So, hello, I'm kinda new to these fora. There's this story, http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/story-fallout-equestria.html (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/FalloutEquestria), which is a fanfiction crossover that basically brings the setting of Fallout into the idyllic nation of Equestria from My Little Pony: Frienship Is Magic, by way of a nuclear extermination war. The author takes elements from the games' plots (especially Fallout 3 and New Vegas) and manages to play around with them, weaving a story built around the struggle of an idealistic bunch of conflicted, flawed vigilantes against a Wasteland bent on breaking them down into amoral monstrusity. Let's just say that, in that environment, sharing kindness is not an easy feat.

The story's been already completed, and caught the imaginations of its readers so strongly it inspired many other authors to write http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/06/fallout-equestria-side-stories.html for it, two of which have become remarkable enough to deserve extra attention: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/08/fallout-equestria-project-horizons.html (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/FalloutEquestriaProjectHorizons), which takes place in the even darker and edgier Hoofington area, andhttp://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/10/story-fallout-equestria-pink-eyes.html (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/FalloutEquestriaPinkEyes), which is told from the perspective of an eternally 6-year-old ghoul as she wonders into the setting for the first time. Oh, and it's got http://www.google.es/search?q=fallout+equestria&hl=es&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:es-ES:official&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=syL_TtzfPI-v8QP2wZ2yAQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CBYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=921 (just ask Google Image Search), audiobooks, and even an animated cartoon (look for the latter two on the first link of the page)

For anyone discovering these stories for the first time, be warned. They are http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2011/12/21/4f38956a-b95c-4c76-b60a-0451690f7b45.png. And http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JustOneMoreLevel.

No love for this story, huh?

Oh, and it appears it has a http://fallout-equestria.com/ all for itself...

As well as a soundtrack (8 tracks so far, here'shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYAZUzHJ9QE, here's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ezeMxCjCI).

And a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCsfgkAzG4M

And an http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYcQnCRk3hk&feature=related (pacing could be definitely better but accuracy is pretty good).

I find this strange. Bronies have now taken over Fallout....

You have no idea how cronic it is on the wiki formerly known as the vault

Great, combine two things that I hate and love. Take my heart while your at it too.

Pony extermination

I'm quite familiar with this


The whole wiki has gone to hell imo.


My thoughts exactly

Although very good stories (or atleast the first one is, only read that so far) I do not know why someone would Join a (female) childs toy and Tv show from the 1980's with the games/ brand of fallout? and then wirte stories about it.

do people wish to [censored], kill, raid and various other bad [censored] to My litttle ponies that much? sorta creeps me out

We bronies shall conquer the internet through love and tolerance! To arms my Brothers and Sisters of Equestria!

Oh and remember, one of the rules of the internet states: "If it exists, there's a pony crossover with it". Oh and My Little Pony isn't from the 80s (at least not the one everybody loves), it's from late 2010 and caught on about Early Spring of 2011.

As for crossover between a retro 1950s style video game with My Little Pony...well then again, there's this story: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/05/story-better-living-through-science-and.html. A Crossover between Portal and My Little Pony where GLaDOS threatens deadly Neurotoxin on many of the ponies.

I haven't checked in on that lately... what exactly has gone down over there?

I've been to quite a bit of forums, and the ponies are spreading... but one of the best writers on another forum I associate with has a pony avatar, so I don't mind it whatsoever.

Huh... I'm not sure how to respond to this...

Well, for one thing this story is much more dramatic than the main plots of the game, since in those you basically get zero characterization. It's one thing to give the Fallout treatment to an already dystopic cold-war era USA (notice how there are exactly ZERO non-whites in the Vault-tec ads). It's another to do the same to the sugar bowl that's Equestria (not that it doesn't have its fair share of remarkably dangerous monsters.... all of which get even worse with radiation). In the games, I never felt all that involved with the story, and felt like the NPCS were only there to be manipulated for Plot, Karma, Experience and Caps, rather than, you know, people you can actually care for... or care to hate. But this story made me feel like, so in the thick of things, it was really raw, you know? Very emotional and stuff. And the protagonist cares, like a lot.

That's for Fallout Equestria. Some of the same may be applied to Project Horizons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Horizon) but it's a lot more blunt. To make a very silly anology, if Littlepip is something between the Hobo With A Shotgun and Harry Potter, Blackjack is something between Marv from Sin City and John Matrix. Gosh, are these anologies tortured...

Which Fallout games have you played?

