Not quite. The FO3 game engine was a progression on the Oblivion game engine, and the workflow was already sorted out from building Oblivion.

In fact, Bethesda's step from FO3 to Skyrim was the big one in terms of engine, since they drastically reworked the scripting engine, started using a completely new animation system for actors, and introduced a major new gameplay element (dragons, which were both flying and walking, and had far more complex air-to ground combat than any previous creature in a Bethesda game).

[edit]

Heh, ninja'd by REL_dovahkin

You're absolutely right. New Vegas was very much a expansion to Fallout 3. And a damn fine expansion it was, good enough to be ranked alongside Fallout 3 and Skyrim despite not containing any major changes that you would usually expect from a Bethesda sequel.

Retooling an engine is sometimes just as hard as creating your own (working into someones code is sometimes quite difficult). Thanks for the info though!

My point is, both are great games but you have to look at which each one worked on/with before you start comparing and fanboying over them (the royal "you", not directed at you personally)

The real question is whether or not these 111,000 lines will be all comprised of quality writing such as "Nuka cola. Ice cold" and "Ready to [censored] some [censored] up?" .

Of course, almost any line taken out of context can be held up as an example of bad (or, rarely, good) writing

Sometimes the mundane, everyday or out of place can, I think, be good writing when it either perfectly typifies a particular character, or helps to portray a world.

I agree, though; quantity and quality aren't the same thing. Oh well, time will tell .

What possible context could make "Nuka-Cola. Ice cold" sound good? Besides, we were given the context of that line. The PC walking moseying about their home.

Well, just to act the devil's advocate...

This is a world that is drenched and drowning in advertising slogans and jingles. A dry, faintly mocking recitation of those slogans seems appropriate to the context of the world and the character. Half brain-washed, half cynically aware.

If you were doing a pre-war intro sequence, what dialogue would you give? The lines describing items are said with a lot of sarcasm, and intended to give a bit of exposition to people who haven't played Fallout games before.

The lines with the Sole Survivor being a bit out of it in regards to what vault tec actually is are a bit less great, but its pretty similar to the lines The Courier has in Goodsprings saying things like "NCR?" to Sunny Smiles despite the fact that he would logically know a fair bit about the most powerful nation state across the entire western wastelands.

internal monologue. That's it.

The thing I would advocate is having it be a conversation between the spouse. Innocuous things like one asking the other where the Sugar Bombs are or to make sure there's Nuka-Cola in the fridge, things like that. That way it would at least be a conversation, developing their relationship a little bit more and giving more insight to their life together and daily routine. Not that it would go down on the AFI's top quotes of all time, but it's better than having the person basically going "I observe object and vocalize my observation of object through audible sound." Especially if the purpose was to lay down exposition, as it would develop more than the fact that these objects exist.

Also, the sarcasm doesn't sound so much sarcastic as it does bored. Like he doesn't want to be there. Also also, why buy the things you're sarcastic about? I don't go "Oh, Dr. Pepper is sooooooo delicious! Mmmm... so good." in a disingenuous tone because I like the stuff.

To be fair, I make fun of everything even if I like it, espeicially movies and songs. But yeah some of the population is that sarcastic (like myself). I do that exact thing with Dr. Pepper. More making fun of its 80 billion flavours in it, but you get the idea.

I mock the things I like too, but I don't robotically quote the slogan in the most lifeless, disinterested fashion.

I think Bethesda wanted the player to move around the pre-war home and get familiar with the controls without having to pay attention to anything that isnt immediately activated through direct influence. If there was a conversation going with the Wife/Husband, there would be a encouragement to stay in the same room as him/her. It seems most of the dialogue is activated primarily by player action in that sequence, and having that being delivered on the players own terms as part of exploring the world the first time playing makes for better pacing.

And besides, its just the internal monologue, like Motsie said.

That could work. It could also end up overlong for an intro sequence, and would be at the mercy of the player not walking away from the spouse. The monologuing (for better or worse) is brief, fairly non-intrusive, and can (if needed and where appropriate) be used as a general mechanism of the player character commenting on the changed world they find themselves in.

Really? Huh. I didn't hear it that way. Though that does highlight that in acted dialogue, it doesn't matter if it's well written, a poor delivery can kill it stone dead. And a brilliant delivery can (at least somewhat) rescue mediocre writing.

[edit] If many people hear that line as bored and disinterested rather than dryly mocking, then either the delivery or the writing (or both) aren't up to the job. It'll be interesting to see how it works (or even if it's included) in the final, unedited intro sequence as played [/edit]

What, you never mock the bad advertising of good products? Many people do.

