1. No. Sometimes, unless you pay close attention to detail the changes won't become apparent is what she means.

2. Twenty + voice actors.

3. Judging by the recent teaser the actions may not be imported. Although I could also say I just killed Kaiden because he's voiced by Carth and he was annoying so he dies all the time in my game. It's not really a morale battle. But your argument fails because Broken Steel continues from previous choices.

4. Lots of people with no dialouge. Fun. Shallow? You need to replay this game.

5. Oh no, the game iz teh suxorz cus radiation is underpowered beth is da svck monster.

6. Making item descriptions barrels of badly written humour would be irritating.

7. Silliness? No. Crutch+steam gauge+bolts+ what have you will make a primitive rifle if you have detailed schematics.

They can bring back AC to the game. And the variables that affected which type of ammo was effective.

This would also contribute to the higher than 100 skill cap since the older systems had more factors that reduced a player's skill effectiveness. Nearing (or reaching) 200, or 300 in FO3, was to compensate for these negative factors. It gave room to specialize, and made the RP aspect of the game more important. And this also made certain perks more desirable - to make up for the fact that I didn't choose to develop a "Face" (CHA) character, or a Sniper, or Big Gun Rambo. The current system: I often simply make a choice because I want to get on with playing the game. I don't spend 5 minutes weighing the consequences to my choice.

If radiation were the only thing that was underpowered in this game I would be willing to make an exception, but when you see a systematic watering down of pretty much everything, I kind of see a pattern emerging.

to be completely honest not all of those points are correct, however, you did not mention a major let down i feel. the DLC..... Upon looking at different sites i found out no DLC for PS3...not one which people know of.... Other PS3 players are now going to eventually.... get bored.... stop buying the games perhaps? and as for fallout 4.... i can think of a few things i'd like to see changed.... really good point about not being able to make enough things on workbenches. ie. being limited to toy cars? leaf blowers? crutches?!?!?!?!?! And i would love to see a fallout game set in britain.... would make me so happy...ok i've rambled on enough now....i would like to see the player able to become a ghoul as well....Going to what elgareth said about the railway rifle.. ok. you got me there at first i did think it was cool until i realised u cannot get most of those parts very easily and how pointless it is...why make a rifle that uses railway spikes? why not take the parts of guns and see what you can create...

1. Agreed. Though specifically:

I actually liked the ending. It was unexpected and completely unorthodox. I'm even against Beth's plan to change it -- but whatever. I don't mind Nobody in the entire wasteland complains about water or suffers from any ill effects. And those poor blokes that they've been trying to pass off as supervillains despite being too tired from the last game, are too weak and unorganized to be a threat. And don't get me started on that debacle with . In the end,
The outline for the story was good, and I would have gladly suspended my belief for it. But the implementation was shoddy. It was bogged down by bad dialogue, plot holes, shallow characters and bad voice acting (Neeson notwithstanding). So much so that I couldn't get into it. So yes, better writing, better moral choices (e.g. Mass Effect and Witcher), better voice acting, and better epilogues would sure be appreciated.

2. Agreed. Although for making Tag skills more meaningful, I hope this doesn't specifically mean your rule of 25 idea. If Beth wants to make Tag skills more meaningful they don't have to look further than the previous SPECIAL. Attributes should be more meaningful as well. As for Perks. Yes, balance them and their requirements. Add more to make the perk choices more varied, so that we end up with diverse characters as a result. There are dozens of threads on these boards related to SPECIAL, and some good ideas have been pumped out. It'd really do well for Bethesda to go through them sometime.

3. Props go to whoever wrote the lines for every robot in the game! The jokes from the NPC's and Lone Wanderer however were just blah. Never had a problem with the AntAgonizer and others though. Didn't make me laugh, but I could tell they were at least trying to make it FO2-style silly. Still, asking for the same style of humor from a different comedian, is impossible. Different people find different things funny, so I've come to accept that. Good job on the robots though.

