You should make a company and then make a game.

1. Van Buren was a codename, the name doesn't even appear in the game.
2. How can one be sued over using a name of a 19th century US president?

Or an Anagram for Van Buren like .... Banu Vren

And so they shouldnt. Picking up someone elses art half way through is a recepie for disaster.

I'm probably in the minority, but I read the design docs for Van Buren, and I think the game would've been absolute trash. It just feels to me like every settlement they were going to include was going to have some cooky quirk and it all felt rather silly. Im not saying that they didn't have some cool ideas, but I think most people are praising Van Buren simply cause it had Black Isle stamped to it.

Yeah pretty much, because it is like Eldorado, or Shangri-la, things that cant be find, and this way remain as being the north on the ideal world.

maybe they'll use ideas from van buren in future DLC

There prisons in the wasteland?

Funny that part of the plot of Van Buren deals with a rogue scientist wanting to take control of orbital nuclear weapons platforms... in FO3 there is actually a place where a scientist has supposedly hired the Talon Company to help him restore a communications relay in order to take control of orbital nuclear weapons platforms for his own use. This scientist is nowhere to be found but you're able to continue his work on establishing control over the weapons and can even launch them onto D.C... although the resulting nuclear attack is strangely small (nowhere near Megaton nuke sized, more like slightly larger mini-nukes).

Still cool, and a nice Van Buren easter-egg.

you know guys I am a little disappointed, Instead of carping about this how about do something about it. I think a great way to "do something" is to push for a mod competition. Release story generalities and let modders try to build NCR and fill in the plot. The winner gets official support a prize and name recognition for his or her mod. I think this would be fun and enhance the game. Time to bug Gstaff I think!

I'm with you on this one. That whole plot seems like they wanted to do something REALLY smart, but it sure doesn't come off that way...

Huh? The settlements were much more consistent with the setting and interconnected and fell less like theme parks than in either FO2 or FO3.

There is plenty things in Fallout 3 that has to do with Fallout 1 and 2. Or have you ignored all the references that were made in game? Furthermore, just because 'their' game was nearly complete doesn't mean they had to work with it. It wouldn't have been theirs than. Besides, the game the released was worth the wait.

Who are you to decide what is and what isn't Fallout 3? Do you own the rights to the Fallout series? Did you make any of the games or write any of the Lore? No, you didn't. Thus what you said is an opinion that holds no merit when concerning what 'is' and 'isn't' Fallout 3. Just because the sequel takes place on the East Coast instead of the West Coast doesn't change anything. Last time I checked Fallout wasn't restricted to only the West Coast and everything in the West Coast is exactly how everything else is in the world. Oh wait...

You're naive if you believe that things can't be different when factoring in miles and miles of distance. Not to mention the many differences of the East and West coast that exist already.

As for the game... It was never released, it was never finished. Which means in Fallout lore that it never officially took place. An unfinished product is not a 'true' sequel compared to a finished product that was released by a company that now owns the Fallout rights for 3, 4, and 5.

Fallout. A Post nuclear role play game.
Fallout. (I forget what fallout 2's subname was)
Fallout Tactics.
Fallout brotherhood of steel (delete delete delete)
Fallout 3.

So yeah VB would have been fallout 3 if not for having its plug pulled, but if you look at it every fallout game isnt a sequal as such its a new game based in the fallout universe.

I know some people say the orriginal fallouts where awful, but as I have been disscussing in other places games in the 80's and 90's were games where we had to think, had to plan, didnt button bash and were long complicated and intresting. I like bethesdas fallout bassed game, I think what they have done in a first attempt is very impressive, visualy and play wise, and yeah they will sort out the bigs and issues as the time goes by and the next game will be an improvement just like fallout 2 was on fallout.

The biggest issue now a days is every one is so into 3D and FPS that an isometric system wouldnt have sold as every one would have said oh is dated and the die hard fallout fans would have swooned and wet outselves over it.

