I think you need to be more clear about what you think is missing. If you go back and play Fallout 1 you will find that there was hardly any sixual content, for example. That was added in bulk in the later games, but not all fans were happy about it. Given Bethesda statements about wanting to go back to Fallout 1 as inspiration, I was not surprised by the lack of sixual content in Fallout 3. Personally I would like to have seen more of it, and it is implied in some places that it exists, the game just isn't explicit about it.

If you are referring to violence, then I would agree that Fallout 3 goes over the top at times. But then again that was true of Fallout 1. And it's not like Fallout 3 has no examples of more subtle violence. Or did you miss the cages with small skeletons in them? Or the poignant examples of the deaths of people when the nukes fell? So it's in there, even if it's lost in the shadow of heads being blown off all the time.

I think he's talking about the number of subquests in Oblivion and the lack of those in FO3. For all the faults of Oblivion, there sure was a lot to do. /that's not really the case in FO3.

I'm not sure how you can say that. There is a ton to do in Fallout 3, it just isn't all defined as a "quest." With the current level limit you have to play through at least twice to see anywhere near everthing on the map.

What is there to do that doesn't involve running around killing things? --> Just 15 quests or so, which all involve running around killing things.

Oblivion has 200+ quests, many of which involve no killing at all, Morrowind + Daggerfall even more, and that totally aside from the exploration.

Sorry, but what version of Oblivion were you playing? Granted, it's been a while since I've played the game now but I mainly remember having to hack up enemies wherever I went and whatever I was doing - Fallout 3 is the same, merely swapping predominantly melee weapons for ranged weaponry.

All in all, so far I've played Fallout 3 for around 300+ hours (including expansions) and I've seen probably 95% of what's in the game. I played Oblivion for around 300+ hours as well (including expansions) but probably only saw around 70-75% of the whole game as it got to the point where I couldn't be bothered to go into every cave anymore.

To say there's not much to do in Fallout 3 compared to previous Beth games is rubbish. Just like Sarkus said a couple of posts above, just because every minor thing in the game isn't labelled as a 'quest' doesn't mean there's nothing to do.

Would it be better for you if when you come across people fighting over a fridge of purified water a 'quest' pops up to solve it? Same goes for people begging for purified water - 'Quest: Give the Wastelander some water or not?'. The Nuka-Cola Clear formula is another one, 'Quest: hand it over or not?'. There's loads of other examples I could come up with but it's besides the point...they don't need to be actual 'quests', what's the point of it apart from cluttering up the quest section of the pipboy menu? Does every little piece of content have to be ticked off in a menu one-by-one to be deemed as a side-quest?

The point of the entire Thieves' Guild quest is trying to finish the missions without killing. A lot of Mages' Guild missions can be done without violence. Some Daedric quests are without violence, the master trainer quests don't have violence, etc.

You seem to have ignored half of what I wrote...I'll quote myself:



There is a lot of stuff to do in Fallout 3 that doesn't involve killing things, a couple I've already mentioned. Just because something isn't labelled as an official 'quest' doesn't mean it's not in the game and isn't available for you to 'complete'. Seems to me that you need an entry in a menu somewhere that tells you you've 'finished' something for you to consider it content in a game.

1. Your stats matter
2. You roleplay your character, as opposed to "play pretend" (AKA the world reacts to the choices your make, your choices shape your character. Pretending to be a wasteland trader by travelling between settlements and selling stuff is not RP)
3. A living, breathing world that's populated by digital people, not grotesque cardboard cutouts.

i would like to give my definition.
1. Stats and skills effect gameplay, and are integral part of the gameplay.
2.You roleplay your character, and the game allows you to roleplay that part, with choices, that have consequences. You cant "LARP", AKA pretend the choices or/and consequences to exist.
3.The game world is well fleshed out , and is plausible and internally consistent , taking note of the"type" of world, be it magical or scientific. ( where do people get food, how is it ruled, is it ruled, no unxplained spells in science world)

Thats a "deep" and "proper" cRPG, that is how i see a deep and proper RPG.
Lot like the Grizzly.

Fallout 3 is a 'deep' and 'proper' RPG then then from the examples you've just given.


