Fallout 4: good game, bad RPG (PC Gamer Article)

Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:41 pm

I definitely see that- even multiplayer shooters have started doing that. I still won't touch them, though.

To me it is interesting that there's so much interest in the "idea" of the RPG. I think expanding the tent, so to speak, is a good thing because it has potential to create truly innovative and awesome games, in general, and hopefully at best, awesome RPG's.

Lately I've been finding JRPG's (few though they are that are making it to the west) are really digging in on actual RPG structures and systems, if you can get over the weirdness, that is, whereas western RPG's and the breakout Japanese franchises are moving away from traditional game elements like turn-based combat, dice rolls/statchecks, character stats (visible to player), deep customization and progression elements. Where they do dig in in the west is story, or at least, let's call it "narrative presentation." The Dragon age games, Fallout, TES, Witcher, etc.

To me there is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle but I haven't dived deep enough into F4 yet to say whether it does that to my satisfaction. I'm leaning towards yes but it's still waaaaay too early.

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naomi
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:59 pm

You're not the only one. I just ignore the voice really, but the decisions I make are my own and it fits into the character I'm playing as.

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NEGRO
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 6:06 pm

Yeah, you can call Battlefield an RPG but it's mislabeling at that point. TECHNICALLY you're roleplaying in any game where there is a character and a story. Objective fact. What really separates the genre is the character progression and decision making. Master Chief will always try to save the world and he is as strong as he is in the end as he was in the beginning. People might not be getting the RPG features and elements they look for in Fallout, but that doesn't warrant saying the game is not an RPG.

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rolanda h
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:49 pm

Could you have any bigger of a tantrum to people not sharing your indoctrinated views? No, nearly EVERYONE does not agree something is something, lol. The Final Fantasy's of the world "needed" a genre so they were given one. But they differed vastly from traditional titles in said genre so a "J" was added rather than trying to create an entirely new genre. People with half a brain think for themselves and come to conclusions based on the facts of what they see and experience.

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MARLON JOHNSON
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:23 pm

You know how all of these people are screaming about homogenizing games, but then they give examples of 20 other games that do what they want out of Fallout 4, and then demand that Fallout 4 turn into that game that they like rather than the unique thing that it is right now?

Those turn based CRPGs are a dime a dozen, whereas Bethesda creates something that has yet to be replicated without their involvement. I don't want the game to be homogenized into a niche game when hundreds of them already exist.

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FITTAS
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:46 pm

not even "losing side" your side does not exist at all, it never did, besides a few people who have no idea what they are talking about.

ON WIKIPEDIA: Roguelike is a subgenre of role-playing video games

Deriving from the concepts of tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons

from the original Roguelike, named Rogue:

In Rogue, the player assumes the typical role of an adventurer of early fantasy role-playing games. The game starts at the uppermost level of an unmapped dungeon with myriad monsters and treasures. The goal is to fight one's way to the bottom level, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor (Rodney spelled backwards), then ascend to the surface.[8] Until the Amulet is retrieved, the player cannot return to earlier levels. Monsters in the levels become progressively more difficult to defeat.

please, before talking about things you clearly know nothing about, maybe do some research, heck, go to the wikipedia page and follow their sources, some pretty interesting stuff.

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Beth Belcher
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 11:22 am

Exactly how I feel. I just want to love the game I'm playing.

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Roy Harris
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 7:10 pm

please, besides yourself, name ONE person or website with any kind of respectable part to play in games, that ACTUALLY has ever even tried to say Final Fantasy is NOT an RPG.

A single person at bioware, once tried to claim that a single FF game, one that even most FF fans do not like, was no an RPG, and the entire world, media, Bioware fans, pretty much everyone, basically laughed at him and told him to go screw himself.

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Rebecca Dosch
 
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Post » Sat Dec 12, 2015 1:08 am

Roleplaying is by its very definition a act of make believe. That's why its so hard for people to pin down a 100% exact definition of what computerized roleplaying actually is. For some people its getting immersed in deep stats of their character, for some people like me its open worlds that allow me to create a character who then lives in a world, for other people it's defined by what their character actually accomplishes in that world, not so much his very detailed existence in it.

There's nothing inferior or superior about any of those approaches, Thats why I always find it weird when people say that X isnt a RPG, because you can Y in Z ways or something. There's no way to universally define computer-assisted make believe because it has always been about your creativity which will radically differ from person to person no matter what.

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jessica Villacis
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:49 pm

Those aren't radiant quests, they're part of the minute men quest line, one of the major factions in the game. The fact that you mistake them for radiant quests speaks volumes of the writing in this game.

This. The computer RPG genre is more or less dead, or at least so watered down that you don't need to think or have an imagination to play them.

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Natasha Biss
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 6:43 pm

Honestly as someone who started playing Bethesda game with morrowind, by and large the rp elements have been stripped for 'story telling'. Fallout 4 is an excellent game but not a RPG at it's core, it feels more like a mass effect with more RP elements. By no means is Fallout 4 a bad game, it's just more of a shooting gallery action game than the RPG it started as.