VB was a nice idea and as such it would be nice to see bethesda increase the scale of there fallout games to the same level of scale.

Bethesda did there own thing, they went ot a different area of america and managed to put together a belivable fallout scenario in a different place, with the odd nod back to the orriginal games (must find harrold).

I would like to see VB appear, but it wont ever happen, Id not want bethesda to go back to the NCR region, with them going else where I know Im never going to compate this generation of fallout to the older generation. (well story wise)

Since what we know of Van Buren is that much of the game is already in place. The engine was 100% complete from what I read. Many parts were already close to completion.

Why not get a few people on it and release it as a DLC for the PC? I am sure many people would pay for the pleasure. Also I am sure that those expert modders at NMA who have been working on Fallout 2 for years would dedicate time on this for free to help.

You guy's should seriously take a look at this. You can make money and keep the Fallout hardcoe fans very very happy

Well for one Voice work kind of adds to Fallout 1 and 2 as far as feeling and emotion goes whenever those wonderful talking heads popped up and it wasn't completed in Van Buren. all the Levels weren't mapped either ect ect ect ect.

It was so close and I'd love to see a finished product. I'd of bought that over Fallout 3 because regardless of what Beth did to "adhere" to fallout lore, they didn't they took stuff the first two established and made it silly (I don't want a new freaking source of super mutants dammit, wow... the brotherhood can now produce power armor but can't make it out of decent materials real big improvement there, OH MY GOD raider's aren't just twisted anymore now they are into BSDM ect, town of children connected to town of whiney advlts who never grew up. ect)

The plain and simple fact the Van Buren team was a team who had done it before and knew how to do it. For all those saying wait for the G.E.C.K. CK then do it yourself, it loses all the touch and polish of the isometric world the first two had by throwing it into another game.

And plenty of companies have had great ideas and games but still gotten taken over.

(I Miss you Westwood EA controls C&C nowo and I've only seen silly and abstract changes since bought it)

Hell no, After playing the tech demo, I can safely say that it wouldn't be as good as the current Fallout 3. Even if it was updated to a more modern engine. :rolleyes:

While I was playing it, I just felt, for a lack of a better word, bored, and that I'd played the game before...

Please, Let it die. :rolleyes:

Yeah, a six year old tech demo makes it pretty clear that it would be worse then the current fo 3. *applause*

Well, other than the grahpics, whats changed in 6 years? We've had no major paradigm shift in PC gaming interfaces when it comes to 3rd person view games (click Click Click), there's been no major paradigm shift in how we tell stories via PC games... What would you expect to be different if the engine was more modern?

well, modern PCs have more beef. Thus they can add ore content like more features,more NPC, grater interactivity, better dialogue, and so forth.

You missed my point a bit. It's a tech demo, not the final product, there were lots of things that would/could have been improved. And well, people who make games have greater freedom (=more options) to make their games. Like they couldn't have thrown in that huge amount of junk items in VB as in FO 3. Now they can make more animations for NPCs, have greater storage spaces for bigger games, etc.

It aint going to happen buddy.

Sorry but you just got to face it, whining about it isn't going to make it happen.

Good thing nobody was whining.

Well, how more interactive could it get? Fallout 1/2 let you pretty much do anything you like with an NPC, steal, talk, sneak around, shoot, etc. I dont see what new "Features" are possible, and as for better dialoge, dialoge is a function of the writer, a beefier PC wont get you better dialoge - The best Dialoge is found in books, no CPU required. What you get is just more recorded auido files - this doesnt make a better game


How would it give you better freedom? Thats not something you need a beefier PC for either... Arena gave you a heck of a lot of freedom and options (too much IMHO, it got confusing to me as to what exactly I should be doing) and required a mere 386. As for junk items, thats just eye candy, it doesnt change the nature of the game itself.

Freedom for the developers, not the players. And junk items were 1:just an example, 2:ammo for the rock it 3: helped immersion by addition of everyday items.