with larger settlements and exploring, and have some spares to spend on smaller ones and random encounters, noone would (I think) notice the difference and we'd have 3 "sandboxes" instead of one and some confined settlements (the leveldesign would be the key element here).

As a self-styled "sandboxer" I can be on board with the ideas put forth in this thread. I like big open areas. One of the things I enjoy the most, and this might sound stupid to some, is being able to see something (like the Lucky 38 or the Washington Monument) way off in the distance and then walking to it if I so wish. It really gives me a sense of the size of the world I am in. I think that was one of the things that hooked me on FO3 was seeing the Washington monument and started walking that direction. Or when I saw Tenpenny Tower off in the distance one time and I just had to go that way to see what it was. I equally got that same feeling when I was at Goodsprings cemetary at night and saw the Lucky 38 bathed in a sea of light.

I should also say that I got that sense of size when I was in Zion. So, if there were a 3 or more HH sized nodes, then I think that would be fine with me. It depends on how they built them of course.

I think this idea is worth Bethesda exploring. But I bet they have had these conversations already.

It is indeed.
And I'm also pretty sure that they've probably discussed this already, but hopefully not up to a "case closed" point yet.
There'd be so much for Fallout to offer than just another sandbox dungeoncrawler ala TES (even further down the line, wtih two like that already).

I think assassin"s creed got right one large "wild" area for traveling and several large cities for quests and such. A nice large sandbox combing smaller sandboxs into one pack is what I want basiclly

Now that I think of it, wasn't Arena using a node system? Except the nodes happened to be infinitely huge due to the wilderness being randomly generated as you go further away from a city. It even had landmarks off in the distance like Red Mountain being seen in its relative position to you while in Morrowind.

So Bethesda using this system wouldn't be a new thing.

I say a "mix" of both. A huge world map that covers a state or more, where there are a big bunch of huge nodes, big as the bigger DLC maps, varying in size. This way, it would still feel like a big world while at actually is a big world. Not just a world taking place in a down-scaled city and its immediate area. Actual states, like the other games.

I personally favor HUGE maps that allow you to roam freely and have lots of space between encounters.

In FO 3 and FONV there is a sort of a node system in place, you can go to a teleport location and then you transfer to a new map, like the DLCs.

I think the most ambitious project of the Fallout universe should be to simulate the ENTIRE WORLD in the course of several Fallout games. After all, the United States is not the entire world. If you run out of states to explore then move on to Europe or China or elsewhere. After all, we already know what happened to China and Europe in the Great War and the Resource wars. Europe was united during the Resource wars but broke into disarray after the oil ran out. So European nations probably followed their own national policies and there might even be locations in Europe that have not been nuked. There is no knowledge if Vault-Tec established itself in Europe, but it is probable that European states had made preparations to protect their populations in the case of a nuclear war, so some sort of bunkers would probably be in existence. All in all it would be interesting to explore Europe or China in a Fallout setting.

As for maps, I think Fallout could learn a lot from Armed Assault 2 (anyone familiar with this one?). In ARMA 2 the maps are indeed HUGE, spanning entire small countries. This from Wikipedia: "The area of approximately 225 km2 is based on actual satellite photos of ?eské St?edoho?í. All necessary data is loaded silently in the background, therefore the player is at no time interrupted by any loading screens while traveling through the terrain, though there are loading screens between episodes". More about the game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Assault_2

Furthermore in ARMA 2: "ARMA 2 features around 80 realistically represented weapons with many variants from including assault rifles, machine guns, and missile launchers. There are around 130 vehicle variants, and any vehicle that exists in-game can be controlled by the player, including everything from civilian cars, tractors and bicycles. Similarly, all aircraft encountered in the game can be flown by the player. All have limited fuel and realistic weapon loadouts"

Having such large worlds really requires you to have vehicles. Oblivion already had horses, so why not Fallout? Why could you not have a HUMWEE in Fallout and ride around the wastelands carrying your stuff in the car?.

Cheers!

Welcome to the forums^^

Sincerely,

Ace Hanlon.

Open World for sure.

The map system of Fallout 1/2 wasn't a loading screen, it was a system design to simulate realistic distances and travel time. The fact that you could stop anywhere, change direction at any time, or stumble upon random encounters along the way made it pretty obvious that it was not a loading screen.

After 89 responses, we have 79% in favour of the open-world format. I think we know which way Bethesda will go with Fallout 4 :fallout:

A shame IMO. If they could do it open world without the side effects, then I'd vote Open world ~else I would want node based.

*I assume that "node based" just means level loading; but the odd bit is that FO3 & TES are the same way ~they load separate levels for every interior space, and one for the shared exterior space. :shrug:

Fair enough, I stand corrected.

Seeing how some people (not so much in this thread but throughout the discussions over the years) don't understand what is meant with the node system (not having played the originals, or only seen vids) and what its supporters are asking for, I think it's not too bold to say that a good chunk (if not even most) of people voted for what they knew (TES, Fallout 3) and/or against the original system where a node was just one settlement/area with little to no "idle exploration".

But yeah, it is fairly certain that Beth'll do the one and only thing they do. Although, I reserve 5% hope for their better judgement and boldness to try something a bit different for a change.

Why don't we just have a huge open world map....like double the size of Fallout 3 map.

Or have a mix of Node and open world.