Stats and skills in Fallout 3 do effect gameplay and are integral to the gameplay. If for example, my speech skill isn't very high then I don't have the extra options to sway NPC's opinions/decisions, and if I do then chances are they're not going to be convinced by me.
If my Small Guns skill isn't very high then my character uses the weapon in an inefficient way (this is a very real situation. I used to be in the Army, when I first joined I couldn't fire my rifle very well. The more 'experience' I had with the weapon the better I could use it, the more accurate I was with it to the point that I could group together 5 rounds no more than 10mm apart at 100metres using iron sights).
If my perception stat isn't that high then I 'see' enemies later than I would do if it were higher.


Fallout 3 allows me to roleplay. So far, I've played as a complete and utter [censored] and as a goody-two-shoes. When I was playing an evil character, Megaton burned and I had to live with the consequences of that because I no longer had access to the town/shops etc. and everyone there was gone for the rest of the game. When I was good, I disarmed the bomb and killed Burke. Megaton and everyone in it were there for the rest of the game. Either way, I had choices and there were consequences.


Fallout 3 is a well thought out, fairly plausible game world. From what I can tell, it's all scientifically plausible within it's setting and there's nothing in it that seems out of place to me.


The uber deep and proper RPG will probably never exist because the people who crave all these rules and regulations would just find something to pick at anyway and probably end up comparing it to games that have come before it which constantly happens on these forums, be it with people complaining that Oblivion wasn't Morrowind or that Fallout 3 isn't 'true' to Fallout 1&2. Be thankful that these games come out in the first place.

I don't think you've given yourself enough time to study all the inconsistencies, of which there are plenty in FO3. Either way, lets not knock a group of people because you don't agree with their criticisms. Live and let live.

Your SPECIAL isn't that relevant though. What you've described are your skills, such as Speech, Small Guns, etc. I didn't experience my Charisma or Intelligence factoring into my playstyle that well (my idiot character experienced the same as my smart one pretty much), and little things like no Strength requirement for heavy weapons just weaken it. I'd say the game does show consequences, even if they're incredibly simple (Group A either lives or dies), it loses out on the post-game effects though, like Fallout or Fallout 2's epilogues. I really, really disagree with the "Be thankful.." attitude, to be honest, Bethesda aren't gods that deign to toss us something, after all.

1. Stats are not important, or integral, or completing to gameplay, as intelligence, strenght, and even charisma are nearly useless. Intelligence only increases skill points gained, but it does not effect conversations well, as your "intelligence" options do not in majority of cases lead into a different result, so their existance is only superficial at most.
Skills are not important, as minigames lessen the character skill usage, replacing it mostly with player skill. Combat skills effect DAMAGE instead of accuracy, resulting in lesser importance as i can hit even with low skill. Skill checks are few and far between, and they do not effect much.

2. Choices are mostly superficial, as they lack consequences, that matter, and as such, the choices are meaningless Consequences without real effect are pointless, as even if i blow up megaton, i do not gain or lose anything, as i still get a house. Also no one mentiones the event. The game hand holds you, by telling whats good and what bad clearly and obnoxiously. The game forgives the evil acts quickly, as long as you give water to people. Karma system is broken.

3.A world where people survive without a reasonable source of food , by scavenging 200 years old food that somehow still is eadible and even plenty enough to last 200 years, and survive while having clearly smaller numbers against and enemy that is more numerous and better equipped and very bloodthirsty is not plausible. raiders that are only target practice and cannibals are not well-fleshed. How most of enclave survived a nuclear blast is not explained, as vertibirds would need fuel that they got form the oil rig.

So how is the game proper and deep ?
proper meaning it has quality. But i didnt come here to debate about that.
rather easy way to solve the criticism would be to actually correct the RPG gameplay issues. There is no real need to say "A has these problems, so heres how ot fix it"
Bethesda is game developer, i think they can figure out how to correct the problems without me.
hell, i couldnt care less about the combat if the game was amazing high quality RPG, with great writing.

Devil's advocate :
Fallout 1 assumes that high IQ = articulate; which isn't always the case.
A character in Fallout 3 [in theory] could be very smart and inarticulate [stereo typed IT Geek],
or not too bright but talks really slick and convincing [stereotyped used car salesman].
This is one change that I can sort of accept, though I didn't want to at first.
If you look at it in this light it seems plausible ~though in practice... the dialog choices you get rarely seem to measure up.