4. Right on. All those things come off as mild annoyances than actual challenges to be overcome.

5. The inclusion of Nova and Silver in the game seemed more like a nod to the series' edgier roots, than anything else, and didn't really paint the picture that the wasteland is a lawless and morally ambiguous place filled with six and drugs. It's like "Yeah, we'd like to include more mature themes in the game, but this is as far as we can go." To me, they might as well have not bothered. I've always wondered why they couldn't have made Nova an innkeeper? Having her go up to your room and then falling asleep, was just laughable. Made even funnier by the fact that I couldn't talk to her after hiring her. I tried, and she just got off the bed and moved to the next room. Does our contract stipulate no talking and physical contact? Then what am I paying her 120 caps for? While I would like more mature themes in the game so as to be in keeping with the attitude of the series, if it's just going to be more of these PG-5 references, then that's just borderline silliness. And before I'm called a lot of nasty names, I do NOT want a full blown "Hot Coffee" experience. I want 'Mature' themes in the literal sense of the word. That is, treated with intelligence, dignity, and also helps further the story.

6. Yup. No reason why they can't please both fans.

7. Hmm. I actually like the combat in the game very much. It's what keeps me playing despite all my criticism in other areas. Any more improvements though would surely be welcome. And I'm sure Beth will focus on this more than any other aspect in the games to come.

8. Yup. More interaction with the various factions would be more than welcome. As it stands now, they're just mindless droning targets to be killed.
On a more personal note: Bring back the old Brotherhood of Steel. We don't need more stereotypical knights in shining armor. The world of fiction is full to choking point with those.

9. Was never really fond of vehicles, but judging by the number of fans who want this, we'll probably get it.
Totally agree with increasing the size of settlements. Three people does not make a 'town.' Also, any chance for an Imperial City sized town in Fallout 4?

10. Custom Weapons is one of the things I appreciate that they brought to the series. I never found them silly. Rather creative actually. It fits in well with the post-apocalyptic scavving lifestyle.
I agree with your other points though.

to be honest after fallout 3 fallout 4 doesn't seem worth getting. TES will always be worth getting though....DLC for ps3 please....join factions please... consequences please....

The Mass Effect argument needs to stop.

Firstly you gave four examples for each game, marking them about equal, but for fallout you restricted yourself only to problems featured in the epilogue. There were many more.

Mass Effects roleplaying system was bad. Really bad.

A good character would just go 'Hey you really shouldn't do that", get told to Please continue, my good sir., then he would say "No, really, you shouldn't do that" give the guy a little smile and everyone did what he wanted.

The "renegade" just pulled his gun out every 5 minutes and people gave up.

Not to mention almost NONE of that really had an impact on anything since the majority of those characters immediately dissapeared never to be seen again after you interacted with them.

Mass Effect was a decent game with an overhyped/underdeveloped worldspace and a average story. It was more of a shooter than Fallout and it couldn't even do that right.

Please stop talking about this game and use a better example, like KoTOR or Fallout 1 (not 2).

Hey, some people juggle geese...

Actually, I preferred the roleplaying elements of Mass Effect as opposed to Fallout 3.

What what? Firefly reference? I have no weapon with which to counter this!

Abandon ship!

despite everything else i have said i actually still...despite what you lot have said which i agree with... it is a great game and even though there are alot of criticisms you guys need to relax and give bethesda some credit...seriously guys there are worse games out there. just enjoy it for what it is....

Who says we don't enjoy it? Well, I personally do, and even go so far as to call it a worthy successor to the series. :fallout: Sure I criticize it every chance I get, because while it's mind-bogglingly amazing, there are some areas that I'd like to see improved on for the next game.

Nu_clear day's sig says it all.

1- Subtle effects can be good, but there are NO tangible effects.
2- IF this is true than I'm even more disappointed in the quality.
3-Broken Steel is DLC. DLC that should've been in the original game. Your argument fails because the developers had a major oversight, and are going to charge us for it.
4-If generic NPCs add atmosphere to a world that is measuredly involved, I think its a good choice. Much better than having 3 people holed up in a room and call it a Settlement. Why would caravans even STOP at these towns? Why not combine agatha, cantaberry commons, and girdirshade into a larger settlement? They missed an opportunity to have some good conflicts/quests.
5-It's not the specifics, its the inclusion of uncompleted mechanics, might as well take them out. (The game does not svck because I find fault with it. It's one of my top games of 2008)
6-Valid, but no more valid than --
7-This. Who would BOTHER to make detailed mechanics for a primitive rifle when there are endless guns and ammo flying around? If there was proper weapon scaling/lack of ammunition I would be glad to get behind more custom weapon mechanics.