The pre-war sequence was also very sped up with a lot of jump cuts. I really doubt what we saw at E3 is entirely indicative of what the real thing will be like. That's something I don't really like about the promo stuff this time around, always fast jumps going all over the place when all I really want is a long and honest demo of 30 minutes of gameplay like there was for Skyrim a little while before release.

Sometimes you ask a question because you want to know the answer. Sometimes you ask a question about something you already know the answer to because you want to know something about the person you are asking. In the above case, the Courier may have been more interested in Sunny's take on the NCR than he was about the NCR itself.

Huh, I never thought about it that way. Thanks.

That's a simple enough fix. When you finish with character creation, have the spouse start looking in the mirror and ask you to do something in the kitchen. The dialogue after that becomes raised voices yelling across the house, signaling the player that they don't need to stay in the same room.

See above. I see the points, but I also see that what we ended up with clearly doesn't work as far as I'm concerned. And I dread to think what witticisms he'll be handing out when he's in the Wasteland.

"Radioactive waste. Glows green."

"Centaurs. 100% daily value of gross."

I've been trumpeting the double edged sword of voiced dialogue ever since they announced it. Todd Howard has made statements about how voiced protagonists let you tell a better story, which is completely wrong. A better story is in the writing. Voiced protagonists can help you tell the story better, but it won't make the story itself better. And it can destroy great writing if delivered horribly. So far, nearly every line the male character has said sounds awful to me, to the point that part of the reason I'm hoping the spouse doesn't miraculously appear later in the game is so that I can have the satisfaction of knowing that character is dead.

I do, but that's not what I think that is. We really don't have enough context about what is being mocked. Is "Nuka-Cola. Ice cold" supposed to be a slogan? A catchphrase? How is the advertisemant being mocked presented in universe that makes it a source for mockery?

Fair points all. I'm not yet convinced it'll be a disaster, so I'm suspending judgement until I read some reviews, see some user comments, and (if I get the game) play it myself. But, of course, it may be that I'd be happy with a level of performance and writing that would be unacceptable to many others - or not.

Oh dear. Err... your sense of humour and mine are clearly at odds, because... well, I'm sorry to say, that really did make me snigger.

I'm glad you find me funny. I just think that it would be delivered in an unfitting manner and tone.

It was Saturday morning and he just got out of the bathroom when he made all of those comments. All that tells me is that we can't roleplay a morning person.

I was thinking 1s in both Intelligence and Charisma.

For the record, I really hope I'm wrong about this. I have nothing against the voice actor. The interviews and whatnot actually make him seem like a nice guy. I'm just not impressed by the clips they've shown. Whether that's on him, the voice director, or just the marketers who decided what to show is up in the air. Here's hoping it's the marketers making him look bad. Olaf looked horrible in the previews and I fully expected to hate him and not care for the movie all around, but I thought Frozen was excellent and I was amazed by how much I liked his character once context was given.

Good points.

I'd love to find out that we can have two human companions with us instead of just one and hear them banter and bicker like Bioware companions.

The odds are low but if not then maybe in Fallout 5.

But I'll give Bethesda credit for doing Bioware one better in fan support.

Bethesda fully supports the modding community.

And the modding community is amazingly responsive to requests from fans.

And now the console players are going to have access to mods too.

And to top that all off, Bethesda has incorporated the most popular and fun mods for F3, FONV, and Skyrim in to Fallout 4.

Settlement building, weather, and weapon modding to name just a few that we know about.

Bioware can't do that because they don't allow any thing beyond basic mods.

They have to try to guess what the fans want.

Bethesda can look at what mods they liked to use and look at the most downloaded mods on the Nexus and see exactly what elements the fans have added to their Fallout game.

That is hard to beat.

Yeah, forget posting on the forums and interacting directly with the fans. That's a recipe for disaster more often than not anyway, especially for a huge AAA studio; design by community is like design by committee x1000, and Bethesda has no obligation to justify their design decisions to every armchair expert on these forums.

Besides, Bethesda will never be able to meet the needs of the community in the same capacity the mod community can, so the best they can do is make the game they want to make, and support mod authors in doing the same.

I wonder if Bethesda has an unofficial percentage cut off before they say the modders can handle that or we will add it in later as an additional feature.

So if 25% of the fans consider it a must have feature then it will get a higher priority than if 10% of the fans want it.

Obviously some things under the engine so to speak or say voice acting have to be built in from the beginning.

So companion romances have to be done by Bethesda.

The new grenade features like a grenade key and the grenade icons work best when built in.

But for other features, especially the ones that can be modded easily...