Thing is though...I think Fallout 3 mistakes Intelligence for Wisdom, while Fallout 1 just lumps Wisdom in with Intelligence; (both are wrong). Essentially, Intelligence is knowing "how", while Wisdom is knowing "what"[or "when"].
An Intelligent character might know how to say many things, but perhaps not what's best to say at the time. A wise character could know what was needed even if they didn't have the right words to express it. [Empathy, and Understanding don't always come hand in hand with being clever.]

Most characters are a mixture of both, but special only has the Intelligence stat ~Hence IMO Fallout did it better ~even though Fallout 3's way had more role playing potential.

Personally I'm set against the labeled skill dialogs [and their percentages~ how does the PC know his chances anyway?]

Are you sure about this?

Thing is though mate, if for the sake of argument, Bethesda incorporated all of your points the game would still be in development now. It's swings and roundabouts really, no game is ever going to be perfect in everyone's eyes. I thought Beth did a good job with F3, far from perfect and there's loads I'd change but, in this day and age I think the RPG has changed from what it was before in the mid/late 90's.

I disagree Beth would still be working on it. Values and balancing wont come close to the time and resources put into visual development and level design, values are universal. At best, Beth completely forgot about them before it was too late. At worst, this is how they wanted gameplay to be.

I think it's then safe to say that if this is the new standard, RPGs have changed for the worse. Though Bethesda is hardly an authority on modern day RPG's (or at least, the wrong authority to base a title on), so I doubt this is the case.

A dillema, eh? That's quite the pickle.

hyuk.

I got quite bored after completing FO3,the story was way too short.I still play FO1 and FO2 and enjoy them,but yes..I dont blame Bethesda for trying their hardest to make their version of Fallout.I had fun mid-way through FO3,but I got bored.

Thats my opinion anyway.

Let me guess: Obsidian is the authority on RPGs nowadays?

I don't think they have changed for the worse. As much as I enjoyed Planescape, Baldur's Gate, Fallout etc. I also really enjoyed Oblivion, Mass Effect and Fallout 3, all of which i thought were good RPGs. Sure, theyre not your 'traditional' type of RPG but then who is to say what is a 'proper' RPG anyway? It all boils down to people's personal taste.

Look at the differences between the Western RPGs and what the Japanese put out - who's RPG design is the 'correct' one?

Maybe it's just me, I've never in my life played a PnP RPG - the closest I've ever got is reading those Choose Your Own Adventure books that Ian Livingstone and the other other bloke did when I was at school!

And I do believe that Fallout 3 would still be in development now if Bethesda constantly fretted over what the fan-boy types wanted. They did their own take on Fallout 3 and I applaud them for it for having the balls to do it the way they wanted instead of just finishing Van Buren which is what certain people wanted them to do (and still want to happen if the New Vegas threads are anything to go by).

Ahhh, the good old "nostalgia"!

"Nostalgia is like stuffing your mouth with cocaine-infused marbles, it makes you say stupid things!"

As people usually do, you remember past titles as being much better than they actually were.
Personally, I find games like Neverwinter Nights or Fallout 2 to be vastly inferior to games such as Oblivion and Fallout 3.

The biggest problem I see with the "traditional" type of RPGs is the obsession with percentage-based gameplay. All skill goes out the window and it just comes down to a few simple numbers that decide what happens. That's not even gameplay, it's like watching the lottery on your tellie, and about as rewarding, IE not at all.
The thing I loved most about Oblivion was how the success of your attacks was entirely dependant on your own ability to hit the enemy, not on your ability to press a button then go for a cup of coffee while the computer does the playing for you.

The way I see it, RPGs have taken huge leaps forward in every single area; they look, feel, play and sound much much better.

When I first saw some gameplay footage from Fallout 3, I thought it was going to be a first-person rendition of the two previous titles, in which case I would never have bought it. But I tried it out and realized that they took the franchise to new and interesting, and most of all, FUN places!

While saying "Hey, more people care about the looks and sound, we can ditch the story!".

Maaaaybe, you need to actually see WHY people view previous Fallouts as better games then Fallout 3. It's not about the mechanics (it can be a factor however...), it's more about the quality of writing. One of the best examples is the crop rotation dialogue vs Three Dawgs "Fight the good fight" dialogue. The first required certain parameters (can't remember if Intelligence was a factor, but I'm pretty sure it was...along with repair or science...it's been a while...), and had something, well, intelligent to say.