I totally agree on this one...I was hoping to do all that but...I guess will wait for fallout 4 - to be a caravan guard or....

I do give them credit. They made a game I finished, that I still enjoy today. I can't say that about Bioshock. I can't say that about a lot of games. They found a way to meld Real-Time and Turn-Based! They did a lot of good.

Why should I not want to help them improve for the next installment. Them doing better is good for THEM too.

Valid. I never meant to imply that it was a superior game in all aspects.

Bethesda promised 200 endings. They promised morally tough decisions. Both of these are bull. Mass Effect had better morally conflicting decisions, a MUCH better written story, with MUCH better voice acting, and MUCH better character development.

HOWEVER, they are clearly different games and had different visions. Fallout has much better freedom of choice, combat, atmosphere etc.

I would love to dig out KOTOR!! I loved that game. Amazing plot twist.

No, it's just that I hadn't actually played the game for long enough (still clocking in at well over 70 hours across 3 savegames) to see the outcomes of all of my decisions.

You really wanna know? OK, I'll tell you.

One of my many WIP mods is one called Better Prompts, which aims to improve (some of) the lines that the player-character himself/herself actually gets to say. See? Even though I love this game with a furious passion, there are aspects even I'd like to do differently.

Anyway, I'm poking around in the GECK and I saw some lines from people you meet out in the Wasteland after doing Moira's quests. Of the various people you meet, half of them think that the Wasteland Survival Guide is
So there are proper, concrete, unforeseen consequences to your actions. It wasn't the only example but it was one that particularly made me laugh out loud.

4-Densely populated is too vague a term. I not saying 50 interacting NPCs. I just want at least one larger settlement, and larger quests chains. I first expected Underworld to be a HUGE city of ghouls with lots of quests, because every other ghoul in the game says "Oh I'm on my way to Underworld," or "Oh I'm from Underworld." But as it turns out you get 2 quests and 5 NPCs that do nothing to enhance the experience via quests or even story.
Are you saying the the Hub was a failure in Fallout? Is Megaton as big as you like a town? Whats wrong with having more than 20 people in a town? There are already plenty of generic NPCs in Megaton, and I liked it... So what if i can't INTERACT with everyone. Thats fine.
Oh, I get that, and to a large extent I do actually agree with you. It's just the Old Man and the Donkey experience. Whatever Bethesda do, they're damned.

In Oblivion, they had 1000 NPCs, but only a few of them had a lot to say. People complained.
In Fallout 3, they had 200 NPCs, and I think something like 2-3 times as much dialogue (so that's exponentially more given the reduced number). Even NPCs who have nothing to say to you at first might talk to you later. Like Shivering Isles, they're individually characterised and very interesting.

As an aside, I didn't notice any real difference in "quality" of NPCs between Fallout and Fallout 3 - but granted I only played Fallout for a few hours. I found both games to be about the same in terms of having some NPCs just there for decoration, others info-givers and others quest-givers.

The trouble in any of the cases is the physical amount of data that it is possible to hold on a disc, and how many "sacrifices" you have to make to get it all on there. If you want better texture sizes, you need less dialogue; if you want more dialogue, you need fewer songs. It all balances out and I think Bethesda certainly did the best they could with the resources they had available. If it was all text-based, you could have it like Morrowind and many thousands of lines of dialogue - per character - but then you do lose a lot by not having it voiced - even back in the day of Fallout they knew how much better it was to have it voiced - plus the text-based nature of Morrrowind dialogue meant that it didn't sound like speech but text in a lot of circumstances. It might have appeared in the form of a conversation, but realistically it was closer to Mass Effect's "Codex" information repository.