I enjoyed 3, NV, and Fallout 4 fairly equally, although new vegas was my favorite of those games, i'm hoping to see a New Vegas 2 created by Obsidian.

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Del Arte
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:44 pm

I agree about the there being less replay than in say FNV or Skyrim, but not necessarily for the same reason. The issue I have is that all the quest are funnelled towards the one goal, so in effect you are playing one story although with four different endings. With Skyrim for instance you could have numerous stories; F4 reminds me more of DA2. I guess you can have one palythough using guns, another as a melee character and maybe stretch to one nonsense one as drunk or similar. Not that this is bad of course, a focused story can be enjoyable the first time you play, but I can imagine going back to Skyrim when I have finished.

I actually think the NPC interactions are better. The new dialogue wheel is IMHO frankly irrelevant, its the over brief dialogue descriptions that seem problematic to me. Otherwise it works fine. The voice acting is good as long as you like your character. If you can't I guess there is a problem.

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Rachie Stout
 
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Post » Sat Dec 12, 2015 1:05 am

I just had this mental image of a bunch of sommeliers at a wine tasking loudly arguing how far south in France one'a vineyard should be before the wine can be authoritatively called a southern French wine. Lots of finger waggling and desperately bruised high ideals. Meanwhile every bottle has been polished off, everyone is half drunk, and absolutely nobody has appreciated it for what it was.
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Justin Bywater
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 7:08 pm

nope, those ARE radient quests. RAdient quests, by teh definiation used by Bethesda are repeateable quests that never end or stop. Literally nearly every radient quest in Skyrim was from a faction, or the bounty system.

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Ana
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:50 am


Wrong. Any quest that sends you to a radiant location is a radiant quests. Helping the settlement quests are infinitely repeatable and radiant.
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Eilidh Brian
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:00 am

and half of them are wine-connoisseurs who know a lot about the subject and have done their research, the rest are a bunch of people who claim to know what they are talking about, but by doing any kind of research, you can tell they are pulling stuff from their backside.

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natalie mccormick
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 11:53 pm


Haven't played Far Cry since 2 (due to UNoPlay), but this game is pretty much a copy of Borderlands, only the action skill missing and there is a character creator. And Borderlands is called an action RPG :trollface:

But was anyone expecting anything else than an open world dungeon crawler? And if you were, and if it wasn't your first Bethesda game, why? :eek:
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Luis Reyma
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:42 pm

- No, they're radiant quests. It's literally a repeatable quest that either 1) unlocks a new settlement or 2) sends you to an allied settlement which daisy chains into getting them to ally with you OR scaring off ghouls, raiders, and mutants.

-Patently false.

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Esther Fernandez
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:20 pm

It is an unfortunate loss, Kevin. It had me raise a brow too. But there's still a lot experience and talent on board in that project. And I doubt Keenan'll [censored] it up at this point (fingers crossed), he's young but doesn't seem irresponsible.

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Josee Leach
 
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Post » Sat Dec 12, 2015 12:12 am

Reading your posts in this thread and others, at first I was tempted to ask you why you play F4 and bother posting when you hate it. Now, though, I think I understand the way you feel to this extent:

Metallica albums. They keep putting out [censored] albums and I keep listening to them because they were once awesome and I keep hoping the next one they will actually put together something that is not testicle-shrivelling noise and squawking.

So I kind of can feel your pain even though I don't agree with you about Fallout4 and Fallout as a thing in general.

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Franko AlVarado
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:13 am


Wasn't really what I was going for. It was more that the over critical anolysis of category tends to ignore a vital essence of what's being enjoyed.

As a kid i remember playing super dodgy Pen and Paper RPG's on d6 systems we made ourselves because we couldn't afford fancy dice or rule books. We played open characters and also fixed characters (everything is predetermined for you). It was all role playing to me.

So when some reviewer comes round saying FO4 has nothing to do with role playing, I can't help but imagine him/her with their nose high in the air, sniffing a champaign glass full of their own flatulence.
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Melly Angelic
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 11:28 am

If you guys say so. I don't agree but I'd rather play my several very different characters than get into it.

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Aliish Sheldonn
 
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Post » Sat Dec 12, 2015 1:22 am

rofl

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Jessie Rae Brouillette
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:14 am

Yes, I have no problem with the voixe playing as an female, her voice might be better.

I did no serious roleplay in Fallout 3 or FO:NV either so I'm not the best example here.

Still FO4 quests feels far more linear than FO3 not to talk about FO:NV.

Most like Skyrim or Oblivion quests, worse the dialogue system also prevent much backstory for quests.
They succeeded in making normal and radiant quest equal but not in an way we wanted :(

Granted followers are well handled but not quests.

FO4 copied Skyrim horrible quest log, one of the 5 most hated things in Skyrim and nobody complains.

Skyrim had one major rolleplaying bonus in that it was very immersive.

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Red Bevinz
 
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Post » Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:50 am

Now now- let's be fair: this is sommeliers vs. sommeliers. Your attachment to "facts" does not negate the validity of opposing arguments. Either we are all experts or we are all dilettantes.

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phillip crookes
 
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