The latter, you repeated what was JUST said to you, and Three Dawg is all "WOW! You're really smart!"

If repeating what was said to you is a hallmark of intelligence now, we're in REALLY big trouble, HA!

Myself, my beef with it is two fold. First, the writing and tone of the game misses the mark set by the classic games. Second, the actual game play mechanics (SPECIAL) was dumbed down to the point that it was complete trash. Real time, turn base, first person, third person, isometric, those are not crticial for me (I would prefer an isometric turn based game, but I know I'm in a minority on that, so I'm not going to 'fault' games for that....). Fancy graphics and sounds are nice, and I certainly do like that they've improved a great deal in the last decade or so, but I will not let those be the sole selling point of the game for me. I just can't.

And that's because we've HAD excellent stories in the past. We have HAD excellent character interactions. And we have HAD intellectually engaging worlds to play in. But it feels all that has been pushed to the wayside in search of PROFIT! And the search for PROFIT is what, IMO, lead to the game being dumbed down. Gotta make it accessible after all! Wouldn't want people getting confused now do we?

And that's what makes the whole game feel like a slap in the face. All the great qualities from the classics are thrown out. Leaving us with this....obscene pile of crap, that looks really really nice mind you, but is still a pile of crap.



So table top gaming is not rewarding? Legions of D&D, White Wolf, Call of Cthuthlu (can never spell that right...), and many other pen and paper game players BEG to differ.

The fundamental difference in the gameplay, is that it's your character making those actions. While you control the character, it's THEIR skills that is used to determine the outcome. It was all about consquences, really. If you made poor choices with your character build, you suffered the consquences. Why developers now a days feel the need to shelter players from dreaded consquences is beyond me. I mean, look at Broken Steel. Puppies? Really? So if you fail at keeping your dog alive, you get a new one just like that? Over and over and over again? How about "hey, we've improved his AI so he isn't so stupid, and knows when to run and hide..." instead? Oh, sorry, that would require effort.

Oblivion, Mass Effect, and Fallout 3 are so-called action RPGs, where your skill as a player is important. A traditional RPG is one in which your character's skills define what you can and can't do, and player skill is limited to your own intelligence and knowledge of the game. A "proper" RPG would be a traditional one, simply by definition.


Don't compare WRPGs to JRPGs. They are two completely different genres, unlike CRPGs and action RPGs which share a common base. Generally when someone says "RPG" they mean WRPG, or at least it seems that way from my experiences.


Nothing wrong with making their own game. There are a fair number of things wrong with taking an existing series and then coming up with something which completely fails to follow the ideology of its precedessors. NV will not be able to do that either, but I still have some hopes there.


In an RPG (traditional one, anyway) you're supposed to play your character, not yourself in some fantasy scenario. Thus things are based on how well your character can do some task. Action RPGs take some of the emphasis away from your character, and make your skill as a player matter (to varying degrees - see Morrowind combat vs. Oblivion combat). That's fine where appropriate, and it isn't appropriate for Fallout.


That's a matter of opinion, and I completely disagree. I'd almost go as far as to say that Fallout had objectively superior sounds to Fallout 3, but there's still the element of taste, so I won't.


Interesting and fun are fairly subjective views, and that last sentence doesn't read as an "in my opinion" statement.

And you've gotta start grasping the concept that there are those who actually want to play an RPG, not just watch a particularly limited edition of The Sims.
Besides, making up your own definition of words just to win an argument is silly, plain silly!




Ideology?
IT'S A GAME! It is a computer game! Something you play for fun! It's not a religion, Fallout 1&2 were not gospels, and Black Isle/Obsidian are not Jesus Christ!
They took a series with sub-par graphics, monotonous gameplay and stupidly bad writing and turned it into a game that at least didn't make me want to vomit every single time my character had to open his mouth!



Yes, how well your character can do various things, and that is where Bethesda are really at the forefront of innovation; making games where you have direct rather than indirect control over the actions of your character, yet allowing the abilities of the character to matter rather than just your own.



Oh, right, the sounds. Well, I can certainly see the splendor of a game that had a grand total of One single sound for when someone was successfully attacked. Why does one need an expensive computer screen when that game could be played blindfolded due to the incredibly limited number of sounds? You knew exactly what was going on simply from the sound that stuff made!



No, because it wasn't, it's an objective fact that the whole world better agree with lest they all be cast into the well of eternal damnation!