Wow ... I would say, "Which games have you been playing that have so many more interesting characters", but either I've checked them out already and found that actually they're not all that, or they're games where the other aspects of the game would be so offputting that it wouldn't matter how great the characters were, I just wouldn't be interested enough to check out their stories. I certainly find most of the characters I've encountered in Fallout 3 to be extremely fascinating. I certainly find the companions fun, and loved talking to the background-giver characters in Underworld and Megaton. I really enjoyed Sierra's "tour" and the whole Republic of Dave thing. Talking of "depth", I'm not really finding the multi-layered thing in anything by anyone, but in terms of broad brushstrokes and very thought-provoking encounters, Fallout 3 is up there with any other game I've played.


Yeah, that's called "accurate". Subways are repetitive. They are. There's still plenty to see and do in all of Fallout 3's subways, though. Of course the vaults have similar layouts - they're all made to the same template! - but they have unique stories and quests and things to see and do there. No, I'm talking about being able to go into each individual character home and see - quite literally - thousands of hand-placed objects. I was playing Left 4 Dead tonight and thinking about how we take it for granted; in Fallout 3 we can go into a house and interact with almost every object, pick it up, use it, whatever. You can't do that in most games. Most of Mass Effect's (since we clearly love that game) interior cells are just plain white cubes in which you can't interact with anything. In Fallout 3, you can go into a house and sit in a chair, sleep in a bed, pick up stuff and allsorts. Yes, those interiors are varied and detailed.


:lmao:


Wow, you must have steamed through it. It took me a good few weeks game-time to do everything in Megaton, and there are still a couple of quests I haven't done.


I think it's just the innovative way of presenting the quests that throws you a little. I still see it as quite a steep learning curve. Every time I go into a cell - any cell - I ask myself, what do they want me to find here?
I don't think I've ever gone anywhere and not found something interesting, even if it was just Emily Weise's computer log or whatever. Something to raise a smile, even if it's not actually a quest. Then again, like Grayditch, there are plenty of stumble-into quests around. I can certainly see why people prefer to be led by the nose, but I'm also enjoying the whole "let people find it" attitude. Very interesting as a modder, because it totally forces you to reappraise how you do things, especially if you're used to restricting the player and setting things up in a very linear way.


Thank you! Hooray! I'm not the only one who feels this way!
I totally trust Emil et al to be able to rewrite the ending without screwing everything up, but certainly in anyone else's hands it would be a horrible, horrible mistake.


No, it shouldn't have been in the original game. You just prefer the alternative ending. This is like the alternative ending you get on a DVD. In 99% of cases, you realise why they didn't use the alt ending in the first place.


No, they promised 200 permutations. I remember Radhamster explaining it with every possible combination of balls of ice-cream on a cone, but I got hungry and forgot what he was talking about. It was very hot that day. I also struggled with some of the choices I had to make.


No, it was about the same in every respect. The cutscenes made the story seem better than it was because it was all very rousing (with the music and everything) but when Battlestar Galactica tried to echo it note for note everyone said how ludicrous it was and how it was jumping the shark and had totally lost it. Character development? Uhhh ... what? I mean, who? How? The only character I felt any attachment to was Kaiden, and they didn't know what they wanted to do with him until they just gave up and made him Carth #2. So, really, we have a well-worn story told well through endless cutscenes, very powerfully rendered (because the player has no choice in what they see/hear/do), voice acting which is exactly equal, and onlly the broadest sketches of character (in common with every other game).

I do agree with you there. I do think that one thing Bethesda does better than any other RPG house at the moment is creating a highly detailed environment. They even took a good next step in Fallout 3 and made a lot of these miscellaneous items that you can pick up and carry around (and that in most other games would be static objects) serve some purpose. The junk you scavenge through does take on a new meaning when there's a chance that any of it you come across could be useful in cobbling together some sort of slapdash weapon.

And yeah, after playing a Bethesda game, Bioware's environments come off as particularly spartan and empty. Even their repeatable dungeons are each dinstinct and unique even if there is a degree of repetition involved. (The one thing that still bugs me for some reason is the house interiors - how there's two stories of windows in the living room with this giant front front wall. It looks fine on the outside, but it seems like an odd design once I go inside. Unless that's a unique characteristic of 50's era homes in that area that was decided to incorporate into the Pre-War aesthetics. But something tells me Frank Lloyd Wright would not approve at all...)