For the time being, I've played through the entirety of Fallout 3, including all the DLC. Have completely failed to connect to any character of feel personally involved in any story. The one thing I really liked was the feeling of extreme despair and danger when I first came out of the cave, but mid-game my level was so high death stopped being a concern and it was all about loot management and overencumberment. The only villains that really angered me and whom I enjoyed killing were the Aliens. The thing I enjoyed the most doing in this game was playing sides against each other and being extremely polite and pleasant to everyone while watching them plot their own demises. That was something rather unique. I liked it. But I'd have liked get a party of more than two characters, and to get to see the characters have an inner life and emote and befriend each other and stuff. While here, well, I'm sort of stuck being me rather than my character. I feel like an onlooker. When my character undertakes a heroic mission, it's not because he's weighted his moral impulses versus the danger the mission represents to him and his friends, it's because I'm curious about exploring the world, or impatient about finding out what happens with the main quest. When he's dying, or gets heavily wounded, or develops an addiction (after ONE freaking beer, if I let him), I'm only concerned about the mechanics getting in the way of normal gameplay. Really, the main point of Fallout 3 isn't some sort of morality play, it's exploring. Exploring a setting, exploring game mechanics, exploring dialogue trees and plot ramificatons. Typical of Bethesda. Which is fun and interesting and all. But it doesn't fully satisfy me.

Haven't played New Vegas. Tried to play 1, got a serious turnoff from the interface and the extreme lack of directions. Haven't tried to play 2 nor Tactics. Have heard 1 and 2 were mostly about dark humour.

Well, Fallout 1,2, Tactics, and New Vegas all have better writing then Fallout 3. I like New Vegas better then 3.

Yeah, I know that, according to popular opinion, I've played the worst Fallout game. Yet, well, let me quote TV Tropes here on what this fic did with the games. What they call a http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deconstruction:


The addiction to Mint-als and the way Littlepip deals with it is a very serious and dramatic subplot. In the games, even the Black Isle ones, not so much.


Yeah, you'd think a character that has spent twenty years living in a cave with a box of scraps in a small, rigid, cocoon society, would be a little freaked out by the Wasteland and the first trials they'd have to face in it, including the first encounter with Raiders. Not to mention the exploration of Equestrian history and the events leading up to the nuclear conflagration, which are described in some painstaking, sympathetic detail detail on both sides of the conflict. Fallout, on the other hand, seems to assume something akin to the plot of Dr. Strangelove happened, and really doesn't seem to dwell on it.


I'd say that's an understatement.

That's what I thought. It's easy to see when someone has only played Fallout 3.


How was the interface a turn off? Never mind, I don't want to argue about that.
I'm assuming you played Fallout 1 for about 5 minutes, maybe 10.

Fallout 1 and 2 (and New Vegas) aren't mostly dark humor, they're much deeper than that. The dark humor is usually just a random encounter thing, and really, what other type of humor belongs in a post apocalyptic environment. I'm not going to go into more explanation because you would need to actually play the games for yourself and make your own decisions about them.


Again, you should probably play the games before you make these grand assumptions about them.
I could write down a bunch of quotes about ignorance from the games you didn't play, but I don't want to be an [censored].

I've heard a lot of people saying things along the lines of "Black Isle are the only people who can do Fallout properly, Bethesda are glorified fanfic writers." I never said the writing was bad. The turnoff is purely aesthetic. The isometric 2D graphics look distinctly crude by today's standards. The soundtrack is primitive, the pacing of the character dialogue is awkward (I'm not talking about the writing, simply about the display). Call me shallow, but it's the same reason I could never get into Starcraft 1 either. Or Heretic. Or Doom. Had you showed me these games ten years or even five years ago I wouldn't have hesitated to delve into them, but now I'd need encouragement that isn't along the lines of "your tastes are stupid, you should like those games, those games are good, play them". Plus, we're in Bethesda's official fora so I'm sure FO12VS3VSVegas has been done to death. Just link me to a thread that's discussed it properly if you feel you can't argue for your position without being uncivil.

I played Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and while New Vegas had a refined and well polished story, I have always firmly believed that Bethesda's work was better. Though it's a matter of opinion of course.

Of course they're crude by today's standards, the games were released over a decade ago. If the aesthetics are what's keeping you from playing them fine, but what annoys me is when people make opinions about these games without ever having played them.

You can easily play New Vegas though, it uses the same engine as Fallout 3, so its aesthetics shouldn't be too crude for your liking.

Oh, and you say that if someone showed you these games 5 years ago you would play them, but you won't play them right now? I'm sorry but that just doesn't make any sense, if you would have been happy to play 1, 2, and Tactics five years ago then why can't you just play them now? They haven't changed.

No, they haven't. I have. My tastes have. I used to like ice cream, and love dairy products, but now eating them makes me literally sick. I used to love Age Of Empires back then, but if you asked me to play it now I'd say "ewwww".

I'm not a nostalgic guy.