Well, I did everything I could find in that town once I got there, and didn't leave until I'd exhausted all my options. Did the thing with the Stahls, fixed the pipes, got the next step from Moriarty, picked up the "Replicated Man" quest seed from the town doctor, picked up the Arefu quest from what's-her-name, saved Megaton, got my house, started Moira's quest, and talked to everyone I could track down and delved into their backstories. I've gone back since then and hopefully poked around for some more to do, but unless I'm missing something that's it. And yeah, I did all that in a couple hours.

Now, as far as town giving you quests go, Megaton's not too bad in terms of density. But it's also just about the only example of a town in the entire game that has more than one or two things to give you to do. Compared to Fallout 1, 2, Morrowind, and Oblivion - I was expecting quite a bit more from all the other places I went to. It's not like I'm being all that cursory in these explorations, either. There's a lot to see so I'm sure I didn't cover everything my first time through, but I also clocked in at about 80 hours in my first playthrough.

I like that stuff, but I also like the feeling that I'm "doing" something at the same time. One problem I run into is that I find I very easily get lost in these games (and the automap isn't much help for the most part.) So when I go into a dungeon, like one of the factories, or Dunwich - I don't always know if I've really seen all there is to see, if I've made it to the "big reveal" yet.

Like in Dunwich, I got totally lost in that one (and it wasn't helped that Fawkes got totally separated from me and I got really turned around backtracking and trying to locate him again. I totally missed the final door at the end, with it's "big reveal" so I thought that the whole point was just to find some creepy notes and that was it (and it didn't seem odd to me, because that's basically all there is to a lot of the Vaults, too.) If there was a quest involved with that, I'd know I wasn't "done" with the place yet, because I wouldn't have gotten that "ding" that I live so much for.

It doesn't even have to be a marked quest, either. It would have been interesting, for example, even if after checking the place out I ran into someone who was searching for news of his lost son or something and I could deliver the bad news. There's opportunities for these things to not feel so isolated from the rest of the game. I feel the exposition in this game is both a strength and a weakness at the same time. I like finding all this stuff to see, and not everything needs to be explained in full detail, and can exist just for it's own sake, but at the same time I start feeling like I'm in a haunted house attraction - I just walk through seeing the sights and then I'm done with it and go back home.

I do feel there was a bit more character development in Mass Effect than in Fallout 3, at least. (Though that's something that both can improve on.) One thing I'd really love to start seeing in CRPGs these days is the storytelling concept that the main character shouldn't be the same at the end of the story as he is at the beginning. You're not exactly struggling with your inner demons, only to come to terms with them through the resolution of the central conflict and learning a bit about yourself and human nature along the way, in either of them. It'd be really hard to do something like that with the whole "open-ended" nature of modern RPGs, but I feel like Bioware is a bit closer to being able to pull something like that off than Bethesda, at the moment. Just in presentation, even.

This is purely subjective, obviously - but I was actually moderately affected and touched by some of the moments in Mass Effect's Main Quest; not so much with Fallout 3. The best moments in that regard were more the little side things I ran across (like the radio transmissions you could track down, the Keller holotapes, etc.) I actually got somewhat emotionally attached to some of the characters in Mass Effect, myself - it was sad to see them go when I had to make some hard choices (though at the same time they absolutely dropped the ball in showing the aftermath of that decision.) But the loss of anyone in Fallout 3 didn't move me very much at all - I found I could care less about losing most of my followers, primary NPCs, etc.

They do have a lot of tough decisions. They have found a way to please both the casual gamer, and the hardcoe fans, and I give them credit for this.


We're getting sidetracked by details. Its not only about the number of NPCs, its about the interesting experiences available in interacting with a larger form of post war society.


Underworld, The Pitt, all good starts, but one or two questions about background don't really paint the picture of fully realized characters. The companions in many RPGs have much deeper backgrounds. After certain missions, they would feel inclined to share deeper stories of their own experiences, creating emotional links, as well as quests related to their pasts.


I agree here. I don't think Mass Effect's environments are superior or more varied. I didn't say that. I DO think Fallouts are well done. It's just you said they can't DO large towns because people will complain about repeated textures, when clearly, you don't really think its an issue, and neither do I.

That is a good way of looking at it. There were plenty of things that made me laugh. 911 Terminals in Germantown HQ... Stuff like that. But it doesn't help the story/develop characters, which is my number one complaint of the game. Obviously not every area/encounter/quest should tie into the main story, its good that it doesn't. It's just I don't see the main quest improving anyones lives, but it's what I'm pushed to do. I'd rather find out the intentions/true motivations of the Enclave and the Mutants. I'd rather serve a faction that I want to, not that I have too.

The problem with the ending isn't that you have to die. It's that I didn't feel attached enough to anyone to sacrifice my life for something that the wasteland seemed fine without. That and a few large plot holes and underdeveloped villains with unclear intentions. For all I know, Col. Autumn wanted to start the purifier too... He seemed to be against poisoning the water.



Possibly, but in a game this large, not allowing us to play after the ending felt like I wasn't allowed to experience all the content with my chosen character. What better way to see long term effects of decisions, than to go back into world after you make those choices.


I knew it meant permutations, but still a gross over-estimation.



You could engage the characters/companions in long conversations about their backgrounds, as well as how they felt about previous missions/quests. There stories only got deeper past initial questions as the game went on. This is character development.

There are 200 endings. Anyone who didn't realize they were talking about permutations needs to have their head examined.

There are morally tough decisions, just not ENOUGH of them.

Mass Effect really had TWO major morally conflicting decisions, Who do I let die, Do I save the council? Fallout also had TWO, do I blow up Megaton, Do I poison the water supply/help the enclave. And then they both (though Fallout has many more than ME) had a whole host of smaller scale conflict decisions which range anywhere from great and interesting, to blatantly black and white and not really that hard to decide.

Honestly they aren't even comparable because aside from having the same black/white style choices Mass Effect has NOTHING to compare to the few grey area choices that Fallout has (resolving the Roy Phillips question anyone?). Does beth need to have more of this grey area type stuff, sure but comparing what they do have to Mass Effect isn't the way to point that out. The majority of Mass Effect morality questions really produced exactly the same result as I highlighted earlier. The only noticable difference is good guys go "Come on, you know you want to" and people do it and bad guys say the same thing, only they also draw their gun.

Everyone loves KoTOR.

Edited for clarity.


RE: Give them a break they did a good job.

No one is saying they didn't ( I don't think) what we are saying is they didn't do a PERFECT job (and we don't expect them to) but until they do put out the PERFECT game the best course of action for fans (thats us people here) is to voice their oppinions on areas which could use improvement so that Beth can use that feedback as a tool to make the next game even better. (They did so between Oblivion and Fallout and theirs no reason to assume the feedback on Fallout wont lead to more improvements in the next game, be it TES:5 or FO4)

Well said. Yeah, no game is ever perfect - these are just the areas that we feel kept it from that perfection. Most of the major good points about the game I'd think are pretty much a given at this point. (And well... after months of these debates, I'd say that the viewpoints on these potential flaws are also pretty much a given, if we got right down to it.) It is a lot easier to point out things they did wrong than come up with ways in which it could be improved - and there are those that seem more interested in pointing them out than turning it into something more constructive. (Which is why we "veteran Fallout players" get a bit of a bad rap around here, I think.

It would be nice to think that someone up high is listening in on some of these conversations, because I do think there's been some very constructive ideas brought forward. (And there's been a lot of praise levied towards this game in these forums as well, and I do hope they notice those as well, because they do deserve congratulations on a job well done.) But we'll have to wait and see if that actually happens.

This is one of those games where the impression I'm left with is mostly an interest to see where they go from here. The things I feel are missing, or not properly implemented in the game are also what pull me out of the game. I do find I've been playing less and less of this game as time goes on - because I keep wishing some things were done differently. I get to a point in the game where I notice something that I'd have liked to have seen done differently, and I stop playing and look for another game that offers something closer to the experience I'm looking for at the time.