Now, I dunno, if you gave me a script of the game to read, or novelizations of the main paths, I might try it out. I'm not the sort of guy who has fun with "combat" and "random encounters", they feel like a waste of time, and are dramatically underexploited. You get shot and maimed and crippled to an inch of your life, and a couple of stimpaks later you're as fine as if nothing had happened? Of course, that's not just fallout, that's my trouble with VG's in general. I mean, it's easy and costless for a player to make heroic choices, but what about the PC who's actually risking their lives against pants-wettingly dangerous enemies and obstacles for complete strangers? What compels them?

Hm, that might be interesting... A story, told in first-person, about a god (or such) who views the world through an avatar, unbknownst to the inhabitants of the world, and who has the same powers as the player of a videogame, including getting back to previous states. While in that world even criminals have to worry about survival and breadwinning on a daily basis, this person views the world in purely "metagame" terms. Even heroic, such a god would be a complete, dangerous, chilling sociopath.

But isn't My Little Pony meant for...7 year old girls?

Yeah, if video games had mechanics the same as real life they would svck. The main story lines of any Fallout game would be impossible, because even if you do a no kill playthrough, you're going to get shot at some point (which would likely end up being fatal if the game worked like real life)

You have to use your imagination when you play these games if you want to "feel" for the characters. In other words, you have to role-play. That is very difficult in Fallout 3, but if you play Fallout: New Vegas you might understand. However you role-play determines why your character makes the choices that he/she makes, the motivations are your own to write. That's why Fallout games are called RPGs or Role-Playing Games. New Vegas is much more of an RPG than Fallout 3, so at least try it before you make a decision about video games in general.

So that's my recommendation, to play New Vegas. There's nothing stopping you, it's newer than Fallout 3. It also adds a hardcoe mode that makes makes it so that you have to eat, drink, and sleep in order to survive, and it also makes stimpaks heal over time (so combat is much more challenging) In other words you can make your character less of an unstoppable god when it comes to combat. If you aren't into combat, then do a no kill playthrough (yes you can do that in New Vegas) Just put your skill points into noncombat skills and avoid quests that force you into combat. It's difficult, but it can be done.

Okay... I went to the website, read the first two chapters... very well written.

But at the same time, I can't get over the fact that it's about ponies. Maybe I'm too narrow minded... or maybe I just don't like ponies that much.

Than I saw that picture and the caption about chapter 20... What in the name of Moby dike's barnacle encrusted snorkel was that all about? Are the ponies bumping uglies? Is that what that was? Am I the only one who find this just a little bit... disturbing?

^^ Operation Flashpoint, for example, is a shooter that truly makes you fear for your life. At least my G.I. friends won't shut up about it and how immersive the combat is. Or, another example, JRPGs have already scripted characters and plot, and they tend to be very emotional and complex, the good ones at least. And then there's outright visual novels, which are narrated entirely from the character's perspective, though your choices retroactively determine what sort of person that character is in the first place, in a measure. The Sims have their own needs and ambitions, and your role is to guide them through it, but they can do fine without you.

Nevertheless, you're the first person that's given me a description of New Vegas beyond "it's got better writing". Now I actually feel like trying it out.

Which one? Where?

Ah, oh that? Well, where do you think ponies come from? http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/592610/Gimli.jpg These are advlt ponies with advlt needs, you know? Anyway, they aren't making love in that picture, they're cuddling, and recovering from wasteland-induced trauma. The lovemaking must have happened before or after. I will also draw your attention to the fact that those two are both mares (female). Bucks have squarer jaws.

Why yes, yes it is. Pixar also technically makes shows for little boys, and produce some of the best animation in the world.

I think you would enjoy New Vegas (or at least the quests and dialogue) judging by what you say is good in a game.

Another big thing in New Vegas is choices. The choices the player makes determine the fate of the Mojave wasteland and New Vegas, so if you did a bunch of unnecessary violent stuff during most of the quests, it will come back to haunt you during the ending slides when they basically say how [censored] up everything is because of the choices you made. And there's also a reputation system, so if you do something bad to a group (steal something, kill something) then your reputation will drop, and it's very difficult to bring it back up.

So in other words New Vegas involves a lot of choices and consequences, which is all fine and dandy but your probably expecting the choices to be obvious black and white morals like they were in Fallout 3. They're not. The decisions you have to make in New Vegas (especially the big decisions) are always moral shades of gray, so the best ending to the game is really yours to decide based on your own views of how society should grow in the Mojave. If you decide to buy the game, make sure you look closely at each faction, because while they might appear "evil" at first, if you talk to their leaders and learn their motives, you might find the opposite.

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/reviews/fallout_new_vegas_dlc that someone posted a while ago, it seems stupid at first, but read the whole thing. It contains spoilers for the game and all DLCs though, so read at your own risk. Basically it outlines how New Vegas is different from other games because it's not just the story of "you" the player character but the stories of so many other people that you'll probably find to be much more interesting/admirable than than your character.