Indeed, its very easy to get cocky with the seas of 10/10 reviews and 98% and 'Game of the Year' awards. There are still many areas that can be improved upon, but that doesn't mean its not a good game. As I have said before, its one of the better games of 2008, but that doesn't mean it can't be made better.

Off course, I find it very unlikely Beth will listen to anything going on here because they have already proved they are generally unsuportive of pre-existing fan bases and also because due to high sales and almost unanimous praise, thye will find little incentive to change a winning formula. My bet is that they will milk the franchise dry with as little improvement/new developments as possible and then move on to something else.



OK, this whole comparrison to 'Oblivion' thing has got to stop.

This isn't 'Oblivion with guns' (at least I don't think it is), this isn't Oblivion II, this is Fallout 3. I don't care if Beth worked on Oblivion first, if they are going to make a sequel to a game, then make it live up to its originals, not some other game you worked on before. If I was the director of say the third Terminator movie, but also the director of Aliens, I would continue the Terminator franchise from its previous film, and not from Aliens because it happened to be the film I worked on before.

I don't care how good or [censored] oblivion was, the point the whole 'populated' and 'talkative NPC's' thing has already been done in both previous Fallouts. Fallout 3 may have had 200 times more NPCs with 200 times more dialogue than Oblivion, but its still 200 time less NPC's than in Fallout 1-2, with 200 times less dialogue and 200 times inferior in quality. If you are going to make Fallout 3, make it live up to the original games, which you already have a template to build upon. If its better than some other random game that is not the point, its still inferior to the originals in this aspect.

Beth had a good chance not only to improve on the Fallout franchise by looking back, but also on their RPG game making skills. They blew both chances by perpetuating what they did in Oblivion.

First, incorrect. An MP3 file of the length of time used for the average spoken text compresses down to a couple of megs at worst. Not only that, but games can easily ship on multiple discs, each with at least 4.5 gigabytes on them and perhaps as much as 9 gigabytes. Storage is not an issue in anyway.

Second, and I'm really surprised to hear you say such things, you do not lose one single thing by not having things voiced. Which is exactly why books, like Harry Potter, do so very well.



Which adds what kind of gameplay to the game? I'm fairly confident that people aren't basing their purchasing decisions on whether or not they can sit in a chair in the game, they're basing their decisions on gameplay. All of the above is wasted resources that could've been better spent on implementing gameplay. I mean seriously, I'm 100% certain I've never read anywhere "OMG, this game svcks, there's a fork on the table but I can't pick it up and carry it around for absolutely no reason!". OTOH, I have heard "OMG, this game svcks, the combat is bland, there's not much to do, the mechanics are weak, and the story blows!" quite a bit over the years. It's an interactive story telling session where you control the action, not a world simulator, for the simple reason that you could not sell a world simulator if you packaged it in gold bricks. People play games to play a game, not see a 3d rendered paintbrush they can pick up for no apparent reason.

L4D OTOH, doesn't waste resources on anything that doesn't contribute directly to gameplay, and it shows. It's a much tighter experience for it.

Those aren't morally TOUGH at all.... Blowing up megaton is clearly EVIL, and they make it clear that poisoning the water will kill virtually everyone outside of vaults. They may be morally LARGE but not morally TOUGH.


And obviously I knew it meant permutations, but the epilogue is still poorly done. It only addresses the main quest and your karma. Its so generic and bland. The reason the Town-By-Town epilogue is superior IMO, is that it accounted for the bulk of your main actions throughout the game. Part of the problem here, is that without larger cities/towns and factions, there honestly isn't that much in the world to affect. Each quest is kind of stand alone. It doesn't relate, if not to the main plot, to ANY kind of bigger picture in the wasteland.

Do I honestly actually CARE what happened to the people in each 2 man settlement? No.

This is also a symptom of sub-par character development.

QFMFT!

If I want the "xbox experience", I'll buy an xbox.

Well, some of what was presented here really needs to be fixed...other things are just nitpicking. When you get right down to it, any game can be picked apart.

Shouldn't forget that every game is the product of compromise between competing requirements and developer ideas.